Day 22- If You Were Not You by Julie Duffy

Today’s prompt has us looking at character

The Prompt

Dig out your Short Story Framework again, and this time let’s plan a story that features a character who might be you, but very much isn’t. Let them react in ways you never would, never could, to whatever obstacles you throw at them.

  • When trying to get inside the head of this person, it can be useful to think of someone you actually know who is very different from you. Think of someone who does things that you would never do, that you despise, or that you secretly admire. Start with their external actions (what do they do when someone cuts them off in traffic that is so different from what you do, for example.) Backtracked from there to try to figure out what is going on in their head and their heart in that moment.
  • Put this character in a situation where there is conflict or stress and where their reactions are going to be really different from how you would react. Write the reactions, and as you’re doing so, unpack the story behind this person.
  • Don’t worry about trying to have a clever plot in this story. It can be something as simple as: this person gets cut off in traffic and how they react. The point of this exercise is to investigate the psyche of somebody very different from you. There’s a danger in always writing characters that are too sympathetic or similar to yourself.
  • Writing about somebody you dislike or someone unlike you can be very difficult. To make them more sympathetic, give them something there really, really good at. They might be charismatic. They might be really good engineering. But everyone has some areas where they are competent even if they are incompetent in every other sphere that matters to you!
  • This is not an exercise in writing a villain. This is an exercise in writing someone very different from yourself. It could be someone you admire.

Julie Duffy

Julie is the creator of StoryADay May. She created the challenge in 2010 when she realized she was spending so much time daydreaming about ways she could have lived different lives that she might as well write some of them down as stories!

Join the discussion: what will you do with today’s prompt OR how did it go? Need support? Post here!

22

Here’s your next Game Piece. save the image and share on social media with #storyaday

Prefer paper crafts? Here’s the cut & paste version

7 Things I Learned While Writing A StoryADay in May 2023

In which Julie has opinions about someone else’s (terrible) opinions…

In part 1 of this 2-part podcast, I talk about the first 5 things I learned while writing a lot during a busy month!

LINKS:

3-Day Challenge

Transcript is here

Video Version

Support the podcast

And finally a remainder that know you can support this podcast, if you would like to, which some people have asked me about and to do that, you go to glow.fm/storyaday, and you can make a one-time or recurring donation to keep the show going. And I really appreciate your support. That’s it from me this week. Happy writing. And I’ll see you again soon.

Transcript available here

StoryADay Update Week 3, 2023

In which Julie updates you on her (imperfect) progress this May

In which I talk about perseverance during the StoryADay May Challenge

Video Version

Support the podcast

And finally a remainder that know you can support this podcast, if you would like to, which some people have asked me about and to do that, you go to glow.fm/storyaday, and you can make a one-time or recurring donation to keep the show going. And I really appreciate your support. That’s it from me this week. Happy writing. And I’ll see you again soon.

Transcript available here

Day 20 – Make it Flash by Julie Duffy

A moment of clarity, from Julie Duffy

The Prompt

Write a Flash Fiction story in 500 words, inspired by a vivid, or transformative, or reflective moment (like the one in the photo).

Tips

  • Have as vivid a moment as you can in mind as you start your story.
  • If you use this picture, brainstorm what happened in the moments before the the shutter clicked. Where are they going? Where have they been? What’s causing that facial expression? Is it sincere? Who’s taking the picture?
  • What happens the moment after the photo? Who cares about that? (Whose story is this?)
  • Whose voice will you tell it in? The photographer, writing it up later for the notes for his exhibition? The subject (first person, present tense? Told from the future). Some omniscient narrator? Will they be trustworthy or untrustworthy?
  • If you’re stuck on how to write a flash fiction story, listen to the episode of the StoryADay podcast with Windy Lynn Harris, where she shares 7 ways to approach flash.
  • If you’re not sure what makes a short story flash, check out these StoryADay Flash Fiction Essentials

If you share you story somewhere (and here’s why you might not want to) post a link here so we can come and read it.

Leave a comment to let us know what you wrote about today, and how it went!

Julie Duffy

Julie Duffy has always been verbose (something she often got in trouble for at school) which might explain why she is such a fan of the puzzle that is short fiction.

Join the discussion: what will you do with today’s prompt OR how did it go? Need support? Post here!

20

Here’s your next Game Piece. save the image and share on social media with #storyaday

Prefer paper crafts? Here’s the cut & paste version

Day 16 – Very Short Story by Julie Duffy

Write a story using this helpful prompt from Julie Duffy

The Prompt

Tell a story in 50 words

Imagine someone has taken away something your character cares about deeply, to the point where their focus on its absence feels obsessive.

Tell us that story in 50 words

Tips:

Think through everything that would matter to your character, then distill, reduce, concentrate all that you would like to communicate to the reader.

How little can you say and still have character, tension, change, imagery?

You could write about the moment when it’s just a threat to take the “something” away. How hard will they fight to keep it?

The “something” could be a physical object, a person, a right, or an anticipated reward…

Remember: the reader doesn’t have to understand it on first reading.

You should feel free to use your title to tell us a lot.

Julie Duffy

Julie Duffy is the founder and host of StoryADay, its challenges, community and podcast. For more prompts and deeper writing lessons weekly, throughout the year, subscribe to the StoryAWeek newsletter

Join the discussion: what will you do with today’s prompt OR how did it go? Need support? Post here!

16

Here’s your next Game Piece. save the image and share on social media with #storyaday


Prefer paper crafts? Here’s the cut & paste version

Don’t Be Afraid of #OwnVoices

In which Julie has opinions about someone else’s (terrible) opinions…

On May 12, 2023 Kathleen Porter published an opinion piece entitled “Limiting What Novelists Can Write is Bad For Readers.”

I think she almost entirely missed the point of the diversity movement and I am…irritated. Please join me for a walk through some terrible opinions and what YOU can do, as a sensitive, thoughtful writer, to avoid this kind of knee-jerk reaction and keep writing.

Video Version

Support the podcast

And finally a remainder that know you can support this podcast, if you would like to, which some people have asked me about and to do that, you go to glow.fm/storyaday, and you can make a one-time or recurring donation to keep the show going. And I really appreciate your support. That’s it from me this week. Happy writing. And I’ll see you again soon.

Transcript available here