Working Up

by Dwayne Phillips

I like writing exercises – things that make me think.

I came across a good one today from Kenneth Davis at ManageYourWriting.com. He calls it the Alphabet Shift.

choose a word you’ve written beginning with a letter from the first half of the alphabet. Replace it with a more effective word beginning with a letter from the second half of the alphabet.

I started to think of variations:

Choose a word that begins with a consonant, replace it with a word beginning with a vowel.

Choose a word that has an even number of letters, replace it with a word that has an odd number of letters.

Choose a word that names a place, replace it with a word that names a thing.

Choose a word that is strong, replace it with a word that is weak.

Choose a word with color, replace it with a word with sound.

Choose a word with taste, replace it with a word with scent.

Choose a word with thought, replace it with a word with touch.

We can double the number of exercises by flip-flopping each of the above. For example,

Choose a word beginning with a letter from the second half of the alphabet, replace it with a word beginning with a letter from the first half of the alphabet.

and so on…

And here is a bigger exercise for two groups of people. Choose a well known passage from a book.

To be or not to be, that is the question.

Roll a dice or use some method to pick a random number, e.g. 4. The 4th word in this passage is “not.” That word begins with a consonant, so replace it with a word that begins with a vowel. Keep selecting other words in the saying letting the groups take turns with word swapping exercises.

How long can this go on?