Writing exercises: All Conflicts Great and Small

What's the largest conflict you can think of?

The combined forces of all the mulitverses stood arrayed against their common enemy: entropy. "I think entropy's winning," one leader whispered to another. "Good thing it's slow."

What's the smallest?

By one extruded pseudopod at a time, the single-celled organism oozed forward across the slick surface, until it came to a thick black line that halted its progress. It stopped before the line, stymied.

Kim lifted her head from the microscope. "Teacher! I think there's a hair on my slide!"

(I could spend all day trying to think of bigger and better, or smaller and more minor, to top these, but I think at some point I am defeating the purpose of this as an EXERCISE. I already think that my whole response to "Imagine That" rather missed Vorhaus's point, which was to be imaginative without constraint or worrying about details.)

Writing Exercise: Good Writing Is ...

Good writing engages both reader and writer. It entertains you and, while you're not looking, informs you. It doesn't just make you think: it makes you want to think. Good writing pulls you into the story until you think of the characters as your friends, and makes you miss them when the book is over. Good writing is internally consistent. It lets you know what its assumptions are, and sticks to them. Good writing is fun.

Writing exercise: Writing Badly

The latest batch of exercises are all to write badly. I haven't been putting the last couple of short exercises behind a cut tag because they're all so, you know, short. But intentionally bad writing deserves a cut-tag, whether it's short or long.
( So it gets one )

Writing exercise: Writing Badly, Part II

( The author takes no responsible for any pain you may suffer for clicking this cut tag. Look, I tried to stop you. You Have Been Warned. )