Weekly Writing Challenge: And Now For Something Completely Different

For some of us, blogging is personal. Others are trying to educate or entertain; many more are hybrids. Yet we’re all storytellers. We all want to feel confident in what we’re offering when we hit “publish.” Creative Writing Challenges help you to push your writing boundaries, show off your blogging chops, and, hopefully, spark more post ideas.

To participate, tag your post with DPchallenge or leave a link to it in the comments. (It would also be great if you could link to this post to encourage people to take part–the more the merrier!)  Your post should be specifically written in response to this challenge; obvious attempts to link-bait will be deleted. We’ll keep an eye on the tag and highlight the week’s best posts on Freshly Pressed each Friday.

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Last week, we highlighted Tim of Get Second Lunch, whose latest post had just been Freshly Pressed. One of the things that drew us to his post was his unique style—illustration-heavy posts that give him a great opportunity to put his own spin on familiar topics.

We certainly don’t want to suggest that everyone needs to start illustrating their posts; goodness knows The Daily Post would just end up awash in crudely-drawn stick figures. It did get us thinking, though: what if we occasionally pushed ourselves out of our comfort zones and tried an unexpected post style? It could be interesting to readers, but more importantly, it could help us expand our boundaries, push past writers’ block, and spark ideas for other posts.

So this week, we challenge you to step outside your blogging box and try something totally different:

• If you normally write non-fiction, try fiction.
• If you normally write fiction, try poetry.
• If you normally post photos, try writing.
• If you normally just write, try including photos.

Need a little more guidance? Check out these post types, and pick one. Don’t opt for something that seems immediately doable; go with something you’ll have to work at a bit:

• Stream-of-consciousness
• Short fiction
• A day in the life
• Instructions on doing/making something
• Top ten lists
• An open letter
• An explanation of a topic you know a lot about
• A walk down memory lane
• A rant
• News/current event analysis
• A book, movie, or music review

The goal of this challenge isn’t to turn you into someone you’re not, but simply to see what you can take away from trying something completely new. The better we understand all the creative avenues open to us, the more effective we can be as writers, bloggers, and communicators.

At the end of your post, take a minute to reflect on the experience of creating it. Was it easier than you thought? Harder? Did you learn anything useful? Will you incorporate the new style into your repertoire? Would you try this exercise again with a different style?

We had a blast reading through last week’s Metaphor and Simile entries, and can’t wait to see what you come up with in another wide-open challenge!