Borrowed from "On the Many Different Engines That Power a Short Story" by Lincoln Michael in Lithub

Chelsey Grasso gave this to me on my 29th birthday; Alia had set it up so that I’d have the whole day to write. It is a very good exercise.


  1. Write one sentence. About Anything. Just make it a good sentence.

  2. Circle the "key words" in that sentence.

  3. Make a list of 20 associative words (related to those keywords).

  4. Write for 15 minutes, using at least one of those key or associate words in each sentence. Once you get going, you can start to riff and bring in new words if you feel it serves the piece.

  5. Optional: For extra fun, cross off each word that you use in the list when you use it, winnowing down the available words (at least for the first 20 sentences).