Developing Creative Writing Skills and Writing for Fun

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By Kasey Short

Throughout the years I have noticed that students often ask for more opportunities to write creatively, and many want an opportunity to create their own short story. However, the task of writing an entire creative short story can be overwhelming for students.

It’s time consuming and challenging and often leaves students feeling frustrated that it didn’t come together like they wanted it to.

To balance their enthusiasm for creativity with the reality of time constraints, skill development, and keeping it enjoyable, we can shift the focus from producing a polished story to engaging in creative writing exercises. And if a story is created in the end, that’s a bonus but not the goal.



Instead of viewing writing exercises and brainstorming as a means to an end, the exercises become the end themselves. This allows students to focus on individual aspects of writing such as character development or dialogue one step at a time in ten-to-fifteen-minute activities that leave plenty of class time for other aspects of the curriculum.

These writing activities foster creativity and imagination while developing students’ confidence in writing by providing a safe space to make mistakes and experiment with different ideas and writing styles.

Creative Writing Exercises

► Character Development

1. “I Know…” Statements: Create an original character, give them a name and write as many “I know…” statements as possible in a given time period, usually five to ten minutes. These statements should be anything and everything you can think of that you already know about your character.

For example: “I know Sarah she has messy brown eyebrows that she has never noticed needed shaping, she loves to read and learn but dreads going to school each day, she digs her fingernails into her palms when she is nervous.” Students can repeat this exercise for multiple characters to decide which one is the most interesting for them to continue developing.

2. Dialogue Creation: Discovering what the character might say in any given situation helps the writer learn about their character. Imagine your character in specific situations and write out what they might say, paying attention to their unique voice and tone.

Students benefit from having a list of situations to pull from such as arguing with a friend, handing their mom a test to sign, seeing a ghost in their closet, ordering a Starbucks, talking to a pet, begging for new shoes, trying to talk their teacher into an extension on a project, responding to a yeti that knocks on their door and starts talking. Etc.

3. Wants and Needs: Create a T-chart list of everything your character wants and needs, big or small. Choose one or two that interest you and write out a bit more to explain why they are important to the character and what they might do to get them and what will happen if they don’t.

4. Quick Character Journal Prompts: I like to give students choices, and they pick one to write about. Examples:
a. What are two opposite aspects of the character’s personality?
b. If your character could have one wish, what would it be and why?
c. Would you want to be friends with your character? Explain.
d. What did your character get for their last birthday? Did they like it?
e. Who is the most important person in your character’s life. Explain why.
f. What are some pet peeves of your character?
g. What objects are important to your character? Explain.

► Setting Development

1. Picture It: Close your eyes and imagine your setting. Spend a few minutes “looking” around and take notice of everything your “see.” Then sketch and/or describe your setting in words.

2. Setting Personality: Imagine the setting is a person. Describe its personality. How would it act, what would it say, who would it be friends with, etc.?

3. Five Senses: Describe aspects of your setting using all five senses.

4. Quick Setting Journal Prompts:
a. Choose an extreme environment (outer space, desert, snowstorm, etc.) for your character and describe how they would interact in that environment.
b. How is the setting you created different from and similar to where you live?
c. Where does your character live? Where do they want to live and how is that different?
d. How has climate change impacted your story?
e. What technology is significant in your story?
f. What does your character need to survive in their setting based on environment?

► Plot Development

1. Start with the End: Pretend you have written your entire story; now write just the ending using as much detail as possible.

2. Plot Diagram: Create a plot diagram for your story but include multiple options for each section of the diagram.

3. Plot Twists: List as many plot twists as you can think of for your story.

4. Problem and Solution: Create a list of problems that your character may face; choose one and describe the solution.

5. Quick Plot Journal Prompts:
a. Write a scene where your character wins or loses something significant.
b. Write a letter from your character to their future self.
c. Imagine your character is given a mystery box. Describe what is in the box and what happens next.
d. What is one thing your character would never do? Write a paragraph describing what would happen if they did.
e. Imagine your character walking into the classroom. Write what happens next.



► Partner or Group Writing Work

1. Character Interviews: In pairs, students pretend to be their characters and interview each other from the perspective of the characters.

2. Collaborative Story Telling: In a small group, students all start a story and when the timer goes off, they pass their story to the next person to continue writing until everyone in the group as added their ideas.

3. Mix and Match: Students write down different characters with traits, settings and conflicts on strips of paper, and then they all grab one from each category and create a 10-minute draft using the ideas from the paper strips from their classmates.

4. Question Everything: Students tell a partner about their character, setting and/or plot, and their partner asks them as many questions as they can think of. The partners audio record the conversation so that they can go back and write down any new ideas they came up with based on their questions and answers.

5. Students all bring in a paper bag filled with random objects and choose one object from someone else’s bag. They then incorporate that object into their story.

Low Stakes, High Engagement

Creative writing exercises provide low stakes and high engagement opportunities for students to build their writing skills while also having fun. Using these activities throughout the year allows students to develop their voice as a writer and find joy in storytelling. If time allows and it works for your students, invite them to use their brainstorming and creative work to write their own story.


Kasey Short (@shortisweet3) is the Middle School Director of Studies and an 8th Grade English Teacher and Advisor at Charlotte (NC) Country Day School. She loves to share ideas from her classroom and her leadership roles and writes frequently for MiddleWeb.

Kasey attended the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill where she earned a bachelor of arts in middle school education with a concentration in English and history. She went on to earn a master’s in curriculum and instruction from Winthrop University.

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