A Writing Exercise Using Just a Newspaper

A Prompt for Building a Story From Nothing but the Daily Newspaper

May 20, 2009

Merely starting a piece of fiction is one of the hardest aspects of writing. With this exercise, a writer will have characters and plot laid out and waiting.

It can be frustrating to sit down and write and have nothing. Some call it writer’s block, but it’s no barrier that can’t be gotten past with a little trickery. Writing exercises are a great tool for loosening up and not breaking down the barrier, but sneaking by it. Whether used for getting started when out of material or just a fun little exercise for daily writing practice, the newspaper fiction writing prompt is a great way to put some ideas on paper.

Using Newspaper Headlines and Articles

Assuming a workshop situation, have all participants bring a newspaper in. Allow time to flip through and browse the headlines and articles. Writers should be looking for anything that jumps out at them: violence, absurdities, miraculous coincidences, etc. Once an article is finally decided on, the writer should go ahead and write quickly, getting down as many details as she can.

This works because the writer is allowed to disconnect from her material, if only partially. Having an incident (conflict), a location (setting), and people (characters) frees the writer up to think about the details without having to go through the initial stages of recall that are so difficult. A writer’s material will emerge in the story, regardless.

For example, if using this article from the Wisconsin State Journal, a writer is given numerous options. While names should always be changed, there are three obvious characters: the woman, her brother, and her son. That’s three different available perspectives. The sheriff, the killer, and the mortician provide three more.

The setting is a small town in northwest Wisconsin and the incident is an unsolved murder. From there, the writer has nothing left to do except invent the details. The story doesn’t even have to feature the murder, as the events can take place before or after, or be only tangentially related.

A newspaper article can offer a writer the chance to paint the outline offered by the limitations of journalistic reporting. It would be in poor taste for a newspaper to speak of the particulars and emotions of most events (tragic or otherwise), which works in favor of the writer. This exercise is designed not to give details, but to give opportunities to display details.

Using the Classified Ads

While looking through a page of classifieds, have the writer make note of a few attractive for sale or wanted ads. Have her imagine the person who placed the ad trying to sell or buy baby clothes, an 1986 Ford Taurus spray painted matte black, a concert ticket for a band that doesn’t exist, gardening tools that may not work, etc.

After that, have her develop the story that led the item in question to be put up for sale or purchased (this can be done mentally, but scratched out on paper is preferred). Because there must be a buyer and a seller, develop the other character and her/his motivation. Finally, write a scene where these two characters meet.

This version of the exercise is much more specific, as it focuses almost exclusively on helping the writer develop her ability to write characters with convincing motivations. To be effective, the reader must believe that a character desires a tangible object, either in or out of their life. This means that a writer will have to embody a history into a thing that is concrete enough to be in a classified ad.

For example, if writing about an ad that simply says “Free: An Unworn, Size 32 Wedding Dress,” a writer has numerous possibilities. The fact that the dress is free and unworn shows an urge to get rid of it as soon as possible. The plus-size throws other dimensions in, such as discrimination against larger people and the stereotypical female idea of beauty. The buyer has endless possibilities, and almost all of them provide for an interesting outcome.

A Useful Creative Writing Exercise for Developing Character and Conflict

By removing the writer’s responsibility of inventing characters, settings, and conflicts, she is free to focus on developing those aspects. Newspaper articles allow the writer to step back from her material and let it emerge naturally, and classified ads create an opportunity to work on crafting a character’s motivation and then placing her/him into a scene. With nothing more than a newspaper, a writer can go from blocked to burning in no time at all.

The copyright of the article A Writing Exercise Using Just a Newspaper in Writing Fiction is owned by Ryan Werner. Permission to republish A Writing Exercise Using Just a Newspaper in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.