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Creative Writing & Screenwriting Worksheets Collated from a decade of material used in Jamie Rhodes’ courses and workshops, this collection of exercises is a public resource for writers seeking to develop their creative writing and screenwriting skills.
Written by: Jamie Rhodes
Jamie Rhodes
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Copyright © 2016 Jamie Rhodes
Contents
Forward by Jamie Rhodes………………..3
Finding the Story…………………………….4
Character………………………………………10
Structure……………………………………....17
Dialogue…………………………………….…23
Genre……………………………………….…..30
Writing Technique………………………..35
Jamie Rhodes
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Copyright © 2016 Jamie Rhodes
Forward
My first gig teaching creative writing was in my very early twenties, freshly trained
as a script reader, I walked nervously into an all girls’ secondary comprehensive school.
Standing in front of thirty rowdy teenage girls, hoping they will be remotely interested in
what you have to say – and praying they won’t heckle too viciously – is quite a daunting
experience! Thankfully, it went well and went on to teach screenwriting and creative writing
in many schools, colleges, universities, media centres, community groups and homeless
shelters throughout the country, working with adults and young people of all ages and
backgrounds.
Over ten years, I have developed a large selection of worksheets and exercises to
suit specific audiences in terms of age, ability and desired outcomes. I felt the time had
come to offer these worksheets publicly in one simple pack, grouped according to the
particular writing elements they are designed to address. I hope you find them useful.
The exercises do not need to be followed in any particular order, and not every
exercise in each section will appeal to every writer. Everybody works in different ways, but it
is my intention that the exercises should be diverse enough in their approach that there is
something in each section for every writer.
I use many of these exercises when writing my own stories, turning to different
chapters of the pack to improve my work and keep practicing. Feel free to get in touch and
let me know what has worked for you.
Happy writing!
Jamie Rhodes
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Copyright © 2016 Jamie Rhodes
Finding the Story
Exercise 1 – Before the Internet
With the Internet offering such a wealth of information at your fingertips, it is easy to forget
how vital other avenues of research can be to finding intriguing stories. The local library is a
good place to find information that is not available on the Internet. A quick look at the local
history section can reveal some unique inspiration for true stories.
1. Scan the books about local history for potentially interesting people or events in
your region.
2. Choose one person and one event, then either:
a. Put the person in the event and write about how they might react.
b. Make note of the main plot points taking place in the event, adapt them
slightly to increase drama if needed.
c. Write a brief character study on the person and identify a dramatic
turning point in their life.
3. Using part 2, write a timeline for how the story that you have found or adapted
could be told.
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Finding the Story
Exercise 2 – New Information
Researching something that you have absolutely no knowledge of can be interesting and
useful when finding a story to tell. First choose a character, it can be one that already exists
or you can invent one. Think of one subject that your character knows a lot about, but that
you know nothing about.
Now list ten facts about this subject:
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
These facts will be known by your character and will contribute to his/her
personality. Make notes on how this aspect of a character’s personality could be used within
a story.
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Finding the Story
Exercise 3 – Interview
We are constantly surrounded by stories, every person has a story to tell, and so a brilliant
story may be closer than you think. For this exercise, ask a relative or family friend if you can
interview them about their life (bear in mind an older person will have more stories to tell).
Interview them in a journalistic way, asking detailed, probing questions. Be sure to take
notes about periods of their life stand out as particularly dramatic or emotive.
From the interview, pick apart one thing to focus on and write a short sentence for a
potential story idea.
Story Ideas:
1.
2.
Example:
If I interviewed my Granddad, a succinct story idea description might be:
1. A short film about the emotional journey of an old widower whose only son has left home
to join the army and fight in a war.
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Finding the Story
Exercise 4 – Quick Writing
Getting a story out of your head is difficult, but it helps if you remember that at this early
stage it doesn’t have to be ground breaking or even good. Just get it on paper. This exercise
will help to dump a batch of story ideas out of your head, and then sift through them for
potential gems.
Write 25 titles in the boxes on the left hand side of the table below. Swap your titles with a
partner and have them circle 5 that sound interesting. Of these, choose 3, and write a short
synopsis about the story behind the title.
Title Brief Synopsis
Title:_______________________
Title:_______________________
Title:_______________________
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Finding the Story
Exercise 5 – 5-point Treatment Development
A treatment is a summary of what happens in a story. It can help you to see the direction a
story will take before you start writing up the work. It is also useful for
producers/publishers/agents to get a feel for a story before they read a longer piece of
work.
A simple treatment can be broken down into five main points. For this exercise, fill in the
five points for two different story ideas:
Idea 1
1. Title:
2. Logline: (A Logline is one sentence that explains what the story is about)
3. Set up: (This is a little about background and some build up of the story)
4. Hook: (This is the aspect of the story that makes it different and original)
5. Resolution: (How does the story turn out?)
Idea 2
1. Title:
2. Logline:
3. Set up:
4. Hook:
5. Resolution:
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Copyright © 2016 Jamie Rhodes
Character
Exercise 1 – Determining the Main Character
Stories are often character driven; this means that a character (or characters) in the
story has a particularly interesting personality, and it is their way of perceiving and
interacting with the things around them that moves the story forward in an entertaining
way.
This exercise will help you develop your main character, but it can also be applied to other
characters.
1. Consider what might be your character’s Dramatic Need? This means, what does
the character want to win/gain/get/achieve over the course of the story? Define this
in a sentence or two
2. What is your character’s Point of View? This is their way of seeing the world around
them, for example; are they a cynic/idealist/dreamer/optimist? Define this in a
sentence or two.
3. The final aspect to consider is Change. Seeing how a character changes allows the
audience to connect more with that character. What sort of change does your
character undergo over the course of the story? Write a few sentences about this.
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Character
Exercise 2 – Bringing a Character to Life
Without a well-developed back-story, characters can easily lapse into being flat stereotypes
or clichés, rather than interesting three-dimensional individuals. The best way to make your
characters more real is to understand their history; giving your character a history in turn
gives them an individual personality influenced by everything they have been through – just
like a real person.
Though the audience will not necessarily see all, or any, of the biography, the character’s
actions and behaviour that is in the story will be directly related to their past.
For this exercise, you need to write a brief biography of your character, starting from their
birth up to the point at which we meet them in your story.
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Character
Exercise 3 – The Life-Changing Moment.
A life-changing moment is an interesting point around which to create a story. It could
happen at the beginning of a story in which a character has to come to terms with their new
life. It could happen at the end of a story in which the character is dissatisfied with their life
and wants a way to change it. Or it could happen part way through a story and contain
aspects of both.
Either way, going through a life-changing moment can make a character more believable
and well rounded. For this exercise create a transformational moment in a character’s life
and answer the following questions:
What was the character’s life like before the transformation?
What took place during the transformation?
What were the obstacles to transforming (both inside the character and
external)?
How did the character face these obstacles?
Name the other people involved in this transformation. What were their roles in
the moment transformation?
What happened to them because of this transformation?
What was the outcome for the character?
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Character
Exercise 4 – Personality Traits
Knowing your characters’ personality traits is important when writing a script; personality
traits will dictate how someone reacts in different situations. This simple exercise will help
to cement a character’s personality, and stick firmly in your mind as you write.
Write your character’s name vertically down the left hand side of the page. Then for each
letter of their name, write an aspect of their personality.
First Name:
Surname:
Example:
For a character called Homer, the following might be true.
Hates exercise
Often forgets
Makes trouble
Eats too much
Rude frequently
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Copyright © 2016 Jamie Rhodes
Character
Exercise 5 – Depth and Balance
Adding depth and balance to your characters makes the story that surrounds them much
richer. In real life, nobody is happy and lively ALL the time no matter how they may appear.
Equally nobody is serious and dull ALL the time. The same should be true of your characters
to make them behave more like real people.
For this exercise, first choose a well-known over-the-top comedy character, and write a
short paragraph about their emotional life.
Character:
Next, choose a well-known serious or emotional character and list ten things that they do for
fun or that make them happy.
Character:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
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Copyright © 2016 Jamie Rhodes
Character
Exercise 6 – Character Descriptions
This is a quick method for practicing effective character descriptions. Think of ten well-
known film characters and write a one-sentence description of each of them in the left-hand
column of the table below (don’t write their name yet!).
Now swap with a partner and see if they can guess the characters by writing their guess in
the middle column.
Finally, in the last column write the character you were describing and see how many your
partner got right.
Description Partner’s Guess Actual
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Copyright © 2016 Jamie Rhodes
Structure
Exercise 1 – Preparing to Write the Story
Before you start writing your story, try the following exercise. Breaking down the story in the
way shown below, you will be able to see: 1) how many pages you estimate to spend on
each scene, 2) the main scenes in the story, and 3) the overall length of the story.
Example:
Scene
No.
Brief description. No. Of
Pages
Used
1 Old man going to shop to buy groceries 0.5
2 Two young men enter shop and pull a gun out on shopkeeper. Old
man sneaks out unseen.
2
3 Old man at home shaken up. Hears on radio someone in the area has
been shot.
1
4
As you write the script you can refer back this table. For the example above, if you get to
scene 3 and find you have written 5 pages, you know you have been waffling. If you have
only written a page and a half, you know you are missing some detail. However it is up to
you to make a judgement call as to whether your initial estimation was wrong.
Scene
No.
Brief description. No. Of
Pages
Used
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
(Continue on another page if needed)
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Structure
Exercise 2 – Timeline
Timelines are visual tools that help create chronological outlines of characters’ lives. For this
exercise, create a timeline for the internal and external events in your character’s life from
the beginning to the end of the story. Internal events are things that happen to the
character inside their mind or body. External events are those that happen on the outside
(i.e. meeting people, going places, etc.).
External
Internal
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Structure
Exercise 3 – Brainstorming Structure
Once you have your main story idea, there are many different ways of telling the story. For
example, who’s perspective could you tell the story from? Where could you start the story?
Are there any sub-plots that could work well? Are there any underlying themes in the story?
For this exercise, put your story idea in the centre box, then brainstorm all of the structural
possibilities that could link your story together.
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Structure
Exercise 4 – Overcoming Obstacles
A character encountering and overcoming problems can provide interesting and pivotal
moments in a story. This is a simple exercise in thinking about potential obstacles that may
hinder your character reaching their goal. On one side of the paper put the character, and
the other side, their goal, then fill the space on the middle line between with possible
obstacles. Now, on the next layer out from the timeline, write some action the character
could take, or conversations they could have to overcome these obstacles.
C
H
A
R
A
C
T
E
R
G
O
A
L
CONVERSATIONS HAD
OBSTACLES
ACTION TAKEN
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Structure
Exercise 5 – Break Down a Story
A good way to understand structure is to get into the habit of noticing the structure in other
people’s work. For this exercise, examine a story make a list of each scene. Make a note of
where it takes place and a brief description of the point of the scene, answering the
questions in the table below.
Scene
No.
What happens in the
scene?
Is the intention of the
scene to move the plot
forward?
Is the intention of the
scene character
development?
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There are broadly two kinds of dialogue: Expository dialogue and Action dialogue.
Expository dialogue says something about the characters, and the who, what, why, how and
where of the film’s narrative.
Action dialogue, on the other hand, is a way of moving the plot forward.
For this exercise, write a sequence of dialogue between two characters to expose them and
move them to the next scene.
Dialogue
Exercise 2 – Conversation on a Journey
1. Open a phone book to two random pages, and select two businesses. You are going to
move two characters from Business A to Business B by whatever means you like and create a
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reason for the journey.
Journey
From:
To:
Reason:
2. Write a conversation between two characters on this journey. Try to use the interchange
not only to explore the reason for the journey, but in doing so, reveal who the characters
are, individually and in their relationship to each other.
Dialogue
Exercise 3 – The Subtext of Conversations
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Copyright © 2016 Jamie Rhodes
Writing dialogue is not only writing what people say. It includes writing why we say or don’t
say the things we do. For this exercise think about the last few conversations you had, then
answer the following questions:
Did I say everything I wanted to say?
Why or why not?
What did I leave out?
What is my general attitude when I talk?
How does it change depending on whom I’m with?
Dialogue
Exercise 4 – The Way We Talk
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Copyright © 2016 Jamie Rhodes
Think about what defines the way a person talks; do you see people differently because of
it? Many aspects of someone’s personality can be revealed through the way they talk.
Focusing on a character you have developed for this exercise, first:
Make a list of 3 things that define your character’s personality:
1.
2.
3.
Now, list 2 ways this personality reflects in the way they talk.
1.
2.
Finally, write one scene with dialogue that reveals aspects of your character’s personality.
Dialogue
Exercise 5 – Show Don’t Tell
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Copyright © 2016 Jamie Rhodes
It is important to remember that it is much better to show the audience what is going on,
rather than telling the audience what is going on.
For this exercise, convey the five statements below using brief passages of descriptive
dialogue, without using the actual statement itself.
1. I love you.
2. I don’t trust you.
3. Accept me for who I am.
4. We’re in danger
5. I’m really excited
Dialogue
Exercise 6 – Drawing on real life conversations
Writing dialogue that sounds natural is difficult, especially if that dialogue is then going to be
performed by actors when you are writing for stage, screen or radio. One way to write
better dialogue is to use actual dialogue you have heard. Accurately making a mental note of
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the things you hear is a skill you can develop through practise, repeating the following
exercise a few times will help you recall conversations more accurately.
(You will need a Dictaphone or tape recorder for this exercise).
1. Record two people having a conversation for 5 minutes then stop and do something
else for 10 minutes.
2. After 10 minutes, write down as much of the dialogue as you can remember.
Recreate the conversation as accurately as you can, include the details of how the
people speak, not just what they say.
3. Check how you did by playing the recording back.
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Genre
Exercise 1 – Confrontation in Genre
Different genres follow different sets of conventions. Establishing and maintaining the
conventions of the genre in which your story takes place is vital in allowing the audience to
follow what is happening, and giving an amount of expectation as to what is possible further
into the story.
Although it is possible for certain genres to overlap, it would be confusing for the audience
and inconsistent if, for example: a confrontation in what started as a romantic comedy
suddenly featured the bloody slaughter of a ghost-hobbit by an FBI agent with a lightsaber!
Too many genres are mixed up.
For this exercise, think about how confrontational situations are resolved in different genres.
Imagine two vehicles arrive at the same parking spot; changing the vehicles and characters
accordingly, write about what would happen if the genre were:
1. Romantic Comedy:
2. Action Adventure:
3. Horror:
4. Fantasy/ Sci-fi:
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Genre
Exercise 2 – A New World
Many horror, fantasy, and science fiction stories create whole new worlds for the audience
to partake in. Identifying the rules for these worlds and displaying them for the audience is
important in explaining the plot.
Before writing a story in any of these genres you must identify the rules of the world in
which your story is based. For example, is there gravity? Are there humans? Do the same
rules apply to all characters in the world? In this exercise, invent a set of rules that could
apply to a new world you create, then write a title and one sentence story idea based in
your new world.
New world:
Potential Story
Title:
Short summary:
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Genre
Exercise 3 – Made You Jump
There are certain characteristics that give a story its’ genre. For example, all horrors are
intended to make people scared. Focusing on horrors for this exercise, study what induces
fear.
As you engage with a horror story, or part of one, take note of each scary point. When you
have finished, look at all the scary points and write a short paragraph about the common
thread between them.
Story:
Scary Points:
Common Thread:
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Genre
Exercise 4 – Re-writing Genre
A good understanding of codes and conventions used in different genres is vital when
writing a new story. A good way to see the true value of different genre conventions is to
take a story out of the genre it was originally written for.
For this exercise, choose one scene that you know well. It could be a scene you have been
working on, or a famous scene. Then re-write the scene as though it were part of a different
genre, either:
1. Romantic Comedy
2. Action Adventure
3. Horror
4. Fantasy/ Science Fiction
Original Scene:
Scene re-written in ____________________
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Screenwriting/Storytelling Technique
Exercise 1 – Chase Scenes
Chase scenes are fast paced, action packed scenes that require little or no dialogue. The type
of chase will depend on the nature of the story, but the means by which the action is
conveyed will often be similar.
This exercise will explore different types of chase scene.
First, write a short chase scene involving one of these methods of travel:
Horse
Helicopter
Boat
Foot
Car
Now, using the same scene, change the method of travel and write the scene again.
Finally, write a paragraph about the things that remain consistent in both scenes. This will
highlight the typical conventions of a chase scene.
Screenwriting/Storytelling Technique
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Exercise 2 – Creative Instruction
Learning how to get ideas out of your head clearly and concisely, can give you a better
understanding of how to write visual sequences.
For this exercise, you will need a partner. You are going to give them a brief set of
instructions on how to put on a shoe, however, your partner is to behave as though they
have never seen a shoe, don’t know what it is, and don’t know what its various parts are or
do.
Write no more than ten bullet points of instruction, and then deliver them verbally without
pointing at any parts of the shoe. Every part of the explanation needs to be clear and
effective enough for your partner to get the shoe on.
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
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Screenwriting/Storytelling Technique
Exercise 3 – Someone Else’s Action
When describing action in a script, it shouldn’t take longer to read than it would to see on
screen. Keep this in mind for this exercise.
Watch an action film and choose one scene to focus on, in the space below, write out the
action in that scene using a script format. Use as few words as possible to convey what
happens.
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Screenwriting/Storytelling Technique
Exercise 4 – The Visual Medium
Screenwriting is a visual medium and as such, it is important that characters’ actions convey
meaning in some way.
For this exercise, try writing 5 brief scenarios to convey the following 5 sentences:
1. I love you.
2. I hate you.
3. I’m hungry.
4. I’m scared.
5. We need to get out of here.
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Screenwriting/Storytelling Technique
Exercise 5 – Economy with Words
When writing a story, it is good to be descriptive. When writing in a screenplay format, it is
imperative to narrow that descriptive drive into shorter sentences and less words. The point
is to get more into less.
Think of a place and come up with 10 words that describe this place. Now, narrow it down to
3 that truly capture its essence. Finally, write 1 punchy descriptive sentence that captures
this place.
Place:
10 Words to describe:
3 to truly capture the essence of the place:
1 Descriptive Sentence:
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Screenwriting/Storytelling Technique
Exercise 6 – Reacting to Circumstances
People’s reaction to sudden occurrences can make very interesting viewing, and reveal a
large amount of information about character and setting.
For this exercise, imagine two people are on a couch watching television. Suddenly, a siren
or alarm is heard. Or the phone rings. Or a doorbell goes. WRITE THE SCENE.
Think about: Who are these people? Who are they to each other? What are the immediate
circumstances? How does the sound affect them? What do they do?
Try placing ordinary people in extraordinary circumstances, or extraordinary people in
ordinary circumstances.
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Screenwriting/Storytelling Technique
Exercise 7 – Outside
The setting in which a story takes place has a massive influence on they way the story is
received by the audience. The whole feel of a scene can change dramatically, simply by
changing the setting slightly.
For this exercise find a short scene that takes place out in the sunshine. Your task is to re-
write this scene changing only the setting.
1. Write the scene taking place in the rain.
2. Write the scene taking place at night.
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Screenwriting/Storytelling Technique
Exercise 8 – Plot Devices
A Plot Device is a person or object in a story that is used to drive the narrative and move the
plot forward. Effective use and understanding of plot devices can provide sturdy pivot points
around which to improve the tension, construction, and pacing of a story.
For this exercise, identify a plot device from three different stories.
1. Story:
Plot Device:
2. Story:
Plot Device:
3. Story:
Plot Device:
Example
Film: Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince
Plot Device: The Vanishing Cabinet
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