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!
This week all the prompts are going to focus on Character. Here’s the first:
REWRITE A CHARACTER FROM YOUR PAST
Pick a character, a real person, from your past. Put them into a story. Be as kind or as cruel as you like (you might want to change their name…)
Use a real character.
Go!
PICK A SONG TITLE AND USE IT AS YOUR STORY’S TITLE
Scan this page quickly and pick a title that leaps out at you. Browse around a bit if you need to but use the rule of three: if you haven’t found something on the third page, tough. You’re stuck with it. Pick one and write the story.
Use the title as the title of your story. (It can be very, very tenuously connected to your story.)
Steal someone else’s title for your story
Go!
STEAL A LINE FROM AN OVERHEARD CONVERSATION
Dialogue and story sparks are all around us. Today, listen for a line in a conversation (if you spend the whole day alone at home, turn on the TV or the radio for three minutes). Pick a phrase that you hear. Use the line somewhere in your story today.
This morning I overheard a woman say,
“Karen, have you been to the new Casino yet?”
I might write about the casino or about Karen, or about a coffee shop in a small town with a regular cast of visitors – one of whom is a street person on her regular round of public spaces.
What will your eavesdropping yield?
Go!
Get A Graphic Prompt From Flickr
They say a picture is worth a thousand words. Pah! I say pictures need us to tell their stories.
Flickr’s “Explore” page is a great place to find arresting images that suggest a scene or a character or a story. Click around, refresh the page, until you find an image that stops you in your tracks. Look at it for five minutes. If, at the end of that time, it hasn’t suggested at least one story or character you could love, move on to another image.
But you can only do this three times. The third time, if you still don’t love the image…tough! You’re stuck with it. Write your story using that picture anyway.
Go!
What would it be like to meet your hero?
Write a story where you main character gets to investigate the answer to that question. This can be as realistic or as “Twilight Zone” as you like.
What if you met your hero?
Go!