10 Creative Writing Exercises You Can Do On The Go

Do you ever feel like you’re wasting time on the bus, car, or waiting in line for something? There are many times in life when we’re unproductive and just drifting through life.

As a creative writer with ambitions to make in life, these pauses in life do us no good. So it’s a great thing to know that you can use these moments to your advantage.

You can improve your writing and creativity even when you’re on the go. It’s won’t take long and should be fun for you. Here are 10 Creative writing exercises that you can do even in traffic.

10. Create & Hum a Character’s Tune

In TV shows and video games, important characters usually has a theme attached to them.

You can try to come up with a tune for your characters. It doesn’t have to be great, any that fits your character’s personality or situation works.

Hum that tune to either past the time or get in the hand space of your character. This can later help you write that character more naturally.

Here are some of my favorites. Feel free to take inspiration.

• Houseki No Kuni ost – Cinnabar

• Final Fantasy VII Advent Children – One Winged Angel

• Genos Theme The Cyborg Fights

9. Take a Stroll In Your World

If you’re trying to world build then this exercise can help. Immerse yourself in the world you’re trying to build. The smells, colors, and people in the area you choose.

When you’re inside your world, take a stroll and just take in the environment and fauna. Keep it consistent and don’t pop characters in the area that don’t belong.

If you’re inside a city, talk to some of the residents. Even run or escape from them if you’re writing a dystopia.

If you can get immersed in your world then so can your readers. Keep what you experienced consistent and learn to pour that experience into words.

8. Interview Your Characters

So you have a character that doesn’t want to talk or you meeting one for the first time, you can use this exercise. Take your character to your happy place and interview them.

Ask them about their background, hopes, dreams, friends, abilities, and anything else you come up with.

Doesn’t have to be just one character, make it a party or something. This can help make in-story conversations feel more natural. This is a relaxing space where characters can just be themselves and bounce off one another.

7. Power scale Your Characters

I know few understand the importance of power scaling but this can be helpful in action series.

Here’s a quick overview of the basics of powerscaling. If you don’t want to do that you can skip this exercise.

For those that know how to power scale, you can do that to your own characters. You can also have a versus match with other characters from other stories.

This helps you better understand your character’s power set or even brainstorm new abilities. It also helps prevent fight plot holes. If you know exactly how strong your characters are then you won’t have someone win a fight they shouldn’t without good reason.

If your story attracts the power scaling community then they would appreciate this. Fewer headaches and community conflicts.

6. Create a Scene

Imagine a scene you either wrote or will write and turn it into a TV scene. How does it look, anything off? Anything you need to fix when you get back home?

This can improve your creativity and help you better visualize your scenes and characters going forward.

5. Your Character Interacts with Your Favorite Character

What would happen if your character met your favorite character from another franchise? How would they interact and what adventures would they go on?

Imagining this scenario can improve your ability to write in someone else voice. This exercise's main aim is to help you learn more about your character, as much as you know about your favorite character.

Maybe you can learn to love your own characters as much as you love your favorite one.

4. Detailed I Spy

You can do this by yourself or with others.

• By Yourself

Play I spy like normal but when you spy on something, describe it with extreme detail. If that gets too easy, add something strange or creepy to the normal object. Imagine if what you’re describing is actually there.

Increases creativity and descriptive skills.

• With Others

Play I spy like normal but the person who answers the question has to describe the object in extreme detail. If that gets too easy, do the same as before.

3. Turn Your Day Into A Story

Turn your life into an adventure. From the morning all the way till now, retell those events into a story.

If you can make a normal boring morning sound exciting then you know your storytelling ability has improved.

You can prove this by telling the imagined story to a friend. If they think it’s even a bit interesting then you succeeded.

2. Restate Your Motivation

Sometimes you need to replenish your energy tank. Restate your motivation for writing, for getting out of bed, and reaching for the stars.

Who are you writing for and why?

Keep that motivation and end goal close to your heart. Bring it up whenever you need to push past a rough patch. Imagine your future and write the story of how you get there.

What you will do and how you’ll do it? Write the obstacles and villains that block your path and imagine how you’ll breakthrough.

1. Save The World

Close your eyes, depending on your surroundings of course, and imagine if right now you gained superpowers. Can be any superpower as long as it doesn’t instantly solve every problem.

After that, ask yourself how you would use those powers to save the world.

Write and describe that story and journey in your head. This can help your creativity, cause introspection, and even catharsis depending on what did to achieve world peace.

I would love to hear what powers you gave yourself and how you would save the world. Comment your idea below.

Then ask yourself, where does your super-powered self fall in the D&D alignment system? I look forward to your answers.

Conclusion

Well, that’s 10 writing exercises you can do on the go.

Here is a quick recap:

• Create & Hum a Character’s Tune

• Take a Stroll In Your World

• Interview Your Characters

• Power scale Your Characters

• Create a Scene

• Your Character Interacts with Your Favorite Character

• Wordplay

• Turn Your Day Into A Story

• Restate Your Motivation

• Save The World

Tell me what you think and if any of these helped. I would also recommend always having a pen and paper close by just in case you have a major creative breakthrough.

I hope this article helps you achieve your writing goals. For more stuff like this, check out this other article I found. You can’t do all of them on the go but they will be useful when you get home.

With that, I’m done.