Monsters and Cricket by Claire Fayers

With my book launch rushing up, my husband away looking after his mother, and the weather so hot I haven't been sleeping, the last thing I wanted to do this week was go to writing group, but I'm really glad I did. 

First, with two book launches and a masters graduation to celebrate in the group, we had cake. Then we settled down to some serious fun writing with a pair of exercises I thought I'd share here in case anyone is in need of inspiration. Both of them could be done as solo activities, but I think they'll work far better in pairs or groups. 

Word Cricket 

You'll need pens and paper. One person to be the caller, armed with a book and a stopwatch. The caller opens their book to a random page and calls out the first word their gaze falls on. That's the starting word. The writers all write it down and continue writing. After a minute, the caller shouts out another random word. The writers must write that word down as the next work in whatever they're writing. No trying to lead up to it or work it in. It's like a cricket ball has been bowled at you and you must react without hesitation. Continue for as long as you like - seven or eight words seems a good length, then the caller reads out a final word, which must be the last word of the piece. 

Monsters

This exercise is based on the idea that monsters usually reflect people's fears - either individual fears or society's fears.

Split into pairs (we had three pairs and a three, which also worked). Take two to three minutes to tell your partner something you're afraid of - what don't you like about it, why don't you like it, how did the fear start and how do you react when confronted with the thing. Then swap. Then spend fifteen minutes or so writing a story using your partner's fear as inspiration.

Sometimes the stories will capture the visceral nature of fear but often they'll veer off into comedy. I confessed to my trio that I have a terrified hatred of mice and baked beans and I was 'treated' to a story about a mice falling into a pan of baked beans at a scout camp. 

We found that swapping fears like this meant we could tap into something personal, which helped bring our scenes to life, but without having to relive the trauma of our own fears.

Both exercises were great fun, and had surprising benefits - I've already used my scenes on the Planet of Lots of Spiders in my current middle grade sci-fi.

Have fun writing!

Claire Fayers

Welsh Giants, Ghosts and Goblins is out on August 1st from Firefly Press

https://fireflypress.co.uk/books/welsh-giants-ghosts-and-goblins/