This Week's IWW Practice Exercise

Prepared by: Pam Hauck
Reposted, revised, on: June 17, 2007

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Exercise: In 400 words or less, create a scene in which the natural world plays an important part. Show us how nature affects you or your character, paying attention to descriptive details and sensory imagery, color and texture.

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"Nature Writing" begins with observation of the natural world, and shows how nature influences human experience or understanding. It uses all the senses in painting the scene and becomes personal as the writer shows how those observations make an impact in some way.

You might chronicle a walk in the woods that leads to a profound insight, show how seeing pecking pigeons on a city windowsill brings wisdom of some sort to your protagonist, or let a night sky filled with stars or storm clouds on the horizon lead you or your character to some new understanding.

To see more details about nature writing, and some examples to prime your pen, click here. That site demands an "upbeat" ending for the work it publishes, but in this exercise nature's impact may turn out to be negative as well as positive.

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IWW PRACTICE Exercises are archived.