Writing Exercise for Writers Vic

I’ve been asked to suggest a writing exercise for Writers Vic. I am not a friend of writing exercises, i.e. I huffed and puffed, but, finally, something did come to me that felt true. I call it ‘Mess it Up’.

I am saying a few things here, including:

If your each chapter starts with a richly conjured ‘significant episode’, which is meant to set the tone for the rest of the chapter and/or to suggest the big themes to be explored, perhaps you could have one chapter start with a thought, or a song, or a small encounter that isn’t oversaturated with meaning? Or perhaps you could start with an excerpt from a newspaper article or a TV show of the time, a dream, a 50-word description of the way women wore dresses and men wore suspenders in those long-gone days when your parents were young?