Write Every Day, Not "Some Day"!
One of the best pieces of advice I received for writing short stories was to make your character want something. Once your character wants something you have a structure for the whole story: put obstacles in their way and see how they react. The Prompt Create a character who wants something really badly, then thwart [...]
Continuing on from yesterday’s theme of giving you an element of the story you must use, today I’m giving you a character. I’m seeding some hints about this character into the prompt and you should take them where ever they lead you. The Prompt Sam Chase has just left a meeting with the big boss. [...]
In today’s story, we’re going to focus on a very particular type of descriptive writing The Prompt Creating a Character Your Readers Can “See” As you write about your character today, make sure he or she is three-dimensional. You don’t have to tell me how tall they are or whta they weigh, but paint a [...]
It is day 13 of StoryADay September and you have almost made it to the halfway point. How’s it going? What challenges are you encountering? What are you learning about your writing habits? Leave a comment, or get in on the discussion in the forums. Short stories can feature just one main character. You can [...]
I used to get hung up on The Big Idea: having something to say; writing a story that was somehow meaningful. It wasn’t until I tried to write a story a day for the first time, back in 2010, that I realized: the idea doesn’t come first. The idea (the theme) often doesn’t come until [...]
Today is the last day of StoryADay May 2012. I don’t know about you but I’ve had a blast – not just writing but meeting up with old friends and making new ones. And now the challenge is ending. So I decided to make the prompt celebrate both those things: Write a Story Featuring Your [...]
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 [...]
Step-by-step instructions on how to write every day, not "some day". Lessons, workbooks and timesheets included!
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