[Writing Prompt] Guest Prompt from Phil Giunta

Today’s guest prompter is novelist Phil Giunta. Thanks, Phil!

The Prompt

Natalie arrives home from work and is perplexed that her dog is not there to greet her as usual.  In fact, he is nowhere to be seen or heard.  Even more disturbing is the semi-automatic pistol sitting on her coffee table and the sound of running water from the kitchen.

Tips

  • Natalie could live in a city, suburb, or rural area. House or apartment. Single or married.
  • It also doesn’t matter what type of dog she has.
  • I did not indicate whether the gun belongs to her or not.  Perhaps it’s normally hidden away.  How did it get onto her coffee table?  If the gun is not hers, then to whom does it belong?

 

Phil Giunta’s first novel, a paranormal mystery called Testing the Prisoner, debuted in March 2010 from Firebringer Press. His second novel in the same genre, By Your Side, was released in March 2013.
His short story work includes “There Be In Dreams No War” and “Root for the Undergods” featured in the anthologies ReDeus: Divine Tales and ReDeus: Beyond Borders from Crazy 8 Press.
Phil is currently editing a short story collection titled Somewhere in the Middle of Eternity for Firebringer Press and working on the paranormal thriller novella, Lineage. He is the narrator of an audio version of Testing the Prisoner, which can be heard for free at Podiobooks.com. The audio version of By Your Side is forthcoming on the Prometheus Radio Theatre feed: http://prometheus.libsynpro.com. Visit Phil’s website at http://www.philgiunta.com.

[Writing Prompt] Guest Prompt from Gregory Frost

Continuing our Guest Prompt week, today’s prompt comes from novelist and teacher Gregory Frost. Thanks, Greg!

The Prompt

Unusual Ways of Seeing

Imagine a person with a very idiosyncratic way of seeing the world (for example, a low-end drug dealer who’s perpetually paranoid because he’s sure everyone wants to steal his stuð; or an accountant for whom everything is numerical and anally precise)—anyone who, because of mental challenges, profession, or self-medicated state, negotiates the world in a distinctly peculiar, complicated, or unhinged way.

For this prompt, have your character witness a traumatic event that does not directly involve him or her (a traffic accident, a robbery, an explosion, etc.).

Narrate the event from this character’s first-person POV, incorporating the idiosyncrasies of this invented personality.

If you need examples from literature, look at George Saunders’ “Tenth of December” which includes both the portrait of a deteriorating mentality and the interiority of a child’s imaginings, or Jonathan Nolan’s “Memento Mori,” or Donald Barthelme’s “Game.”

Tips

  • The narrative should be focused upon the observed event, whatever it is.
  • The background/ biographical elements of this individual should be limited, which is to say implied rather than presented outright in the core of things. You know who they are. Get that across to us without resorting to our narrator saying something like “I’m a junkie.”
  • The details presented about the event–especially how they’re presented–should suggest everything about our narrator.

 

Gregory Frost’s YA-crossover SHADOWBRIDGE duology (Shadowbridge & Lord Tophet) from Del Rey (Random House) was a finalist for the 2009 James Tiptree Award and named one of the year’s four best fantasy novels by the American Library Association.  His Nebula-nominated science fiction novel, THE PURE COLD LIGHT is now available in ebook formats from Book View Cafe (as is his first novel, LYREC)

 For more:
Facebook: gregory.frost1

[Writing Prompt] Guest Prompt from James Scott Bell

Today’s prompt is from best-selling novelist and popular writing teacher James Scott Bell. Thanks, Jim

The Prompt from JSB

Write about your antagonist’s life at the age of sixteen. What were the events that shaped this character back then, and still haunt today?

James Scott Bell is a best-selling author of books for writers and thrillers like Deceived, Try Dying, Watch Your Back, and One More Lie (International Thriller Writers Award finalist).  He writes frequently for Writer’s Digest magazine and blogs every Sunday at The Kill Zone. You can find some of his books for authors here.

Tips from Julie

  • Choose the antagonist/villain of a previous story.
  • Or choose the antagonist of a work-in-progress or the novel you’ve been planning to write but can’t get a handle on.
  • Remember that an antagonist isn’t necessarily the villain — just the character that gets in the way of your hero’s dream

Go!

[Writing Prompt] Guest Prompt from Simon Kewin

To engage your readers and hook them in from the first line, it’s a great idea to start in medias res, which means into the middle of things. So…

Kicking off the next few days’ Guest Prompters is StoryADay past participant Simon Kewin, who provided this great prompt. Thanks, Simon!

To engage your readers and hook them in from the first line, it’s a great idea to start in medias res, which means into the middle of things. So, instead of opening with long descriptions of background and prior events, jump straight into the action. This is immediately more engaging for the reader. The trick for the writer is then to drip-feed into the narrative information about prior situations the reader needs without it becoming too intrusive and, well, boring.

The following prompts are opening lines of stories that start in medias res. See where they – or something like them – lead you…

  • Nate plummetted to the ground, screaming Kate’s name as he fell.
  • Amanda Frobisher stood in front of the entire school, only to find no words would come out of her mouth.
  • Jamie stood in the wreckage of his ransacked house, trying to take it all in.
  • Max had one bullet left. He had to make it count.
  • “So, will you marry me or not?”

 

Simon is a UK writer and a previous StoryADayMay participant. He has two novels appearing this years: Engn, to be published by December House in July and Hedge Witch, to be published by Morrigan Books on Hallowe’en. He can be found at http://simonkewin.co.uk

[Writing Prompt] Copycat Story

Today’s prompt is adapted from one of the most popular segments of the Warm Up Writing Course that I run here as an online course (and a home-study version).

The Prompt

Write A Copycat Story, based on one of your favorite short stories by another writer

Tips

  • Take a story by a writer you really, really admire — preferably a short short story that won’t take for ever to reproduce. Analyze it in minute detail: from word choice to sentence length. Now, choose a different setting and different characters with different dreams from that of the originals, and write a copycat story, following the exact structure and tone of the original.
  • During the Renaissance — the great flowering of European art and culture during the 16th and 17th centuries — great artists and artisans enrolled apprentices to train with them. The apprentices learned the principles of their craft not by creating their own unique works but by painstakingly copying the works and style of their masters. Why shouldn’t we try the same thing?
  • Don’t attempt to get any of our trainee copycat work published. That’s a plagiarism scandal just waiting to erupt!.

 

(If you want more details about this, and examples to follow, try the Warm Up Writing Course (home study version), the work-at-your-own pace version of the popular online course I run periodically here at the site.)

 

Go!

[Writing Prompt] Search The Markets

This prompt had a brief, premature debut last week. If you used it then, why not travel back and use one of these prompts from last week, today? Also, use some time today to pick a short story that you will use to guide your writing tomorrow. Pick one you really love. Need recommendations?

Maybe I crave approval or something, but I have always found that the prospect of being judged by someone else helps focus my mind.

Writing for publication is not something I usually suggest during StoryADay May. Worrying about whether or not a story will be published before you’ve even written it is a bit ‘cart before the horse’. However sometimes the thought of a competition deadline or submission to a themed anthology can provide a bit of inspiration and a dose of motivation that might otherwise be missing.

The Prompt

Write a story that fits the guidelines of a particular market, themed anthology or competition.

Tips

  • You don’t actually have to submit if the story doesn’t work out.
  • Choose a venue with a deadline date far enough away that you can revise this story after StoryADay May is over.
  • Resist the temptation to write the obvious story suggested by the theme, prompt or guidelines. Dig a little deeper until you find something you’re really passionate about.
  • Write your first draft with abandon, forgetting that you’re even thinking about submitting it anywhere.
  • Make a note in your calendar to look at it again some time in early June.

If you need a resource for finding contests and deadlines, you could do a lot worse than Duotrope.com . The full listings require an annual membership but it is a fabulous resource.
You can also try WritersMarket.com or pop down to your local library and look for the print edition of that tome if you’re saving your pennies or don’t think you’ll get the value from a subscription to Duotrope.com or WritersMarket.com.

Half Way Through StoryADay May – Check In

We are officially half way through StoryADay May 2013.

Just think, if you write a story today, you’re over half way there!

Some Reminders

It’s Not Too Late | Courses & Books To Help | Prompt Preview Exclusives |

It’s Not Too Late To Start

OK, you meant to start writing at the beginning of May but you didn’t quite get there. Or maybe you started on May 1 and fell off the wagon at the first bump.

It’s not too late. Really, it’s not.

Just start writing today. Forget about the past, don’t worry about the future. Write a story today. Even if that’s all you do, you’ll still be one story ahead of where you are now. That’s one more story you can revise, and submit, or just point to and say “I did that”.

Then, if you want to, come to the site and brag — you can post an “I did it!” on each day’s writing prompt blog post, or you can register for the community and brag in The Victory Dance group.

Trust me, if you write something — anything — today, you will feel sooooo good.

Courses And Workbooks That Can Help

I have workbooks and courses and videos available to help you get over the hump, out of a slump, or whatever else you need (that ends in ‘ump’).

All are available instantly online. Check them out.

The 3-Day Challenge

Warm Up Writing Course (Home Study Version) – Now the I WRITER Course
Time To Write Workshop (included in the I, WRITER Course)
StoryADay.org Guide To Breaking Writers’ Block (Kindle edition, but you can download Kindle software for your computer/phone/tablet if you don’t have the gadget itself)
The Free Creative Challenge Workbook — don’t forget, if you went through this before the challenge started, go back now and look at your notes. Remember why you’re doing this, what it means to you and where you planned to find ideas (and time).

New Feature – Prompt Previews

Every year I provide writing prompts for the challenge. You can find them on the site or subscribe to receive them by email (they go out everyday at midnight in my time zone (GMT -5) for the next day’s writing).

This year I’ve introduced a popular new feature: The Prompt Preview.

If you subscribe to the Prompt By Email mailing list you get a sneak peek at the next week’s upcoming prompts, each Saturday. This seems to be helping people come up with Story Sparks in advance. No more panicking about what today’s story is going to be!

There are still two Saturdays left in this year’s challenge, so sign up now if you haven’t already.

And remember, the prompts are optional. You can use today’s, use another prompt from the past, or write your own story entirely.

I think that’s it for today.  Now excuse me, I have a story to write. Don’t you?

Keep writing,

Julie

[Writing Prompt] Future (Im)Perfect

I get mad sometimes. I mean, properly fuming about things. I won’t tell you which things, because that doesn’t matter, but I’m betting you do too.

Neighbors’ dogs barking too much? People in the street being inconsiderate? Politicians doing nothing (or the wrong thing) about an issue you care about?

Take that energy and use it in a story.

The Prompt

Mentally travel ten years into the future. What if [a hot-button issue for you really care about] has come to pass/been squelched. What does that mean for everyday life? What will your hero face/do about it?

Tips

  • Use an issue you really, really get annoyed about.
  • Promise yourself you won’t post/publish this anywhere if the idea of being ‘outed’ on this issue makes you uncomfortable.
  • You don’t need to set the whole story in the future. You can set it in the past or in an altered present where this issue is different (examples: what if gun laws had been radically changed ten years ago? What if catastrophic climate change was already being played out in a way that no-one could ignore? What if, ten years ago, your government had decreed girls could no longer go to school? What if aliens had arrived a decade ago and imposed world peace?)
  • You can go all dystopian as Margaret Atwood did in “The Handmaid’s Tale” or positive as in the Star Trek universe created by Gene Rodenberry.
  • You can use satire if you don’t want to go too dark, but still get enraged on an issue. See: Terry Pratchett, Jonathan Swift, South Park…
  • It doesn’t need to be a ‘world’ issue. If it really is ‘dogs barking incessantly’, just channel your rage about that and set a protagonist loose on the problem. Go where ever your story takes you. Then go a little further.

 

Go!

[Writing Prompt] Entitlement

Simple prompt today from a song title:

The Prompt

Write a story prompted by the song title Beyond The Blue Horizon

Tips

  • This song was written in the golden age of the popular song, by Leo Robin, W. Franke Harling and Richard A. Whiting. If you want to write a 1940s period piece have a listen to this very evocative clip, for inspiration.
  • You could use the full lyrics for inspiration or
  • Ignore the ‘prior art’ and simply let the title take you off in any direction.

Go!

[Writing Prompt] Your Opening Is…

Simple task today (ha!):

The Prompt

Write a story that opens, “On the edge of the mountain, silhouetted against the setting sun, there is a small ramshackle cottage made of wood.”

Tips

  • This sounds, at first blush, as if it has to be set in a fantasy or fairy-tale world, but I bet you can turn it around to fit the setting you’re most comfortable with
  • Prompts like this can be really effective because of the constraints they place on us; constraints that force us to reject the first idea we have and go digging for something better, twistier, more ‘me’.
  • If you really want to, you can dismiss this pretty quickly with comic effect (“but that’s part of a different story”) or you could refer to it but move your characters away to the city (or space) if that’s more to your taste.
  • Or you can write a story that fits this opening line perfectly. And I am still willing to bet money that no two stories written from this prompt will sound alike.
  • In case you haven’t guessed yet, this is an exercise in proving to you that your writing voice is unique and even writing to a shared prompt, you needn’t worry too much about trying to write something original. Write from your heart, your experiences, your truth and your concerns, and you can’t help but be original.

      • Go!

[Writing Prompt] Write Sam’s Story

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. Sam has been offered a dream position — or at least a position that would have been a dream if it had been dangled out there two years ago. But lately, Sam has been beginning to understand that there’s more to life than ambition, career, advancement, the trappings of success. Oh let’s be honest: it’s been coming on ever since last summer. If the only constant is change, Sam thinks, I’m a walking illustration.
Write Sam’s story.

Tips

  • In case you hadn’t noticed, I was very careful to use no pronouns in that blurb about Sam. Sam can be male or female, at your whim.
  • Will you explain what happened “last summer” or keep it mysterious? If you do explain it, will your story start there? End there? Mention it as a big reveal at the climax?
  • What will Sam choose? Just because we’re tapped on the shoulder by our better angels, doesn’t mean we always make the right choice. But then again, sometimes we do. What will YOUR Sam do?

Go!

[Writing Prompt] Set At A Wedding

This week I’m giving you some more traditional prompts, where one element of your story is dictated by me. (Oh, the power!)

The Prompt

Write A Story Set At A Wedding

Tips

  • The conflict in this story can be micro-scale (a guest reflecting on a deeply personal challenge, brought into the light by this landmark occasion) or dramatic (a headline-worthy bust-up, with generations of family tension erupting in a hot, molten mess).
  • Weddings are often the scene of comic stories because of the solemnity inherent in the occasion. But I was at a super-fun wedding recently. A story set at that wedding would lend itself to a solemn moment as an abrupt change of pace.
  • You can say a lot about your characters without beating the reader over the head with it, by describing which traditions your wedding principals and guests choose to honor (or flout). You can get rich cultural mileage out of this setting.
  • You can choose another culturally significant/religious event to write about if weddings really aren’t doing it for you.

Go!

[Writing Prompt] Epistolary Stories

This is one of my favorite forms of writing and I don’t know why I don’t do it more:

The Prompt

Write a story in the form of letters, journal entries, blog posts, tweets or other epistle.

Tips

  • This used to seem like a bit of an old-fashioned story form now that we no longer have five-times-a-day letter delivery (as in Jane Austen’s day) but with all of our new ways of communicating in the written word it is ripe for a reboot.
  • You should feel free to use old-fashioned letters, but consider using other communication vehicles.
  • Remember that all the information must come in the form of communications from one person at a time. No dialogue attribution, no speculation by a narrator. This is essentially a First-Person format, but you can have more than one person talking, in turn.

Go!

[Writing Prompt] Third Person, Omniscsient

The Prompt

Write a story in the Third Person, Omniscient style

Tips

  • Think of a Dickens novel if you’re struggling to zone in one this style. The narrator of your story can know everything about everyone, and even interject with thoughts and judgements.

    • It is perfectly fine to ‘head hop’ in this style: i. e. follow the thoughts of one character in one scene and another in the next. In a short story you probably don’t want to do too much of this, but why not try it a little?

[Writing Prompt] Third Person, Limited

So did you all have fun with Second Person yesterday?

Today we’re focusing on a perspective that you’ve likely had more practice with.

The Prompt

Write a story in the Third Person, Limited POV

Tips

  • Remember that in Third Person, Limited, you are writing in the ‘he said, she said’ format.
  • You can go inside a character’s head and have them look at the world but you must only ever go inside one character’s head.
  • This is a familiar style from those bubble-gum pink chick-lit books of the 1990 or many third-person mystery series.

    Go!

[Writing Prompt] Second Person Savvy

Second person. Sounds scary. How can you possibly manage to write a story in the second person without sounding as if you’re writing the text for a Dungeon’s & Dragons campaign[1. Not that there’s anything wrong with that…] or a Choose Your Own Adventure?

Well, mainly by being aware that you shouldn’t. Remember that and you should be fine 😉

The Prompt

Write A Story In The Second Person

But in all seriousness, I think this is quite a natural way to write if you focus on the voice. Maybe it’s because I’m Scottish, but I think we talk this way quite a lot when relaying experiences to our friends (“You know that way when you’re running late and the cat throws up in the doorway and for some reason your keys are not on the hook by the door but instead in the bread bin? That’s the day a whacking great truck pulls out in front of you and drives at four miles an hour and just as you’re thinking ‘hey, that latch looks a bit loose’, he slams on the breaks and sheds a full load of packing peanuts all over you and your car and the road ahead of you.”).

Tips

  • If you need an example, take a look at the opening page of Bright Lights, Big City, by Jay McInerney.
  • Remember that second voice pulls your reader directly into the story. It’s a great way to create a visceral reaction in the reader. Why not make it exciting, thrilling?
  • Keep the story short if you’re not confident in this form
  • Allow the story to suck if you have to, but finish it and ask yourself what you’ve learned. File this away and try it again some time soon.

Go!

[Writing Prompt] First Person Story

For the next few days we’re going to be concentrating on point of view. Sometimes it’s tempting to write all our stories in the same kind of voice. Not this week. I’m going to give you a real work out and take you through many different types of voice and story.

Ready? Let’s get started.

The Prompt

Write A Story Using The First Person Voice

Tips

  • The whole thing should be told in the “I” voice.
  • It should, for preference, be a story about something that happened/is happening to the person telling the story.
  • When writing in the first person you can never allow your narrative to stray inside another character’s head. The “I” character can speculate about what other people are thinking, but everything must come from their perspective.
  • If you fancy it, try writing the same story over the next few days, but each day from a different perspective.

Go!

[Writing Prompt] Location Location Location

In this age of Google Maps and Street view and everyone-documenting-everything, there is no reason not to set your story in a ‘foreign’ location and still get the details right.

The Prompt

Write a story in a place you’ve never actually been to.

Tips

  • Use a search engine to find out a few important facts about the place.
  • Use Google Street View to take a look at the place (if your story is taking place in a diner in North-East Philadelphia, hope on Google maps and find out exactly what your heroine sees as she’s looking out of the window, waiting to say that thing she wants to say).
  • Find a blog or informal tourist account of the location and gather some off-the-beaten-track details.
  • Don’t spend all day doing these things. Just find one or two really colorful details that will help ground your story in the location. Make your characters from somewhere else if you’re not confident of capturing local speech patterns.
  • If you don’t write realistic fiction, find somewhere to act as a model for your extra-terrestrial setting. Use a detail or two (like the architecture of the TRW ‘Space Park’ in Redondo Beach, California; used in a Star Trek episode in 1967; or England’s Home Counties as Tolkein’s Middle Earth).

[Writing Prompt] Front Page of Wikipedia

Quickly scan the “In The News” and “On This Day…” sections, or even the Featured Article. If something catches your eye, use it as the spark for today’s story.

The Prompt

Grab a story spark from the front page of Wikipedia

Tips

  • Don’t spend more than 5 minutes trying to find a story that sparks your interest
  • Don’t pick something that requires lots of specialist knowledge unless you a, work in the field or b, are comfortable blagging.
  • Try to concentrate on the characters and their reactions more than the facts. This might be inspired by an encyclopedia entry, but you shouldn’t sound like you’re writing one!

To see how some of last year’s participants used this prompt, check out the comments on this post.

Go!

[Writing Prompt] From Beyond The Grave

OK, this prompt is not as spooky as the title might lead you to believe.

Since we’ve started talking about ‘character’, let’s stay there for a while.

It can be hard to come up with a fascinating character for each new story. Yes, you can certainly use recurring characters, but what about when you get bored and need a change? You’ve raided your memories, you’ve looked at pictures for inspiration, but what to do on a day when you’re truly stuck?

The Prompt

Write A Story Based On An Obituary

Say what?!

Seriously, obituaries are like little potted character studies. Read them carefully and you’ll find stories there you never would have thought of: the little old lady in the nursing home who was actually a counter-espionage agent during WWII; the mother of four who loved to race go-karts; the business leader who quietly spent his retirement raising prize-winning orchids.

Characters, every one!

And if you feel strange ripping off someone else’s life story, try to see it as a celebration of their life instead. Change the names, change the details, but the story you write that was inspired by the obituary will remain a tribute to the unique human being you read about.

Where To Find Obituaries

  • Obituaries.com
  • Your local newspaper’s website

Tips

  • Reading about the great and good can be interesting, but paging down to the unsung, everyday people can be where you find the most unexpected and fruitful material.
  • Seize on that one detail about a person that makes them seem real to you.
  • What made them do the things they did?
  • What stories lie behind their passions?
  • What moment led them to that one fascinating detail in their obituary. Wind back the clock and show us the moment when it all started.
  • Try not to read more than five profiles before choosing one to write about. You could easily lose your whole day looking for the perfect character (or simply reading about people’s lives). Pick the first person who has a detail that makes you go “huh!”

[Writing Prompt] Character Is Important, in Fiction Writing

As I pointed out yesterday, story can be all about character.

Sometimes the idea of plot can trip us up (“How do I make it interesting? What should I make *happen*?”). But the truth is, write an interesting character, give them some need, put an obstacle in their way, and you need never worry about ‘plot’.

The Prompt

Think of a fascinating character from your life (past or present). Think about what they wanted on a particular day. Write that story.

Tips

  • Short stories are about a moment in time, when something changes in a character’s life. What one thing tips the balance for your character today?
  • The change doesn’t need to be life-shattering. Sometimes small changes in perspective have a huge impact on the rest of someone’s life.
  • For examples of what I’m talking about think of episodic TV. Not every episode deals with the overall arc of the season. Sometimes it’s just a fun story about a day in the life of one of the characters. Maybe Data is trying to learn to sneeze and discovers some truths about life as an android. Perhaps someone goes on a really bad date and discovers that what he really needs right now is to stop dating for a while and hang out with friends.

If you want to read more like this, let me send future articles straight to your inbox:

[Writing Prompt] A Picture’s Worth A Thousand Words

…but sometimes so are a thousand words!

The Prompt

Go to the Flickr Explore page and pick the first photo that catches your eye.

Stare at it for five minutes or so and write a story inspired by it.

Tips

  • Pick the most visually arresting picture, the one that interests you immediately.
  • It might not be obvious what the story is going to be.
  • This will probably make the story better.
  • Don’t waste any time writing backstory. Think hard then start when something is happening or about to.
  • Remember that stories are all about character. What does your character want? What is getting in her way?

Remember to post in The Victory Dance when you’ve finished your story today. You’ll get congratulations and inspire everyone else to finish their stories.

(You don’t have to post your story anywhere, just let us know you have written today)

Site Maintenance

Doing a little fiddling around behind the scenes in hopes of fixing the forum problems.

I know, I know, this should have been done last month, but it was working fine for previous users and…excuses, excuses.

Hopefully things will be back up shortly. Go and write a story instead 😉

[Writing Prompt] Let’s Get Started!

Welcome to StoryADay May 2013!!

Well done you, for deciding to take on this challenge. Check out the community and all the support you can find in there. But first, let’s get started!

The Prompt

Write A 100 Word Story (“Drabble”)

I’m starting the challenge with a Drabble because although a 100 word story will probably take longer than you expect, it’s still going to take a manageable amount of time.

Many people who sign up for StoryADay are looking for a creativity boost. Plunging into a 3,000 word story on the first day is a bit intimidating.

Tips

To make a drabble work,

  • Choose one or two characters
  • Take one single moment/action/choice and show us how it unfolds
  • Give us one or two vibrant details in as few words as possible
  • Show us (hint) how this moment/action/choice is more significant than the characters probably realize in the moment

[Writing Prompt] Game-ify

I love stealing inspiration from other sources.

The Prompt

Write A Story Based On A Character or Scenario From A Game

Tips

  • This could be a scenario from a video game or a board game (what if you WERE Mario — or met him on the road? What if you were Miss Scarlet. Were you framed?)
  • What if you really were living on a farm, trying to meet all its demands, like Farmville?
    What if you were a character in a Sims-like game and gradually started to realize that was the case?
  • Think of any game you’ve ever played and use it as a jumping-off point for a story.
  • If you think you might publish the story, be sure not to step on anyone else’s copyright (you could use a different “colored” character from a mystery board game that was definitely not Clue/Cluedo)

Best of the Web for Short Story Writers April 21 2013

Jane Friedman’s ePublishing Class April 23

I’m all about creativity over here. I try to not to encourage you to obsess about the market and the audience and how to get published. But, when you’ve been writing for a while, it’s a logical next step. I’ve worked in and around publishing since 1998 and know enough to know that epublishing and self-publishing are often the best option for today’s writer. If you want to publish/be published, you need to educate yourself about the realities of the business. Jane’s is extremely knowledgable and rather smart, so I heartily recommend this class.

LINK:http://store.digitalbookworld.com/self-publishing-ebooks-in-the-flourishing-digital-book-market-webcast

The Character Therapist

Written by a licensed therapist, this blog offers wonderful insights into character motivation, specifically aimed at creative writers.
LINK: http://charactertherapist.blogspot.com

[Writing Prompt] By The Numbers

This prompt was inspired by a link Dan Blank shared. Apparently there’s weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth in the artistic community about how the rise of data is crushing creativity.

The gist is: storytelling is changing. We’re not writing or consuming stories the same way. What does that mean for creativity?

Personally I think it’s awesome. Some of the best stories I’ve read in recent years eschewed the straight narrative (this happend, then that happened, crisis, climax, resolution, the end). One was written as answers to a police investigation, some have been written as lists, or tweets. A recent best-selling novel is written in second person, as a faux self-help book.

Of course, the straight narrative will always have its place, and it’s certainly a helpful structure on which to hang a story (more on that tomorrow), but it can help us stay out of a rut if we try new things. So:

The Prompt

Write a Story That Uses Numbers To Shape The Structure.

Tips

  • You might time-stamp each of the ‘scenes’ within the story
  • You might write snippets of things that happen in different houses in one street, using house numbers to break up the flow. Pull the whole thing together with one theme or by having one character who pops up in each different house for some reason.
  • You can use weight: the weight of a feather, the weight of a newborn, the weight your main character was at 15, then the weight she is at 30 and what that means. The weight a crane can lift.
  • Use multiple numbers in your story to tie together each scene (or break them apart).
  • Have fun!

[Reading Room] The Distance of The Moon by Italo Calvino

This wonderful sci-fi fairy tale will certainly feel familiar to anyone who saw one of the more recent Pixar shorts, La Luna (in fact the director freely credits Calvino with inspiring elements of the film).

It is funny, and wildly imaginative and, perhaps necessarily, told in a very prosaic, almost pedestrian way. You probably have to write in an almost documentary style when you are writing a story as fantastic as this: the premise being that, years and years ago, the moon was so close to the earth that you could climb up to it at certain times of the month.

It is a wonderful example of how to let your creativity fly free, and still end up with a story that talks about essential truths everyone can relate to.

Listen to it here

The Best Of The Web For Short Story Writers — April 14, 2013

Here are the best of the articles, quotes and links I found this week for short story tellers. Enjoy!

Here’s What Makes Stories So Powerful
Benton Weyi, host of Orastories (a new site dedicated to oral storytelling), writes a passionate call to arms to each of us to value our stories and tell our stories. I defy you to get to the end of this without feeling like grabbing a pen!

The Short Story On Structuring Your Short Story
Larry Brooks, aka The StoryFixer is the host of Storyfix.com and the author of Story Engineering, among other things (a great book that I recommend if you’re trying to structure a novel or longer work). This time he’s writing about short stories. At the beginning of the article I was worried he was going to say we should all be writing stories with some simple four-act structure and I was going to have to lose some respect for him. But of course he doesn’t. My favorite lines from the article?

Which is why short stories are so damn hard to put into a box.

Because the box comes in all sizes, shapes and colors, and can be made from virtually anything.

Which is why I love to write them. How about you?

Things That Make A Story Fail

Jurgen Wolff isn’t talking specifically about short stories here (he’s talking about a movie), but it’s an interesting reflection of good story practices that I found useful.

A Guide To Practical Contentment
Again, not directly about storytelling, but here Leo Babauta is talking about how to live a good life, how to connect to your passions and how to make small changes in your life that lead you towards the bigger ones (writing a little everyday, perhaps?)

Selected Shorts: The Sun and The Moon<
I just loved both of these short stories, one by Italo Calvino that will seem strangely familiar if you saw the Pixar short film “La Luna”, and one by Ray Bradbury about children who have never seen the sun. Sometimes listening to great short stories is so darned inspiring!

Quotes

If you’re not lying awake at night worrying about it, the reader isn’t going to either.
James M. Cain

-quoted in The Paris Review

The Muse visits during the process of creation, not before.”
Roger Ebert

I suppose the more you have to do, the more you learn to organize and concentrate—or else get fragmented into bits. I have learned to use my ‘ten minutes’. I once thought it was not worth sitting down for a time as short as that; now I know differently and, if I have ten minutes, I use them, even if they bring only two lines, and it keeps the book alive.”
Rumer Godden, author

-quoted in The Happiness Project

Finally I am coming to the conclusion that my highest ambition is to be what I already I am.
Thomas Merton

-quoted in The Happiness Project

[Writing Prompt] Social Speech

Can you imagine your life without email, Facebook, Twitter, text messages? Can your characters?

Can you imagine your life without email, Facebook, Twitter, text messages?

Texting Oasis
Photo by John Frassinet

Can your characters?

If you’re writing contemporary fiction and your characters are still calling and popping round to see each other, you might want to rethink that.

This is something new in life and newer in fiction. How to integrate this stuff into the narrative? It’s an exciting chance to do something new. But “exciting” and “new” can also mean “challenging” and “fraught with clunky first attempts”.

Why not get your first attempts out of the way today?

The Prompt

Write A Story Using A Facebook Timeline

Tips

  • It doesn’t have to be Facebook, but some electronic form of communication should feature prominently.
  • Try to have your characters use the e-communication the way you do.
  • You might want to write the whole story as a series of Facebook conversations (how would you format that?) or texts between different friends (like an update of this phone scene from “Mean Girls”, which must seem hopelessly outdated to today’s teens!)
  • Streams of status updates and back and forth conversation threads (interspersed with direct messages (“who is ‘Janice Atherton’? And why is she commenting on my photo?!”)

[Writing Prompt] Transport Yourself

This prompt is inspired by “Vanilla Bright Like Eminem” by Michel Faber, a story that captures a moment in time for one family as they travel on a train. (Read my review.)

The Prompt

Write A Story That Features A Mode of Transportation You Have Used So Often You Take It For Granted.

Tips

  • It might be a bus, plane, boat or your first car.
  • Include a detail or two that convinces us you’ve really been in that vehicle (the shape or location of the cigarette lighter. The ash tray in the arm of the seat. The inadequate luggage racks…)