Exercises for writing

I have recently been introduced to some awesome exercises for writing by some of my amazing colleagues. I completed the following exercises for a book project, but I think they would also work equally well for articles or dissertations.

Exercise #1: X,Y,Z

Can you distill your project into the following formula:

My book is about x. I argue y about x. The significance of discovering y about x is z.

I found it helpful to begin by creating a list of keywords, then use those words to fill in the x,y,z. To really make this activity useful do at least 5 different iterations of these three sentences, jumbling up the order of what you put in the x,y,z slots and even introducing different concepts for one of the x,y,z slots.

Exercise #2: The Fairytale

That's right. Forget Academic Prose. Plot out your project in terms of a fairytale. Tell the story of your idea. Who are the main actors? Who are the villains? What does the action consist of? What are the conflicts? How are they resolved? Here is a quick blurb from the fairytale I wrote about my project:

Once upon a time there lived a fair maiden named Sympatica. Everyone said she was the most gentle and kind woman in the land. She helped the poor and downtrodden. no one knew why but somehow she just made them feel better about themselves when they were around her. Everyone wanted to be her friend. Well, almost everyone.

There was another girl in the land, Godsib, who whispered evil things about Sympatica to everyone. She came with horrible stories about how Sympatica was not really helping the poor but actually hurting them. Godsib even went so far as to say Sympatica was creating animosity between people who were and were not her friend. Godsib did her best to break up these categories of insiders and outsiders, but no one would take her seriously. Well, almost no one.

Exercise #3: The Table of Contents

I now understand that the table of contents is one of the gears that makes the book project run (along with the story that you tell and your argument: all three are different gears churning in different ways, but when moving together they form the book). The TOC is not your argument, nor does it have to follow the order of your argument. The TOC should echo the framework of the book and should provide the arc of the story you will tell. I found it much easier to construct a TOC when I thought of it in terms of tracing how I am going to tell a story rather than as some kind of index of chapters.

I think it's useful to create a TOC at various moments in your project, as a way of staying attuned to how you are telling the story of your argument.