Right Brain ThinkingRight brain thinking exercises help stimulate creativity. We're not saying that people who use the left side of their brain are poor writers–-you need both sides. But modern society with its emphasis on deadlines, logical concepts, and retaining data tends to overdevelop the left side of the brain in neurological skill sets. And people who are trying to break into creative endeavors find that over-development a challenge to overcome. Right Brain Thinking Exercises Here are some writing exercises to help you gain the flexibility to use the entirety of your brain. Rewrite An Existing Piece: Find a short essay or article on a topic or even a news story. Rewrite it to suit another newspaper. The easy way to do this is to look at a news story and then write it as though it had appeared in a newspaper with a different slant. 
Covering The Same Event Or Idea From Various Perspectives: One of the keys to writing compelling fiction (or even a dissertation) is the ability to write about an event from various perspectives. You can do this by finding a human interest news story and writing it from the perspective of one of the people covered. When writing fiction, it's a technique that is used to show that the world continues to exist even when characters are "off stage." Showing that one character's perceptions may not coincide with another's helps to build conflict. When writing dissertations, being able to cover information from the dissenting side helps avoid the "echo chamber effect" and demonstrates the all-important aspect of conclusive research. Pattern Matching: This is sometimes used as a brainstorming technique, and in some circles, it's even a life-planning exercise. It's also a good way to unleash the right side of your brain. Cut pictures out from magazines of subjects that interest you and scatter them on the floor. Then, look out the window or at a blank wall for the time it takes to count ten breaths. Then, look down and pick a picture--do it quickly without giving yourself time to think. Put that picture on a mosaic board. Then repeat. Eventually, it will become like knitting--you won't be consciously analyzing what you're picking. Look at the pattern you've made from those pictures. What sort of mood do they evoke? What narrative do they bring into focus? Doing this is also a good technique for overcoming writer's block.
Writing Techniques
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