[Writing Prompt] Writing In Bits And Pieces

The last of the content-less prompts today!

Today I’m sticking with the theme of timed-writing but trying something a little different.

The Prompt

Pick Three Times Today When You Will Write Parts Of A Complete Story

Tips

  • Try to start earlyish in the day and write the opening of your story.
  • Pick a time a few hours later to write some more, and then again, later in the day to finish up.
  • Notice how easy or hard it was for you to get into the writing at different times of the day.
  • Think about professional writers on deadline, on book tours, who teach, who have ‘real jobs’. They have to find a way to write whether or not life is getting out of their way. Practicing squeezing a story into different parts of your day can be a useful skill.
  • Pay attention to whether or not one of the times of day worked best for you (tip: it might not. You might simply find you need to get the flow going, or that you’re ace at writing in fragments any time of the day. Be open to experimentation here).
  • Finish the story!

Go!

Don’t forget to comment here about your writing day or join The Victory Dance Group and let us know how you got on today.

[Writing Prompt] Elizabeth Spann Craig – The Unexpected Guest

[Here’s another scenario ripe with opportunities for character development, comedy, tragedy…in other words emotion — that thing that all readers are looking for! – JD]

The Prompt

Your protagonist opens the door and finds an unexpected guest–a friend from high school who hasn’t been heard from in many years.

This friend has fallen on hard times and wants to stay with your protagonist a few days. As your protagonist and friend sit in the kitchen, the friend reminisces about the old days…and stirs up trouble by recalling some unhappy teen moments, too.

How does your protagonist react and what are those good and bad times in the past? 


Elizabeth writes the Southern Quilting mysteries for Penguin/NAL, the Memphis Barbeque mysteries for Penguin/Berkley, and the Myrtle Clover series for Midnight Ink and independently. She blogs at ElizabethSpannCraig.com/blog, which was named by Writer’s Digest as one of the 101 Best Websites for Writers for 2010-2013.

[Reading Room] Sticks by George Saunders


I’m on a George Saunders kick.

I mean, when someone can write a story with fewer than 500 words that makes you actually say “oof” out loud at the end? You’re going to want to go on a kick, reading their work.

“Sticks” is a grown man’s reminiscence about his father. It begins,

Every year Thanksgiving night we flocked out behind Dad as he dragged the Santa suit to the road and draped it over a kind of crucifix he’d built out of a metal pole in the yard.

That use of the word ‘crucifix’ is key. Doesn’t that make you want to keep reading? You know there’s more to this than just a funny story about fatherly quirks.

The story is extremely well crafted. You get the sense that there must have many revisions, re-revisions, reversions and more revisions to make it this tight.

That’s only depressing if we think our job as writers is to get as many words out into the world as quickly as possible. If we believe that our job is to craft stories, and that rewriting is a crucial (and enjoyable) part of writing, then George Saunders is our new mentor.

Write the crappy first draft. Then spend as much time as you need to, reworking it until it is art.

How Do You Feel About Revisions?

[Writing Prompt] Set Aside An Hour

Today we’re going to try something new. I’m not assigning a word count, but rather a time limit.

The Prompt

Set aside a full hour to write a short story. Start and finish the story during that time.

Tips

  • Some people work really well with deadlines. Maybe this is yours.
  • Don’t panic if you can’t start writing at 00:01. Sketch out some ideas, try on a few characters. An hour is quite a long time if you focus on one moment, one instant (the perfect milieu for a short story). As long as you’re writing by 00:30, you’ll probably get a decent draft out of this exercise.
  • Pay attention to how you deal with the pressure of the hour finishing up. Is your story’s pacing clearly influenced by the deadline? (If it is, don’t worry, you can always clean things up in the rewrites).
  • Assess this exercise. Did you finish? Did you have to ‘cheat’ (i.e. write stuff like [put details in here], [move characters across town] etc.)?
  • Did the time limit work for you better than the word count as an exercise? Could this be something you use every day?

Go!

Don’t forget to comment about your writing day below or in The Victory Dance group.

Help! I Missed A Day. What Do I Do?

OK, so this is Day 5 of the challenge and if you haven’t missed a day yet, the chances are strong that you will. Soon.

So here’s my advice, based on five years of May challenges, a couple of StoryADay September challenges and the writing courses I run.

Let It Go
[1. Cue the sound of my two elementary school aged boys screaming “No! Enough with the Frozen!”]

Let the unwritten stories go and write again tomorrow.

Seriously. This is not so much about turning out 31 complete stories as leaning to turn up every day, even when you feel like a failure. I encourage people never to try to catch up with days they’ve missed. That creates far too much baggage. (You can always keep writing into June if you want your 31 stories!)

Watch And Learn

The other point of a challenge like this is to try to do more than you think you can do, and to watch where it is hardest and where/when it was most fluid. Then, when you go back to your normal writing schedule you will have all these experiences in your tool kit. You’ll know that Saturday is maybe not a day to expect to get much writing done. And you’ll know that 11-midnight is prime time. Or you’ll know that it’s easier to write when you have a plan (or not).

Don’t worry too much. Just keep turning up, keep breathing and keep watching all the ways your inner demon tries to sabotage your writing life. Say ‘Huh, that’s interesting, demon. Nice try, but I’m still turning up again tomorrow”.

If we are going to write for the rest of our lives (and lets face it, we are), all we can do is keep learning!

Adjust Your Rules

Back in 2012 (my third year) I decided I was no longer going to commit to writing on Sundays. I COULD, I just didn’t HAVE to.
Between running the site and having two small children and a husband that I quite like to spend time with, something had to give. Sundays were it, for me.

This is fine. If you decide not to write EVERY day in May that’s cool.

BUT do try to assess your progress on a week to week basis rather than waking up each day and thinking “I wonder if I should write today”. (You should).

Stop now and see how your first five days (which include a weekend) have gone. Decide what you’ll commit to for the next seven days.

Of course, I thoroughly encourage you to write an actual StoryADay unless the thought of it is making you truly miserable. If you’re miserable, change the rules. But keep writing.

So, how’s it going? What are you learning? What tips do you have?

[Guest Prompt] Angela Ackerman – Shame

The Prompt

Shame is a powerful emotion, and one of the most wounding experiences a character can face.

Write a story where your character does something that they feel shame for (maybe a failure, making a mistake [through one’s own carelessness or by accident] that hurts someone else, or letting someone down, poor treatment of someone, refusing to help, etc.) and how they redeem themselves in the aftermath.

Angela Ackerman is a writing coach and co-author of the #1 bestselling resource, The Emotion Thesaurus: A Writer’s Guide to Character Expression as well as the bestselling pair, The Positive Trait Thesaurus: A Writer’s Guide to Character Attributes and The Negative Trait Thesaurus: A Writer’s Guide to Character Flaws. When she isn’t teaching or building innovate tools for writers, she writes Middle Grade and Young Adult mysteries represented by the Jill Corcoran Literary Agency. You can find her at Writers Helping Writers, a hub for all things description.

[Writing Prompt] Twitter Fiction

OK, so that was a fairly large story you wrote yesterday and you’ve probably got some ‘life’ that you’ve been neglecting while you wrote. So today you’re getting a bit of a break.

(And remember, the prompts are always optional)

The Prompt

Write a story of no more than 140 characters

Tips

  • Bonus credit: post it on Twitter and follow up with a Tweet explaining to everyone that you’re taking part in StoryADay May and that they should really think about joining in, yes, even now, even though they’re late to the party. That’s when all the people who like to think they’re cool turn up anyway…
  • Remember that with a story this short, most of the story is untold, implied, imagined by the reader.
  • This story will not be quick simply because it is short
  • Use one of your favorite story sparks for this tiny story. Yes, I mean it. Use up a really good story idea on this. That way you’ll be forced to look around today, for more Story Sparks.
  • Are you starting to notice that, after five days of writing, you’re seeing Story Sparks all around you? Are you listening harder to what people tell you? Are you reading more carefully when you get the chance? Are you starting to do that wonderfully creative thing and see connections all over the place?
  • If you’re having second thoughts about writing (especially if you’re drawing from your real life) remember that you don’t have to show these stories to anyone. Even if you write a blistering portrait of your boss, no-one has to ever see it — especially not in the first draft. Worry about disguising your sources later, when we talk about revision next month!

Go!

Post about your writing day in the comments below or join the Victory Dance group in the community for more accountability.

[Writing Prompt] 2000 Words

It’s Sunday, but it’s no day of rest for we writers.

The Prompt

Write A Story of Around 2,000 Words

Tips

  • This is a common length for editors to request from new writers in fiction publications. It’s a length that allows you to display some style and character development, without getting too carried away and lost in the woods.
  • Remember that, even at this length, you’ve only got a maximum of around 1600 words to tell the actual story. Try to get to the first really interesting event by the time you’ve written 500 words.
  • At this length, it might be helpful to do some planning. Take your idea, think of a character and their defining characteristic, pop them into a setting and think about how you might give them some conflict (that relates to their character strengths/flaws).
  • You have room for some supporting characters at this length, but remember that word ‘supporting’. They are there to teach the reader something about the main character, not so much about themselves. This isn’t a novel, with subplots and fans who’ll create a wiki…

Post a comment below to let us know you’ve written today, or join the community and post in the Victory Dance Group, for extra support and accountability!

Don’t forget you could be receiving these prompts every day by email, if you’re not already. Sign up here.

[Guest Prompt] Heidi Durrow – Passions

[Ooo, I’m particularly excited about this one. This is a challenging prompt but one that should yield some great stories, since character and conflict are at the heart of the story – JD]

The Prompt

The Energy of Passions & Obsessions

You become what you think about all day long.
-Ralph Waldo Emerson

Passions and obsessions are great starting points for stories. So what if a character has a passion or obsession but the character has extreme difficulty fulfilling that dream. For example, a character could have an extreme passion with exotic birdwatching, but he can’t fulfill his greatest wish because he is a poor child living in a big city. What does the character do to fulfill his obsession? What happens to the character when he can’t? What does the fulfillment of the obsession or passion mean to the character?  


Heidi Durrow is the New York Times best-selling author of The Girl Who Fell From the Sky (Algonquin Books) which won the PEN/Bellwether Prize. She is the founder of the Mixed Remixed Festival, an annual film & book festival in Los Angeles.

[Guest Prompt] Mary Robinette Kowal

The Prompt

Work the words vermillion and musky somewhere in the next 250 words you write.

Mary Robinette Kowal is the author of the GLAMOURIST HISTORIES series of historical fantasy novels, and the 2011 Hugo Award-winning short story “For Want of a Nail.” Her short fiction appears in Clarkesworld, Cosmos and Asimov’s. Mary, a professional puppeteer, lives in Chicago. Visit her online at maryrobinettekowal.com.

[Writing Prompt] 640 Words

So how did you get on yesterday?

Did you write? Did you leave a comment on the blog post, or do your Victory Dance?

Hooray, you’ve made it to Saturday. I hope you’re one of those lucky people for whom Saturday means a break from the regular responsibilities of the week. But likely you’re not. So: tough. We’re writers and we write whether we’re on ‘vacation’ from real life or not 😉

Today we’re striking a happy medium between the lengths of story we’ve played with already.

The Prompt

Write A Story of 640 Words

Tips

  • This is about the length of a newspaper column (remember them?). Enough room to tell a story but not much room for florid language.
  • Pay attention as you write, to how long it’s taking you to write, on average. This will help you set realistic goals about how much time you really need to set aside to produce good creative work.
  • Pay attention to your writing style as you write today. Which length of story has felt more comfortable to you?
  • Make sure you finish all your stories this week. Even if you have to write “[FILL IN DETAILS HERE LATER]”, try to get to the end of the story every time. Have you been finishing your stories? What has this taught you about getting to the meat of the story quickly?

 

Go!

(And don’t forget to celebrate when you’re finished, by commenting below or doing your victory dance.)

[Guest Prompt] Therese Walsh – Magnetic Words


THERESE WALSH is the author of The Moon Sisters and the cofounder of Writer Unboxed. She lives in upstate New York with her husband and two children.

The Prompt

Imagine your protagonist has just opened a large magnetic poetry kit. Which words call to him/her? Will s/he put these words on the refrigerator in a random scattering or compose a sentence? Share your words and sentences here.

Tips

  • If you don’t have a magnetic poetry set (what?!) you can play online
  • You can write a whole story based on the words you select or you can show the scene where they select words.

GO!

[Writing Prompt] 100 Words

So how did you get on yesterday?

Did you write? Did you leave a comment on the blog post, or do your Victory Dance?

Whatever you  managed yesterday, congratulations and I’m glad you’re back for more!

Continuing the theme of ‘assuming you have more than one idea of a time’ this week, I’m giving you another length-based writing assignment.

The Prompt

Write A Drabble (A Story Of Exactly 100 Words)

Tips

  • Just because you’re limited to 100 words, don’t think this is going to be any less a creative exercise than any other story you write this month.
  • Allow as much time for this as you would for a longer story.
  • Don’t be surprised if you find yourself writing more and then paring the story back.
  • It’s very common to cut out lots of words from the start of short stories. Sometimes we have to write a lot to figure out where the story really starts. Don’t be afraid to ‘start late’.
  • You can’t explain much in a 100 word story. Allow the reader to fill in some blanks. Stories of this length are very much a collaboration between reader and writer.

Go!

[Writing Prompt] Guest Prompt from Neil Gaiman

The Ocean At The End of the Lane by Neil GaimanFortunately The Milk by Neil Gaiman
Welcome To StoryADay May 2014!

To kick off our 5th Year of writing a StoryADay in May, I have a special treat for you: a guest prompt from the fabulous Neil Gaiman.

On the day I contacted him he was, sadly for him, stuck in an airport. The prompt he suggested for us was pretty heartfelt:

The Prompt from Neil Gaiman

Getting Home

Tips

  • This is a wide-open prompt. You could use it to write tragedy, comedy, satire, slapstick, sci-fi, fantasy, realistic fiction….anything you want.
  • Think of a character desperate to get home. What is stopping them? What is their most basic reaction? (Frustration is a wonderful way to strip away a character’s layers and show us what they are like at their core. In Mr Gaiman’s case I would suggest that he is basically a generous and decent human being. Instead of responding to my request, he could just as easily have cursed, deleted my email and put me on a list of spammers… What will your character do?)
  • For the first day of StoryADay May I always suggest writing a really short story. It’s a great way to warm up, and it’s all too easy to get lost in the beginning of a story and find yourself heading into a 3,000 word behemoth. You’ll never be able to sustain that pace for the whole month, so start small. Start with a victory.
  • Aim to write no more than 1200 words. That gives you 300 words to establish the scene and your character, 700 words to make things happen, complicate things, create a crisis/climax, and 200 words to wrap it all up.

GO!

When you finish your story today, leave a comment below, or join the Victory Dance group in the community and share you thoughts about the first day, there. (Haven’t joined the community yet? Join here

Thanks again, Mr Gaiman. I hope you got home all right…

 

[Writing Prompt] 1200 Words

Welcome to StoryADay May.

It’s Day 1. You’re nervous, you’re excited, you’re full of ideas…(you are, aren’t you?), so I’m not going to tell you WHAT to write, only how much.

(And of course, you should remember that these prompts are entirely optional. If you want to write a 10,000 word novella today, you go right ahead. Just remember to save some juice for tomorrow!)

engine start by Norlando Pobre
photo used by permission of Norlando Pobre

The Prompt Continue reading “[Writing Prompt] 1200 Words”

Ready, Set…StoryADay May Is Almost Here!

It’s Almost Here! The 5th Annual StoryADay May starts tomorrow, with a writing prompt from award-winning novelist Neil Gaiman.

In the the last few hours before the challenge lots of people hear about it, lots of people sign up, and lots of people start giggling nervously and thinking “what have I done?”. Here are some reassuring words before we get started:

You can do this.

Nobody dies if you don’t write 31 fabulous stories next month.

(But really, you can do this.)

Now for some practical words on Writing During The Challenge and Planning Ahead (yes, even after May starts, you’ll still have planning to do).

Writing During The Challenge

Here’s some news and some answers to the most frequently asked questions by new recruits (welcome!):

  • Writing Prompts – I provide optional writing prompts every day. You can use them or ignore them, whatever suits your style. If you want to get emails every morning with that day’s writing prompt, make sure you are on this list.
  • Guest Prompts – On days when a celebrity guest provides a writing prompt, you’ll still see a prompt from me, too. You can write to either prompt (or none).
  • Who are the Guest Prompters? Guest writing prompt providers this year include: Neil Gaiman; Heidi Durrow; Therese Walsh; Mary Robinette Kowal; Debbie Ridpath Ohi; Angela Ackerman; Elizabeth S. Craig; Becca Puglisi (and possibly more as I check my inbox. These professional writer types, it turns out, are generous and supportive! We like them! Sadly, there’s no guarantee that any of them will have time to come and hang out and read our stories. They have their own writing to work on!)
  • Where do my stories go? If you want to post them on your own blog or Tumblr or whatever, you can share a link in the community (maybe in The Victory Dance) BEWARE: if you post a story online some people consider that ‘first publication’ and that piece may not be eligible for submission to certain markets or publications, even if you revise it substantially. If you think you’re going to want to use your StoryADay pieces for contests or other publications, you probably shouldn’t post them online. You can, however, post excerpts and invite fellow StoryADay folks to come and comment on them.

Have more questions? Check out the FAQ and resource sections.

Planning For The Month

Here are some tips from a veteran (me!) on how to get through this month of extreme creativity:

  • Pledge to collect Story Sparks every day, wherever you are (Story Sparks are not outlines, but rather things that pique your interest as you go through your day; things that make you go “Oo, I might be able to use that in a story!”)
    Even if you’re using my prompts, most of them are intentionally vague, allowing you to customize them to your own interests. Why not sit down today and write some lists: people who annoy you, things that scare you, places you wish you’d been, things you wish you were brave enough to try; memories that stick with you… Mine these for ideas.
  • Plan ahead — Use the Creative Challenge Workbook to work through where how and what you’re going to write this month. If you’re having trouble making time to write, consider picking up the Time To Write workshop.
    I strongly recommend that you spend some time thinking about what kinds of characters, settings or themes you might look at for the first few days. Having a list of ‘possible things to write about’ makes it much easier to get to work each day, than simply sitting down and waiting for inspiration to strike. Make an appointment with yourself (put it on your calendar!) to sit down each week of the challenge and brainstorm 7-10 Story Sparks that you might use.
  • Watch The New ‘How To’ Videos on how to navigate (and get the most out of) the StoryADay online community. There are some very lovely volunteers hanging out in the community who will help make you feel at home. I’ll be introducing them soon!
  • 2014stadabadge150x69bSpread The Word – The more people who take part, and the more people you tell about StoryADay, the more effective the peer pressure! Take some time today to post this image on your social media network of choice, and tell people you’re taking part in StoryADay. If you know anyone who’s always saying they wished they wrote more, challenge them to join you. Spread the word. Use #StoryADay. (And no, I don’t get rich if you do, it’s just that this is one of those times when the adage “the more the merrier” really does apply!)
  • Set Your Own Rules – you may know right now that you’re only going to be able write six days out of every seven…and that’s fine. Set your own rules now — just make sure they seem on the challenging side of ‘manageable’.
  • Eat well and get as much sleep and exercise as you can. It’s amazing what sleep, exercise and eating-your-veggies can do for the creative brain. (Your grandmother was right!)
  • Do a little warm-up writing today. Check out today’s writing prompt: Fear!

I’m SO glad you’re coming along on this crazy adventure. You’re going to be amazed at how much you write next month and how creatively free you become. Sure there will be bad days, but you’ll be immensely proud of yourself if you just keep turning up. And you will definitely write some stories that we can all be proud of!

Onward!

[Writing Prompt] Fear

Tomorrow it all begins. StoryADay May 2014. Are you nervous? I always am. (This is the fifth May since I launched the challenge!!)

The Prompt

Write A Story In Which Fear Is A Driving Factor For One Or More Character

Tips

  • Focus today on writing a quick, dirty first draft. You’re going to need that skill in the 31 days ahead.
  • Ask yourself who you’d be interested in writing about today. Pick a person, age, gender and defining characteristic (i.e. A beautiful actress; a harassed mother; an ambitious starship captain).
  • Ask yourself what that person wants from life and what they would be afraid of.
  • Consider what/who might get in this character’s way. What might frighten this secondary character? How does that affect his relationship/interactions with the protagonist?
  • Ask yourself what your protagonist needs to do to overcome his/his opponent’s fear. Will you let your protagonist succeed?
  • What happens if they give in to fear?
  • What do they feel as they try to overcome it?

GO!

Did you write today? Did you finish this story? Did any of your own fears creep into this story? Tell us in the comments, or join the discussion in the community.

[Writing Prompt] Naked!

Next Tuesday is Release Day for a new picture book illustrated by our friend, the lovely and talented Debbie Ridpath Ohi. The book is called “Naked!” and was written by Michael Ian Black. (The two previously collaborated on the hilarious “I’m Bored“.)

It’s such a good title, that we’re going to steal it today.

The Prompt

Tips

  • Use the term literally or figuratively to put your characters in an interesting/awkward/trying situation.
  • You can start the story with the moment of ‘being naked’ or you can end up there.
  • Consider the fact that physical nudity means different things in different cultures. Perhaps this is your chance to explore the naturist community or invent a futuristic colony in which clothes are considered vulgar.

GO!

How Naked! did you go? Leave a comment, below, about how you handled this prompt (or a link to your story online, if you posted it anywhere).

Big News and New Things

I have BIG NEWS.

Celebrity Guest Prompters

Firstly — and I have to put this first because otherwise my head will explode — our first Guest Prompter for the month of May is none other than rock star author NEIL GAIMAN!!!

He’s providing the writing prompt for May 1, so don’t be late! (You can sign up to getPrompts By Email, if you haven’t already).

There are lots of other published authors and writing teachers lined up to share writing prompts during this Fifth Anniversary StoryADay May, so don’t miss out.

A Month Of Prompts…Today!

 New this year, I’m offering you the chance to plan ahead, with the brand new Month Of Writing Prompts ebook for 2014!

The idea of sitting down to write a new story everyday, cold, is pretty terrifying. But it’s less terrifying with a bit of forward planning.

For the past few StoryADay challenges, participants have told me that it’s really useful to be able to peek ahead at the upcoming writing prompts. Last May and September I supplied a week’s worth of prompts at a time to people on thePrompt By Email list.

This time, however, you can get the whole month worth of prompts today. Use them this coming May, or at any time in future.

(If you don’t have a Kindle, you can get a free reading app for your favorite gadget, here. Also, the ebook will not have the celebrity guest prompts, only the 31 written by yours truly. You’ll have to come to the site for the guest prompts.)

To celebrate the launch of this new ebook, it’s going on sale today at $0.99. The price will  slowly creep back up to its list price of $6.99 by April 30, (this is an Amazon Countdown Deal, if you’re interested in that kind of thing), so get your copy sooner rather than later.

Are You Ready?

Now, before you let your nerves get the better of you, remember that YOU SET THE RULES for yourself. If you think five days a week, or one story a week is what you can manage, that’s fine. Come along for the ride anyway. Take advantage of the community (I’ll open up the site for new registrations on April 25. Mark your calendars!) and tell your friends, because peer pressure is a wonderful thing!

Don’t forget to grab your graphics to let people know you’re taking part and browse the resource section for inspiration.

Need to Warm Up?

If you’ve bought the Warm Up Course Home Study version before, now’s the time to dust off your copy. Or if you’d like your own copy, there is a 10-day accelerated version too, perfect for warming up before May 2014. I’ve opened a new group in the community for anyone who wants to go through the course now. Let me know if you need access and don’t have a username yet (julie@storyaday.org).

Here’s what the course does for you:

  • Start writing in small, manageable chunks that will boost your confidence,
  • Generate 45 Story Sparks that you can turn into short stories,
  • Learn to carve out time for your writing, and break through your fear and block, by writing straight away,

When the course is over you will have:

  • 10 completed stories,
  • More story ideas than you can use during the StoryADay challenge, so you never sit down to a blank page,
  • The confidence to know you can make writing an on-going part of your life,
  • Practice  and discovery of your best working habits.
Get access now

In the mean time, I apologize for the extreme fan-girling at the start of this email (but I’d do it again) and:
Keep writing,
Julie

Julie Duffy
P.S. Remember that all these tools (including the daily prompts) are optional. Access to the site and the community remain free, forever. StoryADay May exists to encourage you to give yourself permission to tell your stories!

[Reading Room] Victory Lap by George Saunders


OK, so everyone’s been raving about this collection, The Tenth of December by George Saunders.

I’m such a skeptic about hype that it was with some trepidation that I plunked down my money and opened the book.

But: wow. If the first story is anything to go on, this is going to be one fabulous collection.

Victory Lap is a supreme example of ‘show, don’t tell’. If you’ve ever wondered what that piece of well-worn advice means, run to your bookshelf and grab this (you probably bought it when people were first raving about it instead of,  like me, pretending to be too cool).

The story starts in the voice of a fourteen year old girl who is coming down the stairs in her house, consumed with her own, fourteen-year-old fantasies of herself: still childlike but on the verge of adult-issues. It so thoroughly captures the inner voice of a teenage girl that it is disorienting, but you adjust quite quickly.

Just as you’re getting comfortable with this voice, it switches into the head of the boy next door, who our hero has spotted through the window, just before the inciting incident of the story.

The boy next door is equally well-realized, equally complex and oh, so painfully awkward. Told only in his inner thoughts, the author builds up a picture of his home-life: the only child of extremely protective, ambitious and unbearable parents; a good boy whose parents are (perhaps unwittingly) perverting that goodness.

I defy you to read this story and not root for the two kids; not have your blood run cold at the thought of what might happen if things don’t go the way you fervently hope they will. Aargh!

 

Not only does Saunders get right inside the heads of these kids, he brings you along, shows so much without once ‘telling’, and makes you empathize to the point that you’re thinking dark thoughts about what you’ll do to the author if things don’t turn out ‘right’ (or was that just me?).

 

And that, my friends, is the mark of an excellent story: suck the reader in, make them care, don’t spoon feed them the details, make something happen; make it matter; raise the stakes; write an ending that forces the reader to go on thinking about the ramifications of the events in the story for your characters, long after they’ve finished the story.

Oh, and go and buy a copy of this collection if you haven’t already!

 

A Month Of Writing Prompts – The eBook!

writingprompts2014coverlarge

A Month Of Writing Prompts 2014


Writing a story a day for a month is a crazy endeavour, but one that hundreds of writers have signed up for every May since 2010. During month of courageous creativity, writers learn how to write every day (not ‘someday’), how to craft a story, how to write in different forms, how to fail and dust themselves off, and write again.
Are you ready to join them?
The StoryADay Month of Writing Prompts book shares the daily writing prompts for StoryADay May 2014: 31 writing prompts, meditations, lessons and pep talks to accompany on your journey to becoming a more prolific, creative and fulfilled writer.
Use these prompts during the StoryADay challenge, or any time you need a creativity boost.


[Write On Wednesday] Third Grade Word List

This week’s prompt: write a story based on a (surprisingly menacing) list of words from a Third Grade reader…

spooky shed image
“Waiting” by José María Pérez Nuñez

My third grader doesn’t bring home his reading book very often, so I don’t get to see the stories he’s working on. Each story, however, comes with a spelling list. That I DO see.

While going through the list of words with him, I got a bit bored while waiting for him to laboriously scribble them out three times each. I started doodling. And made up my own story based on the words he was learning to spell.

And now it’s your turn.

The Prompt

Write a story using the following words:

[Write On Wednesday] The Catalogue Of Disasters

Write A Story Featuring An Escalating Catalogue Of Disasters

As I woke up, I reached for my alarm clock and heard rather than felt my hand knock the full glass of water all over my bedside table – home to my iPhone, table and priceless childhood copy of A. A. Milne’s Now We Are Six. So it’s fair to say that I wasn’t in the best mood when my 8 year old declared that no, he simply wasn’t getting up or getting dressed or going to school. After that screaming match my head was pounding so I reached for some ibuprofen, only to scoop down my husband’s blood pressure medicine instead – damned blue-topped bottles! I figured I had time to drop the kids off at school before rushing myself to the ER, but of course, I had forgotten about the half inch of ice on my windscreen….

Ever had one of those days? How about your character?

The essence of story is conflict. Conflict doesn’t have to involve a bad guy. Sometimes the antagonist is simply your character’s bad mood, or the universe, or her lack of preparation.
domino

The Prompt

Write a story that features a character going through a catalogue of disasters

Tips

  • You can start this story at the beginning or the end. They can wake up and start the day off badly, ending up at the wrong end of a loaded gun; or you can start with them strapped into the electric chair, thinking ‘now, how did I get here?’
  • Likewise, the action can all by mental: you start by offending your cat and end by quitting your job in a blaze of glory, burning bridges as you go.
  • This story can be humorous or tragic, but make sure your readers are feeling what your character is feeling.
  • Keep piling on the disasters. Leave us breathless.
  • Give the reader occasional breaks by pausing for moments of backstory, if you like. See how that feels to you, as a writer. Does it cause the story to slow? Could you, instead, include backstory in conversations or pithy one-line asides.
  • Make this more immediate by writing in first person.
  • Or write this in close-third person (no-one else’s thoughts get used, but you’re still writing about your main character as ‘he’ or ‘she’). Remember not to use phrases like “she thought”, “she wondered”, “he looked”. Just tell us a thought. We’re smart enough to figure out that it’s your main character’s thoughts we’re hearing. (e.g. “Well, that wasn’t right” instead of “well, that wasn’t right, she thought”. Much more punch!)
  • Use this exercise to practice putting action into your stories. It doesn’t have to be ‘running from the law’ action. It can be all psychological (think: Jane Austen), but make sure you can have things happening in your writing at any time.

Go!

Photo: Barry Skeates

[Reading Room] Golden by James Scott Bell


Author James Scott Bell, as well as being a successful lawyer, novelist and writing coach, has been a good friend to StoryADay (giving us both an interview and a writing prompt for last year’s StoryADay May).

So of course, I wanted to like his new story, which veers from his usual style. No mysteries here, no fast-paced action, just the story of a guy dealing with the legacy of something in his past that he’s not proud of.

Writing (and publishing) this story was a big leap for Bell (as he explained when he announced it). he was nervous. It wasn’t like anything he’d ever written before and he was worried that he might fall flat on his face.

Don’t you feel like that, a lot of the time when you sit down to write? I know I do.

So I went into this story wanting to like it. but I wasn’t sure I was going to. I mean, what do I care about a middle-aged, middle-class divorced father on a playdate with his son?

Well, Bell quickly made me care. He does it by using all the craft available to him. Within the first paragraph I’ve learned a lot about the guy, his divorce, the ex-wife. Look how much information he packs into sentences 3 & $ of the story — and not just information, but attitude, character background, exposition, the whole shebang:

“Judy and I reached an amicable settlement on custody, mainly because I didn’t want to fight her anymore. Her family is well off and were not shy about retaining the biggest shark tank in L. A.”

The story is about more than just a bitter divorcé, though. Rather it is about a father reliving something that happened when he was a kid, a little older than his son.

One of the things I noticed about this story (and all of Bell’s writing) is the strength of the narrator’s voice when he’s writing in first person. It is always dipping with character, attitude and is firmly rooted in wherever the character is from (usually L. A.). In this story, even when he takes the character back in time to his teenage years, the voice is distinctive and unmistakably the voice of a teen,

“That’s what got him in bad with Robbie Winkleblack…”

“I ran away, too, but I wasn’t laughing. I was thinking it was all over for me now. I’d be kicked out of school, maybe thrown into juvie.”

How can you make readers care about your characters whether or not they think they are going to?

Read James Scott Bell’s article on why he wrote this and why short stories are so awesome

Best Of The Web for Short Story Writers April 2014

Writing by Night
Writing by Night by bluelectric, Creative Commons License

Every month or so I bring you my favorite links from around the web, that touch on creativity, productivity and writing (from the perspective of a short story writer. I tend to stay away from articles on novel structure, ‘getting an agent’ and other publishing-related questions. We’re here to write, right?)

Here are my favorites from my past month of studying this craft: Continue reading “Best Of The Web for Short Story Writers April 2014”