This weekend, our excellent and useful writing exercise comes straight from our collective Ampersanding, Hardie Grant Egmontish brain. True, it’s inspired by other writing exercise advice we’ve read, but we’ve pretty much made it our own.

Here’s something you can do to get the pen scribbling and those keys a-tapping:

Take a minor character from your novel (or a famous novel).

Give them a terrible secret.

Rewrite the scene.

Does the sidekick best friend have a shady past?

Is the doddery Grandma from the Christmas scene actually a ninja?

Did the boyfriend accidentally run over the dog?

Good luck!

In other news, we are putting together a monthly Ampersand newsletter. If you’d like to go on the mailing list, email us at ampersand [at] hardiegrant [dot] com [dot] au