Creative SWAP SHOP

Pass on your ideas in these exchange-themed writing exercises from Jenny Alexander

Here’s a good idea: Swap Ideas Day! It’s coming up in September.

Sharing ideas that I’ve found useful or interesting is a big drive for me in my writing, and some of my most enlightening moments have come from other people’s books. Feel the Fear and Do it Anyway, that was a complete a-ha for me, courtesy of US author Susan Jeffers. Such a simple idea, that it’s okay to feel afraid and fear need not stop you doing what you want to do. I’ve passed that one on in my children’s self-help books along with lots of others, such as the idea that expecting the best or the worst in life is a choice. Think about your own ideas with this month’s freerange writing. Perhaps you could pass some on.

Memoir

What is your go-to kind of reading, in different situations? When I’m travelling, I’m not keen on beach reads – I prefer non-fiction that gives me something to ponder as I while away the time. When I’m sad, I like to be distracted by a cosy murder mystery. I have a few favourite blogs I go to for a quick break when I’m working. Write a list, just the first ones that come. If you don’t read many books, you could go with music or TV shows instead.

Add specific examples. Carl Greer’s Change Your Story, Change Your Life got me through a four-hour wait at Manchester airport a few years ago; a batch of Rebecca Tope’s Lake District mysteries helped in lockdowns; the Awfully Big Blog Adventure by my friends in the Scattered Authors’ Society is always good for a quick read while the kettle’s boiling.

Write a piece that goes from the general to the particular, starting with what kind of book/TV/music you enjoy in certain circumstances, then going on to ‘One time…’ describing a particular occasion and one or two particular books/TV shows/ pieces of music. Take twenty minutes. If you finish early, write a second one.

Fiction

Swapping ideas means being willing both to offer your own ideas and listen to other people’s but in the modern Twitterverse it can be less a swap and more a battle, and political debate is often reduced to ‘because it’s the right thing to do’, with no proper reasoned argument.

In your story, two people have a problem, and they have different ideas about how to solve it. Who? Write some character notes – their name, age and appearance, something about their home life and work or hobbies… just get to know them a bit. What’s the relationship between them (if any)?

What’s the problem? Maybe they’re lost or running late, or they’ve got a difficult client or a project that isn’t going well. Maybe one wants to split up and the other doesn’t. Maybe they disagree about someone else’s situation, a child struggling at school, an aged parent refusing to accept care.

Can they listen to each other? Can they make the case for their own position? Or is one or both of them confrontational? How do they decide whose idea to go with? How does each of them feel about the decision?

Picture the scene where they discuss the problem, the setting and what they are doing while they talk. The key to writing a passage of dialogue is to remember it’s a scene and embed the dialogue in the action. Take twenty minutes.

Non-fiction

Thinking about one of your skills or hobbies – what helpful tips and hacks could you give a beginner?

As it’s a swap, what questions would you ask someone who’s got more experience than you?

Write one piece with tips and hacks and one with questions, including examples of times you have felt hampered by not knowing the answers. Take twenty minutes. Notice how writing non-fiction helps you clarify and develop your ideas.

Poetry

Ted Hughes describes the process of getting ideas for poems as being like hunting or fishing, patiently waiting with all his senses on high alert. An idea is like a fox; a mind is like a pond full of fish that we have to find own way of catching.

I’m a dreamer, not a hunter, and I think of the process of getting ideas as being like creative dreaming, where you set an intention before you go to sleep and receive the insight you were looking for in your dreams. First the focus, then the wait, then the capture.

For your poem, use one of your own hobbies or interests as an image to describe how you get ideas for writing. Maybe you enjoy baking, or gardening, or singing in a choir – you could choose anything but be specific. Not just baking generally, but baking what? Growing which plant? Singing which song? This will help you to use all your senses and anchor your poem. Read The Thought Fox by Ted Hughes to see how effective this can be. Take twenty minutes.