Write Every Day, Not "Some Day"!
This prompt is inspired by ‘plot patterns’ from James Scott Bell’s Plot & Structure. Your prompt today revolves around a protagonist who holds him/herself apart from the rest of their society. Perhaps they are an anti-hero, perhaps a loner, perhaps an introvert in a family of extraverts. Make something happen to tempt/force this person out [...]
This week’s prompts are all inspired by ‘plot patterns’ from James Scott Bell’s Write Great Fiction – Plot & Structure. Write a story in which your protagonist is being chased by someone or something. If you choose to show what/who the hero is running from, make sure that pursuer has a vested interest in catching [...]
One of the nine plot patterns highlighted in James Scott Bell’s Plot & Structure is: The love story. (A billion romance readers can’t be wrong!) You don’t have to write a traditional romance to be writing a love story. There’s a love story embedded in almost every story you read or watch. From Homer’s Odyssey [...]
Whether you like the Disnified Happily Ever After versions or the grim Grimm originals, fairy stories are a great source of inspiration for a writer. You can rewrite the tales with a modern twist, or a funny one, or you can simply take the morality-play form and use it for your own story. I come [...]
After last week’s character focus, this week’s prompts are going to focus on different plot archetypes. First up: the fish out of water story. This ties in nicely with the focus on character, since the fish out of water story lays a great emphasis on the characters – either the alien character, or the ones [...]
Every character should want something, even if it is only a glass of water. -Kurt Vonnegut A concrete way to ensure that you are writing a story — not a scene or a character sketch — is to make sure your character wants something. Give your hero a want or a need, then move them [...]
WRITE ABOUT A NON-HUMAN CHARACTER Can you write a non-human character without making it react like a human? How would a table/tree/robot/alien think? How would it speak? How would it react compared to the reactions of someone born and raised in the West in the 21st Century? Can you write a truly non-human character? Go!
DELAY THE APPEARANCE OF THE MAIN CHARACTER Sometimes it’s a problem to create enough suspense in a short story to keep the reader engaged. An interesting way to do this is to delay the appearance of your main character until quite far into the story. This follows on from yesterday’s prompt where you kept your [...]
NEVER LET YOUR CHARACTER APPEAR Write a story in which the main, most interesting character never actually appears ‘on-stage’. Everything the reader learns about the character should come in opinions, comments and conversations between other characters in the story. What do we learn about them? How important do they become? How difficult is it to [...]
LET YOUR CHARACTER TALK Tell a story where everything we learn about the character comes from the things they say. Does what they say match up with what they mean? Iin what ways do they lie about themselves when the speak? How do people react?) Tell Us About Your Character Through Their Voice Go!
Step-by-step instructions on how to write every day, not "some day". Lessons, workbooks and timesheets included!
