Imagine taking a simple sentence like ‘The words flew on the pages’ and coming up with an image of flying words all over the place, frantically looking for their rightful owners, complaining about misuse laws and redundancy policies.



It’s the beauty of language: it can take you from zero to story.



This comes in handy especially if you’re a fantasy or science fiction writer. Once you train your mind to get out of the box (which wasn’t even there when you were little now was it!), you’ll have no trouble coming up with ideas. In time, it becomes second nature, fitting like second skin.



Just like any other writing method you may employ to coax your Muse or stir the juices from condensing too much, getting literal is useful and fun.



So here I am, passing forward my secret recipe for success in the form of a fun writing exercise for all to enjoy! All you have to do is use the following phrases to create a new reality by turning them literal! You may even find one of your ideas so tasty that you’ll gobble it up for dinner, swell up like a blimp, and crap it out on the page in the morning (not the prettiest metaphor, I know). There goes the list:
  1. Writing down the fire.



  2. The Holy Grail of Immortality
  3. Herd mentality
  4. He flew on the wings of love
  5. The lost cause
  6. His inflated ego
  7. Brainstorming
The list can go on and on. You can make it up, cut it off the newspaper, copy it off the television or a very animated friend. It can be a cliché or an elaborate invention of your own. But it has to be figurative in essence, having the potential to be literal. The point is that each of these items could turn into something new, something yours.



See, item 4, for example, is activating my gag reflex as it is, but with the help of this exercise, I can get past the slush and add a humorous twist to it.



Imagine you fall in love for the first time. You can’t eat, you can’t sleep, and most importantly, you can’t wait to go to school (high school that is) on the next day and see your beloved again. However, you wake up with a pair of shabby, awkward wings, and you don’t know what to do with them! Yikes. You try to clip them but no pair of scissors is strong enough. Then you try to hide them but they insist on sticking out of your back, not even folding a little to relieve your frustration. So you put on a few layers of clothes, all the while your mother makes a fuss about you being late for school and how there’s not enough time for breakfast, and your sister keeps banging on the door asking for her dolls back.



You look in the mirror and realize that hiding the wings is a lost cause.



So what do you do? You pack your toothbrush, a couple of shirts, pants, dozen comic books, a flashlight, your iPod, phone, some money, and squish your heavy backpack against the bulging wings. Now you’re ready to set out on your trip to find the infamous Snipper Factory, where Mr. Snipper will remove any love-induced physical growth or mental warp that comes his way. Ashamed, you sneak out of the house, knowing that you are one of the Freaks, and hoping that Mr. Snipper will live up to his magical-worker reputation. Ha.



I know, I know. You’re thinking ‘If I were this person, I’d fly away in delight’, but as it happens, being a Freak is a very embarrassing thing, in any world, so this is what happens when love gives you wings, real ones that is.



See? Now I have my story! And believe you me, I’ll write it up as soon as I finish with this article.



Hopefully, this exercise sprouted some stories for you too!



Write in fun!