Exercises to Spark Your Creativity

Sometimes creativity exercises are a bit boring – what’s that tiresome exercise with the candle, the cup, the matches? – but these exercises by writer Blake Snyder, meant to jump-start ideas for movies, are very amusing:

1. Funny _____
Pick a drama, thriller, or horror film and turn it into a comedy.

2. Serious _____
Likewise, pick a comedy and make it into a drama. Serious Animal House – Drama about cheating scandal at a small university ends in A Few Good Men-like showdown.

3. FBI out of water.
This works for comedy or drama. Name five places that a FBI agent in the movies has never been sent to solve a crime. Example: Slob FI agent is sent undercover to a Provence Cooking School.

4. _____ School
Works for both drama and comedy. Name five examples of an unusual type of school, camp, or classroom. Example: “Wife School.”

5. Versus!
Drama or comedy. Name several pairs of people to be on opposite sides of a burning issue.

6. My ______ Is a Serial Killer
Drama or comedy. Name an unusual person, animal, or thing that a paranoid can suspect of being a murderer.

It’s funny: seeing this exercise showed me how screenwriters got the ideas for several very famous movies!

Feeling creative helps boost happiness. While people often associate brooding melancholy as the spirit most appropriate to creative outpourings, research shows that people tend to be more creative when they’re feeling happy.

Do you have any exercises you use to help spark your story-telling spirit?