Writer’s block plagues writers of all kinds, but perhaps none more so than poets. Writing poetry is an exercise in patience, passion, and perseverance. From mining your surroundings to playing with literary devices, here are some exercises to help stimulate your imagination.
Explore Your Surroundings
Find inspiration in your environment and everyday activities:
Take a walk. Go on a walk and bring your notebook. Look around and write down observations on what you see: a tree, a person, a neighborhood. Try starting a poem by using some of these descriptions. Make a decision about its structure: what will the stanzas look like? Will you use enjambment or will you use punctuation? Do you want to use long sentences or short?
Find an interesting object. Whether you’re in an office or a kitchen, a park or a library, choose an object you can see and describe it. Does it evoke personal memories? Does it have cultural implications, or elicit a certain emotion? Try starting a poem with this object and its associations to guide you.
Brainstorm Ideas
Try these exercises as a jumping off point for a new poem:
Use flash cards. Think of a topic. Take ten blank flash cards and on one side of each flash card, write a line about this topic. Use a mixture of emotional detail, concrete detail, and images when writing these lines. Put all the cards face down in front of you. Turn five of these cards over, face-up. What kind of poem is this? What questions remain? Experiment with which five cards should be turned up in order to create a poem that is both mysterious and clear enough for the emotions to be anchored.
Eavesdrop. Carry your notebook with you as you go about your daily tasks and write down interesting things you overhear. At the end of the day, go over the snippets of conversation you wrote down and, rather than thinking about the content of the conversation, analyze how it was said. What have you learned about the way people speak? Incorporate this speech rhythm into a new poem.
Analyze your every move. In the evening, write a list of twenty things you did that day. Use this form: “I washed the dishes, I ate an avocado, I read the newspaper,” and so on. The only rule is: don’t list the things in chronological order. Review your list of twenty activities and see if any of them spark a line of poetry. Try to make use of one of these seemingly mundane activities to write a longer poem.
Free write. Take your notebook and give yourself ten minutes to simply write whatever comes to mind, not letting your pen or pencil leave the page, and not revising. After ten minutes have passed, review what you wrote. How do the subject and tone change from the beginning to the end? Is there anything you might want to lift for a new poem?
Play With Structure
Play around with the formation of a poem, and experiment with language to create new meanings:
Think about the stanzas as various “rooms” in the house of the poem. Imagine that the poet is taking readers through various rooms in a tour of a house. Now, read one of your own poems and look at the stanzas: in the margins of your poem, write down what each stanza or “room” is revealing.
Play with elliptical language. Look at one of your poems, and play with elliptical language. Are there are any words you might want to omit to heighten the sense of mystery? How does the omission of different words change the lines’ potential meanings?
Play with your own ambiguous meanings. Create a sentence that could be interpreted at least two ways. Think of the word “blue”—is it indicating color or mood? Or consider using qualifiers like “perhaps” or “should.” Let this sentence constitute the first few lines of a new poem, and keep playing with this concept of double interpretation throughout.
Make a mess. Write your next poem in long-hand in your notebook and feel free to make a mess with strike-throughs, asides in the margin, and the like before you type it up on a screen. How does the typed up version look on the page? Is it thin, sprawling, even or jagged? Are you moved to make adjustments in the poem, such as shortening or lengthening lines, for the sake of giving your poem a definite shape? Consider editing for diction, pacing, and clarity. Even consider cutting the nonessential lines and phrases.
Play With Form
Try writing different types of poems that have different rhyme schemes or lengths:
Write a haiku. Let the subject take on any topic you want but limit yourself strictly to the haiku form: three lines with the first line having five syllables, the second containing seven syllables, and the last containing five. How did this exercise make you revise your language?
Write a poem of any length. It can be on whatever subject or subjects you choose (and it doesn’t need to rhyme), but try to make each line in iambic pentameter. Remember, this means five iambic feet (da-DUM, da-DUM, da-DUM, da-DUM, da-DUM).
Write a traditional Shakespearian sonnet. Do this using iambic pentameter and the rhyme scheme ABAB CDCD EFEF GG. Make sure your poem has exactly 14 lines, and use the last two lines to make a “turn.” Remember that the turn often has the poet looking back at the previous 12 lines and making a two-line comment on them.
Play With Setting
Transport your poetry to different time periods and locales:
Write a few lines setting a scene that is easy to accept. Think about the example of snow on pine trees or a dog lying under a hammock. Establish a scene of your own. Then have your poem take a twist. Take your reader and yourself somewhere very different—spatially or thematically—from your original scene.
Subvert the norms. In the Elizabethan period, the dominant subject was romantic or courtly love. In the age of the English Romantic poets, you were supposed to write about nature. Poetry advances when these rules of acceptability are violated. Think about Walt Whitman: when he should have been writing about nature, he wrote about machinery. Thom Gunn wrote a poem about Elvis Presley when pop stars were not considered appropriate for poetry. Both poets violated the literary decorum of their time. In choosing what to write about, nothing is too trivial. Don’t censor yourself. Don’t feel that you have to be serious, or even sincere. You can be playful, even sarcastic in your poems. Think of a subject that may seem outside of today’s literary decorum and write a poem about it.
Play With Titles
Titles can inspire a poet, but they’re also useful to readers:
Guide the reader—but surprise them, too. Write a poem whose title lets the reader in on how the poem is going to proceed by indicating what lies ahead. Then, write this poem, making sure to both deliver on the promise of the title while complicating its meaning.
Play with capitalization. Write a first line that could also work as a title, and write a poem under this line. Play with the capitalization of untraditional nouns: try giving weight to unexpected words by capitalizing them.
Play With Literary Devices
Utilize different literary devices in your poetry to produce different outcomes:
Play with diction. What are some words that, for some reason, make you laugh when reading them? (Think, for example, about “fork,” “nose,” “potato,” or “peas.”) Write a poem that deliberately uses these words to create a tone.
Use assonance. On a sheet of paper, brainstorm a handful of words that use a similar vowel sound. Now, using this brainstorm as a guide, write a poem that utilizes assonance in one or several places (or even throughout the poem). As you read over your draft, ask yourself how these sounds add musicality to the poem, acting as a kind of sound-glue that holds the poem together.
Try anaphora—at least once. Write a poem of at least seven lines, using anaphora at least once. Now, write a poem of over 15 lines in which you use anaphora several times, switching the words being repeated over the length of your poem. Let the development of your anaphora tell another story or add another layer of detail and depth to your poem.
Look Inward
You are the greatest muse for your own poetry. The following exercises require you to mine ideas from your personal life:
Does your personality make its way into your poems? Think of what kind of social person you are and consider the feedback you get from others about your personality—from family, friends, and others. Write a poem that is spoken in your natural speaking voice. This poem need not exhibit your best self. Try allowing the poem to be controlled by a voice other than the one that shows you off. Write a poem that lets the ruggedness of your life drive the voice.
Start a letter to someone you know, would like to know, or once knew. The rule is: assume that they won’t see it. Start this letter by addressing this person directly (think “Dear X”). After you’ve written a few lines or sentences, begin breaking your letter into poetic lines and finish the poem.
Imitate Poets
Imitation is the best form of flattery. Look to poets you admire for inspiration in your own writing. The following writing exercises borrow concepts from other bards:
Mimic voice. Think of some of the poets or poems you admire. These could be poems you’ve discovered in this course or longtime favorites. Pick one of these poems and read it over and over again, noting the methods the poet uses to achieve his or her voice? Notice how the poem develops stage by stage. How does it find its way through itself? See if you can write a poem that follows a similar style of organization or path of development. This is more than an exercise; it’s a way of opening yourself to the influences of other poets.
Describe a disturbing occurrence with an uninvolved, distant voice. Remember that the point of poetry is to make the reader feel something, not for you, the poet, to get emotional. The best way to do this is to write “cold.” If you are doing the feeling, the reader will pull back because all the emotional work has been done by you.
Create tension. Use space to create suspense, putting the reader on the same level of knowing and not knowing as the speaker. Write a poem that describes one large action and uses spacing as a way to force the reader to pause, creating tension and suspense as the action of your poem progresses.
As someone who is naturally curious about what goes on around me, THIS WOULD BE SO HORRIBLE!!! What do you mean I want to call someone out on their bull BUT I DON'T KNOW WHAT BULL IT IS??? It could be the most silliest little lies to irritate me but I would still be pissed at not being able to tell what it is
"Mind Control" Trope - Some characters have the ability to read, manipulate, or even control the minds/thoughts of other characters. Most often associated with Psychic Powers, these abilities run the gamut from mundane charisma/authority, to Magic and Powers, and to the paranormal. Extreme forms of mental manipulation even allow you direct access to the victim's body, turning them into a literal puppet to their will.
Some Related Tropes
Alluring Flowers: Flowers whose scent is outright siren-like in its power to cloud minds.
Assimilation Plot: A plan which revolves around turning everyone into a single entity.
Bedtime Brainwashing: Someone tries to manipulate someone else's dreams or thoughts when that person is asleep.
Brainwash Residue: A person is no longer brainwashed, but the effects still linger in their body.
Cartesian Karma: A person suffers punishment for evil deeds they were not in control of committing.
Dream Weaver: Someone who is able to manipulate dreams.
Emotion Bomb: A magic spell or psychological weapon that can force people to feel certain emotions.
Enslaved Tongue: Someone controls what another person says.
Eye-Dentity Giveaway: Eyes indicate the mind controlling a body, and being mind controlled might show this trope is in use.
Fake Memories: Someone's mind is implanted with memories of events that never happened.
Fighting from the Inside: Someone under brainwashing tries to resist whatever's controlling them.
Glamour: Illusionary magic that makes the user attractive and enthralling to others.
Hate Plague: Something that forces people to feel enraged, hateful, and even violently aggressive towards other people.
Hypno Pendulum: Swinging a watch (or round object in general) in front of someone to hypnotize them.
"I Know You're in There Somewhere" Fight: Someone tries to get through to their brainwashed friend while fighting them.
Lotus-Eater Machine: Someone is trapped in a dream-like fantasy where everything's the way it should be to make the person happy and content.
Possessed All Along: A character initially seems not to be mind controlled, but actually, they are!
Prefers the Illusion: Character chooses to keep living in an illusion or dream.
This Is Not a Floor: Using mind control and illusions to trick someone to their doom.
Tongue-Tied: Something controls a character to prevent them from saying something important that they want to say.
Writing Worksheet: Mind Control Scene ⚜ Psychological Manipulation ⚜ Charismatic Characters ⚜ Using False Claims to Influence
Here are some related tropes for inspiration, and a link to a writing worksheet for a mind control scene you can use as a guide. Modify as needed/desired for your story. You can find more details and examples in the sources above. Also included previous related posts you could use as additional references. Hope this helps with your writing!
Don’t underestimate the planning. "I put everything down on paper. I make copious pages and pages of notes until I am ready to write and by the time I do sit down at my desk, I have a sort of a map of where I'm going and everything is going to work." Horowitz says. Make sure, though, that you leave a little room to surprise yourself when you get to the page: “If I can't surprise myself, how can I surprise my reader?”
Start with a simple formula. Not sure how that plan should begin? There’s a Horowitz Hack for that: “Start with a simple formula,” he advises. “A plus B equals C. A equals one person, B is another person, C is the reason why A murders B. That's your bullseye. If that's original and interesting and surprising enough, then you can tell us who A and B are, and and that's your next ring. Once you’ve got the basics,” he explains, “you can build out into the worlds your characters occupy, who knows them and how they know each other.”
People should be able to guess the twist. Want to know the secret of a killer plot twist? It should be obvious enough for people to potentially guess it – but surprising enough that they rarely actually do. One of the major influences on Horowitz’s work was Agatha Christie, an author who he says always surprises him but “you always feel you could have guessed because all the information has been down there in front of you. When I’m writing my book, I’m very influenced by that. When my publisher or my agent or anybody else reads one of my books, the first question I ask is not ‘Did you enjoy it?’ but, ‘Did you guess it?’ Because that, to me, is the crux of the matter. If they do guess it, I feel a sense of disappointment but at the same time, if they can't get it, then I haven't played fair. What I prefer to do is for them to say, 'No, I didn't get it, but I should have.' That's what I'm aiming for.”
Live inside your book. “There’s one piece of advice I would give to writers: don't stand on the edge of the book, looking over the edge of the chasm. Live inside the book looking around you,” Horowitz says. “What my characters see, I see. What they feel – the wind or the sunshine – I feel. If I'm inside the book, I'm not thinking about it as being something that you or anybody else will read. I am merely inside the world of the book – all that comes later.”
The only rule is originality. “If you ask me what are the do’s and don’ts in writing a whodunnit or a murder mystery? Quite simply, there aren’t any. Never constrain yourself. It is by doing the don'ts and not doing the do’s that you will write the completely original book for you – and find success.”
tropes involving characters who are hated, shunned or mistreated
All of the Other Reindeer: A character is hated by a larger community for whatever reason, usually because they're different.
Animals Hate Him: Animals are hostile towards a character.
Broken Pedestal: A character ends up hating a person they used to idolize after learning that their hero isn't nearly as good and noble as they thought they were.
Chilly Reception: When characters mistreat a newcomer.
Punished for Sympathy: A character is disliked for showing pity to someone who is less deserving of it.
Removing the Crucial Teammate: A character is kicked out of The Team for being "useless", only for The Team to suddenly discover they can no longer accomplish their goals.
Speak Ill of the Dead: A person hates someone who has died and refuses to let the stigma that it is disrespectful to insult the deceased keep them from tearing into the dead person.
The Scapegoat: Someone who is blamed for something they didn't do.
Then Let Me Be Evil: They treat the character like he's evil, so now he becomes evil.
You Should Have Died Instead: Someone wishes the person they hate had died instead of a lost loved one.
Reblog if you don’t ignore rps and asks but sometimes it takes you a while to think of a response, or you only have time to answer a question or two before doing other things.
