I’m sitting here enjoying a raging thunderstorm. The sun is sinking pinkly under the edge of the storm and the ragged flashes and sheets of lightning are so much more thrilling than any season finale on TV. The thunder sounds like kettledrums.
And so, to the prompt:
It can be figurative or literal, but it must be stormy!
Go!
Hey everyone,
We’re drawing to the end, and I know everyone is racing to complete their stories and write their “What I Learned During Story A Day May” (I kid), but I wanted to get your thoughts on what come next.
I have some thoughts (not least of which is getting you all to sign up to a mailing list so I can email you in April next year and do this all over again), but I’d really love to hear what you would like to happen next.
Thanks a million for making my hare-brained scheme such a success and soooo much fun. I couldn’t have done it alone!
Julie
Write A Story That Features A Hobby/Activity You Have Tried
The only rule in today’s prompt is that the hobby may not be “writing”.
I have my own special reasons for this — namely: that, as an adult, I cringe every time I see a book where the main character is any type of writer. It seems to betray a lack of imagination. (Of course I’ll make an exception when re-reading books by LM Alcott or LM Montgomery or some other beloved writers whose initials are not “LM”, but for today the rule stands).
The hobby does not have to be anything you have done recently or frequently. It could be basket-weaving or finger-painting. But it should be something of which you have real-world experience and so can describe in minute detail if you need to.
Go!
OK, so ten days to go and we’re all at various stages of “success” and we’re all still turning up.
It’s getting harder though, isn’t it? …
(Wow, it seems like no time at all I was posting that headline in my promo efforts for the yet-to-born Story A Day challenge!)
OK, so ten days to go and we’re all at various stages of “success” and we’re all still turning up.
It’s getting harder though, isn’t it? Finding a whole new story every day drains the well pretty quickly. We need to work on staying encouraged, finding new ideas, new angles, and remembering what inspires us to write.
@CidWrites wrote this really helpful self-pep-talk that I certainly benefitted from reading (so thanks, Cid)
(and then she went on to write a really fun and intriguing story that day)
@AdorablyAlice wrote a great blog post on writing during slumps, that I’m sure you’ll find something of use in.
@dorlamoorehouse has an upbeat, celebratory post here that makes me grin and think: I want some of that!
Don’t forget these posts from the Story A Day Blog archives:
Finding Time (and Ways) To Write
StADa participants’ Feedback After Week 1
and the Resources page which includes links to sources of Inspiration, Prompts, Productivity Tools and Tips from Great Writers.
If it helps, why not take a few minutes to read other people’s stories right here at Story A Day. OK, you might get intimidated, but on the other hand, you might just get inspired.
Onward!
Today, rewrite a story you have written before, but this time as a dramatic monologue.
Taking a look at the story from another angle is a challenge in itself. Then add the challenge of making the dialogue seem real and you can really have fun with this…
This is the thirdin a series of prompts that will encourage you to choose a story to write several different ways. You could choose a fairy story or a tale you’ve already told right here during Story A Day May. Each day I’ll give you a style to write in. You can reuse the same character, plot, timing, whatever works as you import your story into the new style. Feel free to ditch characters, change their names, switch out the endings, whatever makes sense.
Taking a look at the story from another angle is a challenge in itself. Then add the challenge of making the dialogue seem real and you can really have fun with this.
(NB, the character who is ‘monologuing’, to borrow a phrase, doesn’t have to be the original story’s hero. It could be someone who was walking by and saw the action; a minor character in the action; anyone really).
Go!
(PS Did I mention? Day TWENTY! And you’re still here? Awesome, dude!)
Write (or Rewrite) A Story In The Style Of Your Favorite Dead Writer
This is the second in a series of prompts that will encourage you to choose a story to write several different ways. You could choose a fairy story or a tale you’ve already told right here during Story A Day May. Each day I’ll give you a style to write in. You can reuse the same character, plot, timing, whatever works as you import your story into the new style. Feel free to ditch characters, change their names, switch out the endings, whatever makes sense.
I’m tempted to suggest Dickens, but maybe you’re more of an Austin or Bronte fan. Or maybe one of those Russians. Or further back? Chaucer, anyone? Shakespeare? Douglas Adams? (Nope, still too soon. Sob!)
Go!
Write (or Rewrite) A Story In The Style Of A TV Show You Know And Love
This is the first of a series of prompts that will encourage you to choose a story to write several different ways. You could choose a fairy story or a tale you’ve already told right here during Story A Day May. Each day I’ll give you a style to write in. You can reuse the same character, plot, timing, whatever works as you import your story into the new style. Feel free to ditch characters, change their names, switch out the endings, whatever makes sense.
I’m not going to limit you, because I know I wouldn’t have a clue what to do if you told me to write in the style of a CSI show, but a more gentle mystery might work for me. Or maybe it’ll be sci-fi, daytime soap, or rip-roaring Melrose Place evening soap. Reality show? Sitcom? Adult cartoon? What do you watch and love?
Go!
Write About A Lie
Oooo, the lie. We’ve all done it. We do it all the time, even though we know we shouldn’t. Sometimes we get away with them and other times they come back to bite us in the most spectacular fashion.
Is it a tiny one? A whopper? Does no-one find out about it? Does that mean your character really ‘gets away with it’? Does it spiral out of control and become a Fawlty Towers episode?
GO!
In honour of today being the middle of the month of May, the middle of our challenge, today’s prompt is:
Middle
In honour of today being the middle of the month of May, the middle of our challenge, today’s prompt is:
Do with that whatever you will.
Go!
I’m spending the day at an amusement park with the kiddies.
I love watching all the different people and types, from the loud, dramatic teens, to the young parents, the kid-free couples, the grandparents, the happy ones, the cranky ones…it’s great fodder .
It’s a setting ripe for drama, mystery, horror, poetry, action, joy and sorrow.
Go!
Write a story using space or sci-fi elements
On this day in 1973, the US launched the orbital space station Skylab.
Write A Story With Space/Science Fiction Elements
Even if you’re not a big fan of science fiction, this doesn’t have to be a difficult assignment. Sci-Fi isn’t all about techno-babble or rockets.
Two of my favourite episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation are:
1, Captain Picard is left on a planet, by a malevolent force, with the captain of a ship from a culture that communicates so strangely not even Star Trek’s wonderful translators can handle it. They are in peril and must work together. Gradually Picard figures out that the alien captain’s language is based on metaphors, but he doesn’t share the same culture so how can he find metaphors with which to communicate? It’s basically a stranded-on-an-island, must-work-together-to-escape-peril story, all about linguistics. In space.
2, Someone from Starfleet wants to take the sentient andriod Data back to HQ and take him apart to figure out how he works, for the greater good of the service (a fleet of Datas? We’d be unstoppable, Great!). Picard demands a tribunal at which he attempts to prove that Data is an individual not merely a piece of equipment. A wrinkle? Picard’s second in command and Data’s buddy, Riker, must act as prosector, and try to prove that his friend is merely a machine. This one is called “Measure of a Man” and is a long, fascinating philosophical argument about what it means to be human. Set on a spaceship.
Another example: the movie Moon, which came out last year. It is a psychological thriller set on the moon. It uses a sci-fi setting to create an isolation you couldn’t realistically create in a story set on our planet these days. And it uses some sci-fi tricks to mess with the hero’s mind and throw obstacles in his path, and none of it is extraneous.
What kind of story could you write, that uses as space or futuristic setting? A mystery? A romance? A morality play?
Write A Twitter Story
Write a story that would fit in a Twitter post (whether or not you’re on Twitter).
140 characters (yes, that includes spaces). No more. Maybe less.
Go!
Write A Drabble (100 word story)
A ‘drabble‘ is a short story of exactly 100 words. We’ve already done a 55 Fiction day, so this drabble day should be a doddle!
Write a song inspired a song.
Another birth anniversary from the Golden Age of US popular culture: Irving Berlin.
Born Israel Baline in New York in 1888, Berlin was a prolific songwriter, penning some of the most well-known songs ever, from White Christmas to Blue Skies and God Bless America.
While a lot of his songs lyrics were saccharine-sweet, being written for shows, they were all clever and often deceptively simple. My favourite Irving Berlin songs are the ones where he lets a tinge of sadness or regret into them (What’ll I Do? is an example of a both a seemingly simple lyric and real, poignant emotion).
(OK, that was Rogers and Hart, but let’s not pick nits)
Write a story inspired by a song. I’m going to suggest this verse (that’s the bit they usually don’t tack onto popular recordings of standards) from the Irving Berlin song Remember:
One little kiss,
A moment of bliss,
Then hours of deep regret.
One little smile,
And after a while,
A longing to forget.
One little heratache
Left as a token,
One little plaything,
Carelessly broken.
But you can pick another lyric if you want to.
Well, this has been an interesting journey so far.
In a week and a bit I have gone from …
Well, this has been an interesting journey so far.
In a week and a bit I have gone from
I have written every day except Mother’s Day on Sunday, when I spent my writing time doing site maintenance and lining up writing prompts for the coming week (Note to self: if I do this again, I’ll get a month’s worth of prompts ready before Day 1. I also wish I had more blog posts in my back pocket, rather than blog ideas. I was waiting to see what people’s challenges were, so I could blog about that, but in reality, where did I think I was going to find the time? Even this post is robbing Peter to pay Paul).
I am really enjoying reading everyone else’s comments both on the Twitter feed and at the site.
I love reading everyone’s comments on other people’s stories and making them myself. It forces me to read things critically and pick up tips for my own writing. I find that difficult to do in a vacuum.
So, in short, I’m loving doing the challenge and I’m loving the community aspect of it. Big thanks to everyone who is turning up and trying.
Today is the birth anniversary of Fred Astaire!
Today is the birth anniversary of Fred Astaire!
He was born in 1899 in Omaha, Nebraska and his real name was Friedrich Emanuel Austerlitz. His father was born in Austria, to Jewish parents who had converted to Catholicism. His mother dreamed of escaping their humdrum life by making stars of her children. Fred Astaire started out as a child stage star, singing and dancing in a vaudeville act with his sister, Adele, orchestrated by his mother and promoted by his father. Astaire went on to Hollywood and was eventually voted the Greatest Male Star of All Time by the American Film Institute.
He strikes me as a ‘type’ that many would see as the ‘ideal’ American: son of nobodies who grows up to be loved and lauded.
Inspired by the life of Friedrich Austerlitz, write the story of a mythical (American?) hero. You can idealize the hero or reveal the flaws and the chinks in the armour, it’s up to you.
Write A Story Inspired By A Picture
If a picture says a thousand words that should save us some time, right?
This could be a piece of art that you love, or you can go to the ‘Explore’ page of Flickr.com and start poking about until you find a picture that speaks to you. (Do this quickly. Allow yourself no more than five minutes to find a picture. Choose the first one that stands out to you).
Write a story connected to that picture. Keep the picture in mind as you go through your story. Always bring it back to the impulse that made you choose the image.
If you can, provide a link to the picture that inspired your story (even if you’re not posting your stories online I’d love to see what images and ideas people get from this).
Go!
It is possible to write a story in 55 words
A lot of people aim to write Flash Fiction because they think it’s going to be quicker than writing a longer story. Don’t they know their Blaise Pascal? (“”I have made this letter longer than usual because I lack the time to make it shorter.”)
It is possible to write a good story in 55 words (the title isn’t part of the word-count, but must not exceed seven words), but it’s not necessarily a quick thing.
Still, Saturdays tend to have more ‘running around’ time than ‘sitting at a desk time’ for many of us, and that might equal ‘thinking time’ if we’re lucky.
So grab your idea right now. Then, while you’re folding laundry, or taking the kids to soccer, think about how you can deliver a punch in 55 words. Think about which elements of your story you can strip away to cut it down to 55 words. What is essential in your story?
Thanks to everyone who responded to my questions about how your week is going. I’ve collected some of the responses…
We’ve made it to Day 7! Congrats to everyone who has written anything, or still plans to! And thanks to everyone who responded to my questions about how your week is going. I’ve collected some of the responses below.
When I had this idea to write A Story A Day, back in March, I knew I was going to need a crew to keep me honest, because I knew it would be hard. My non-writer friends a families gave me that ‘uh-huh!’ look and said things like “that’s ambitious”.
With the help of a few people like Debbie, Carol, Robert and Eden, and the Twitterati, word spread rapidly and I discovered that there are tons of writers out there just as hungry for an excuse to focus on their writing as I was. Tons of people who took “That’s ambitious” and made it a cheer, not a groan.
So now, I have — according to my Story A Day Dashboard — 77 new friends, who are all serious enough about their writing to want to do this challenge. Not everyone is writing every single day and not everyone is finishing a story every day they start one, but everyone is serious about their writing and that is such an inspiration to me. (Sorry, I’m gushing)
The shortest story people are laying claim to is 25 words. The longest is over 3000
@mapelba says “As Ann Lamott said–butt in chair. It helps to listen or read an interview with a favorite author sometimes. Oh, and I’ve given up a lot of TV. That helps.”
@Cidwrites says: “The excitement of my friends who are doing this helps a lot!”
@KristenRudd says: “My trick so far is to mull my story all day, while I’m doing whatever it is I do. I think about the directions it could go, but I mostly think about how to open it. Then, when I can finally sit down after the kids are in bed, the dishes are washed, and I’ve done everything else that needs doing, I’m excited about the story that’s been buzzing all day. If I have the opener, I can sit down and just WRITE (That said, neither story went where I had planned. Characters kept popping in and announcing themselves, changing the story). Who knows if this will hold up – we’ll see! Ask us again in two weeks!
“My other trick was to sign up my kid. I have too much pride to be outdone by a seven-year-old, so I’lm guaranteed to write every day.” (I love this one!)
@Wendolin says: “I keep going because every day I wake up and the first thing I think about is . . . what will I end up with today? I go about my morning chores thinking about possibilities. I make this challenge the focus of my day, and though I have many other things to do, I keep the story in the back of my miind, cogitating, adding and subtracting, until at last, I just have to sit down and start writing, no matter how much laundry there is in the hamper.”
Thanks everyone! Keep writing!
Getting started can be a huge obstacle to overcome…so cheat!
Getting started can be a huge obstacle to overcome. Faced with the prospect of having to start a new story every day we can start second-guessing our ideas, our style, our ability…All of this makes getting started even harder.
So cheat.
Go to your bookshelf and pull down a book you admire. Look at the first paragraph. How does it start? Is it a description of a place? Does something dramatic happen? Does someone talk?
Look at the structure of the opening and use it for your own stories (this is how apprentices have always learned, they copy their masters’ work, and gradually find their own style). Copy your master-writer’s structure, but insert your own details.
For example, I pulled Ursula Le Guin’s A Wizard of Earthsea off the shelf. Its opening sentence is,
The island of Gont, a single mountain that lifts its peak a mile above the storm-wracked North-East sea, is a land famous for wizards.
(Isn’t that a great sentence?)
My story might begin,
The Arcologie Sando, a huge fractured semi-dome that rose up from the rock-strewn desert floor, was famous for producing arcolonists.
OK, hers is still better, but borrowing from the master, gave me a way in to my story.
Go to your bookshelf and steal an opening line from the best. Make it your own, and see where it leads you.
Go!
Field Day
Write a story set at a school sports day/field day or other special event where parents turn up and the worlds of home and school collide.
Today I’m off to supervise hordes of screaming children at Field Day at the kids’ school. (It’s what my school would have called “Sports Day”, with sack races and obstacle course and suchlike, except I don’t remember my parents ever having to help out).
In honour of my noble sacrifice, today’s prompt is:
Write a story set at a school sports day/field day or other special event where parents turn up and the worlds of home and school collide.
Work from your own memory of school or your experiences as a parent/aunt/grandparent/child-free-friend, whatever you have.
Surely there are a few opportunities for conflict and resolution among the sack races and the potato-and-spoon contests!
Write a story based on an incident at a cultural festival.
It’s Cinco de Mayo, which people in the Americas know as an excuse for a party, thanks to immigrants from the Mexican state Puebla (according to Wikipedia it “commemorates the Mexican army’s unlikely victory over French forces at the Battle of Puebla on May 5, 1862,”
Mostly now it’s an excuse to don over-sized sombreros and drink Corona. But it brings us to today’s prompt:
It’s hard to grow up anywhere without attending some kind of cultural festival, whether it’s the English village fete, a religious festival (St Anthony’s Feast in the North End of Boston, for example) , or a nationality-based one (a Burns’ Supper in Scotland, St Patrick’s Day in the US).
Write a story based on an incident at a cultural festival. Add details from the activities, colours and smells of the festival to make your story real.
Write a story set in your first home …
Who says you can’t go home again?
Write a story set in your first home (house? town?). Describe it in exquisite detail. Make us believe we’re there.
Write a Story Featuring A High-Tech Gadget
I love my gadgets.
But even if you’re not a gadget freak, an early-adopter, a lover of all things tech, you can’t really escape the stuff.
So today’s prompt is
It could be a cell phone that accidentally redials, and gets the owner in big trouble.
It could be an iPad, a Kindle, a GPS unit.
Maybe the hero of the story hates technology. Maybe she loves it.
OK? Go!
…Obituaries are wonderful sources of lifestories, character sketches, intriguing stories.
I know, kind of morbid for a spring day, but obituaries are wonderful sources of lifestories, character sketches, intriguing stories.
I like to think of stealing from the obituaries less as grave-robbing and more as creating a tribute to a life lived. So, today:
[Could you write about Bonnie and a great-grandchild on their first trout-fishing afternoon together? Would it be a perfect moment? A farce? A dramatic turning point? What did the river look like, sound like? What did she notice?]
Go!
Graphics for participants to use on their websites
If you’d like a badge to post on your website, feel free to grab one of these. Right click to save to your computer.
500×230 pixels
Use ’em anywhere you want to!
Today’s prompt: go to the Newest Articles section of the front page of Wikipedia…
Today, go to the Newest Articles section of the front page of Wikipedia.
GO!
OK, I’m a little nervous. Two days until we begin this journey of writing a story a day.
But it’s a good nervous. It’s an energetic nervous. I’m like a stallion in the gate, ready for the off. Quivering a little.
Already I’m noticing benefits from this Story A Day project:
I’m looking at the world in a different way: looking at everything as a story idea, noticing details, smelling things, wondering how I would describe situations, feelings, people, objects.
I’m connecting with other writers.
I’m blogging about writing and making it a priority.
This might get tough around May 13 or so, but I’m ready. I’ve got my family and friends primed to nag me about my writing, I’ve got a little black book of ideas. I have some backup strategies for days when it’s tough (keep watching this blog and your inbox for those strategies as the month rolls along).
What about you? Are you making preparations? Are you winging it? What do you do when you need to write but get stuck? Are you excited?
Let me know!
In 2006 Eden Kennedy, of fussy.org, inspired by National Novel Writing Month started her own ‘month’: National Blog Posting Month (NaBloPoMo). For those of us who can’t possibly hope to carve out the time to writ a novel in a month, NaBloPoMo was a great alternative: commit to posting something every day, and see what happened.
I tried it and was pleasantly surprised to come away with both new friends and an increased sense of creativity, as I viewed my world in terms of potential creative writing opportunities.
Now, NaBloPoMo is a year-round event, with hundreds of people posting daily.
NaBloPoMo was a big inspiration for StoryADay.org, so I emailed Eden to ask her a few questions:
[EDEN] I started it in November of 2006, running it off my own site, fussy.org. It was basically just a blogroll and a list of prizes people kept donating for me to hand out to random people who managed to post every day that month. A lot of people liked it because it was an alternative to NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month), where you write like 6,000 words a day. I, like many others, failed at my NaNo attempt, so it’s like we started a little underachievers club by doing NaBloPoMo. I moved everything over to nablopomo.com in November 2007 so it could become more of a social network, and thousands of new people signed up, to my surprise. Eventually so many people were asking if I could make more events throughout the year, and not just in November, that I decided to just go monthly.
[EDEN] I only participate in November. It’s the original month, and still the month we get the most traffic for, two or three thousand people. The rest of the year we get maybe 400 or 500 people each month.
[EDEN] A real sense of satisfaction at having come up with something to say thirty days in a row. Sometimes you have to dig deep to find the will to write something that’s actually worth reading, and not just phone it in or post a YouTube video or something. For most people, one month is enough, but there are several die-hards who go on to post every day for a year or more.
[EDEN] Photos. Posting a photo can either be a great writing prompt, because readers will be interested in whatever the story behind it is, or else it can stand by itself as a post and give you the day off. Nothing wrong with that!
Thanks, Eden!
Interesting point about the photos. Who says your Story A Day story couldn’t be a comic strip, a photo essay, a particularly evocative picture?
So, only four days left until we begin our Story A Day challenge.
Nervous? Thinking about backing out?
Yeah, me too 😉
So, only four days left until we begin our Story A Day challenge.
Nervous? Thinking about backing out? Yeah, me too 😉
I’m going to be posting a daily prompt, which you should feel free to use or ignore. The prompt will be on this blog, but you can also
(I think I’ve got most of my bases covered there but if you have somewhere you’d like it to appear, let me know and I’ll look into it.
I’m also going to continue posting articles on the craft of writing.
There might be videos and audio, and you should certainly feel free to post the same kind of things.
I may not post my actual stories every day, but I will be posting a log of my writing at in my personal Story A Day journal.
If you’d like everyone here to know that you have written your story for the day, post about your progress in the Victory Dance group.
You can also post in your personal Story A Day blog or on your own blog, if you have one.
If you need inspiration, check out the posts on this blog, the resources page, and the various Story A day groups.
Remember: A little something is still more than a lot of nothing.
Robert Brewer is the Poetic Asides poetry blogger for Writer’s Digest, and is in the midst of hosting April’s Poem A Day Challenge.
He took a few minutes to talk to me about what this particular creative challenge has meant to him and the poets who took part.
I believe in breaking big tasks into smaller tasks. So, think of the month in terms of weeks or 4- to 5-day increments of time. Another trick, write shorter if you’re just struggling in the middle–or get silly. Remember: A little something is still more than a lot of nothing.
—
Thanks Robert!
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