Let's not kid ourselves – becoming a great writer is not a matter of a sudden strike of inspiration, but a long and painful development of a unique voice and writing skill. No author ever sits by his desk and immediately starts to write a captivating story – most need months or even years to arrive at the kind of narrative they were planning to achieve.

If you feel your mind go numb when you look down at your blank page, don't panic – there are plenty of writing strategies and techniques that can substantially help in writing great stories by flexing your creative muscle. Here's a selection of some of the most interesting, inspiring and, perhaps most importantly, efficient creative writing exercises that have been recognized as effective in fighting against writing blocks.

Action – Reaction

Examples of dramatic situations can work wonders for a brain used to thinking about certain things in certain ways. It's a refreshing activity, which, if exercised regularly, can be of great help in coming up with truly original stories. This might sound difficult, but it really isn't – we are all unique, therefore each of us has a completely different perspective on life, which in turn influences how we interpret various situations.

In order to open up your mind to new possibilities, use one of the ideas listed below, set a time deadline (10 minutes to 30 minutes) and let your mind get inspired and wander to places you've never thought about before.

- You see a child lost in a crowded street. How did it get here?
- There's a big stain on the carpet. Who caused it to appear?
- You wake up to find yourself in the body of a cat.
- No one knows this woman – did she come from a different world?
- The telephone rang, but no one answered it.
- When he returned home, he noticed his furniture has been displaced.
- You'd never tell she'd be able to do this.
- You open the door and you see a different universe.
- He was enraged – he was shouting at you with no reason.
- The lights went off.
- You heard a baby cry.
- A big group of people is moving across the street together.
- She has tears in her eyes.

If that's not enough, try one of the dozens online writing prompts scattered across the web – for instance: writing prompts Tumblr page, creativewritingpromts.com, Prompts section of Writer's Digest, a Reddit page devoted to writing prompts, Poets & Writers writing prompts.

Exercises to Do on Your Own

7x7x7x7

Try your hand at harnessing randomness – there are many ways to do that and they can all be immensely inspiring. Try 7x7x7x7: take the seventh book from the seventh row of your bookshelf, open in on page seven, read the seventh line and make a part of it a starting line for your story or poem.

Idea Box

Not a fan of numbers? Try the idea box. It's common knowledge that the director Woody Allen has a drawer filled with ideas for movies. Each year he opens it and selects one to produce. Why not make an idea box like that yourself? Whenever you come upon something interesting or inspiring – an object, phrase, word, or image – store it in your idea box. Once a wiring block strikes, you'll have a place to turn to.

Alphabet

This is a classic – write a story composed of 26 sentences, each of which has to start with a consecutive letter of the alphabet, from a to z.

Color Code

Make a particular color the main theme of your story – explore its shades, the effect it has on your characters and construct a reality defined by it or write about a memory you associate with his color. This is a great exercise that will make it easier for you to create a vivid imagery for your future stories.

Enter the Insane

You're working on a story, but you feel that, if anything, your creation is getting duller and duller. Going insane is one good method to salvage it. Make a copy of your story and introduce a parodic, humorist or even grotesque element into it – something that will disrupt the story plot, character order and, consequently, the habits of your creative muscle.

Dictionary Prompt

This borders on randomness as well, but it's safe to say that we often find accidental matches most inspiring. The idea is that you take a dictionary, select several words by random and try to make an abstract out of them – this exercise will force you to look for connections where there are no visible ones, pushing you to think outside the box.

Noun + Verb

Take a blank sheet of paper and draw two columns. Fill one with random verbs and the other with nouns. Pair them up randomly and write an interesting sentence for each pair. When you finish to combine all of them, write a complete short story that uses all the sentences you came up with.

The First

If you're stuck and out of inspiration, try going back to the moments when you experienced something for the first time – first kiss, first day of school, first bike ride, first time you swam on your own... Each of those moments might provide source material for an excellent and moving story – in your mind, they're all associated with strong emotions.

Start from the End

This is an interesting technique that allows to deeply explore a character that you're actually going to murder on the first page of our story. That's right – kill your protagonist and you'll have a great source of inspiration at your hands. Ending your story before it even begins is an interesting twist of plot that will allow you to look at things from a different perspective.

Fan Fiction

Now, we find originality key to developing a unique voice as a writer, but all writers need constant training to perfect their craft and there's often not enough inspiration left to do that in good style. That's when fan fiction comes in – if you find yourself particularly inspired by a film or a book, why not trying your hand at reinterpreting the narrative reality and uncovering new character traits and histories through flashbacks or flash-forwards? Be careful with publishing those stories though – always include a disclaimer.

Group Exercises

If you know some fellow writers who could use some inspiration, or you've got friends who have great imaginations and aren't afraid to use it, you can try some of the exercises that are best performed in groups.

Secrets

Each of you has to write down a secret on a sheet of paper, fold it and exchange it with others randomly (best done in several rounds of exchange). Who knows, maybe someone's little guilty pleasure will be a great source of inspiration to you?

Picture Play

Pictures can unleash your imagination in ways you never expected. Make the most of it with a few of your friends – use Google Image Search to find random pictures and once you do, try to come up with an explanation or the story behind that picture. Then you can all debate about it to see whose story was most interesting or, even better, try to make all of your stories fit into one, without making it too unbelievable (this works for two to four people maximum).

Surrealism

Take the cue form the Surrealists and their favored technique for both images and letters, aptly called 'Exquisite corpse'. Each of you takes a sheet of paper and adds a word or a phrase, folds the paper and passes to the next person in line. It's best to agree upon a sequence like 'adjective-noun-verb-adverb-preposition-noun' – unless you're a poetic folk and find random verb or noun clusters inspiring.