This week I share some of the prompts from week 4 of StoryADay May 2018, talk about creativity and limits, and encourage you to dive into the community at StoryADay.
Also, I talk about drug discovery and wheelbarrows…
LINKS
Serious Writers’ Accountability Group (SWAGr): https://stada.me/swagr
Today’s prompt lets you practice your dialogue and thinking about communicating your characters’ motivations to the reader.
One character is trying to sell something to another character. .
This could be metaphorical: they are trying to sell them an idea.
It could be literal: they’re trying to sell them a car.
Leave a comment letting us know how it went (and what you decided to sell!)
Day 4, Week 4!
Write a story about someone whose boss is doing something contrary to the main character’s morals.
Today I want you to write a story about a character whose boss (or somebody important to them, with power over them) is doing something illegal/unethical. How will your character react?
This week’s theme is, in part, to encourage you to try out stories that use each of the types of story threads from the MICE quotient.
Tell a story that features a disappearance
This could be an Intrigue/Idea story. At it heart it has a question, or a mystery or a big idea.
It could be the disappearance of a person, a cultural phenomenon, or of the bees, or of Arctic Ice. Or it could be something more nebulous. Your story could be serious or slapstick. What will you come up with?
What did you make disappear? What kind of story did you write? What tone did your story take on, today? Leave a comment and let us know!
Choose a detail that only your character would notice in this story
(This exercise is borrowed from Donald Maass’s The Emotional Craft of Fiction, a book I highly recommend.)
Think about your character’s past, so that you know what matters to your character, what background they came from.
As an example, I noticed a vase in my in-laws’ house because my parents had the same one. It was really the only notable thing about the vase! It tells you something about our relative backgrounds that our parents chose the same decor…
You might pick something with more emotional resonance: a smell, a song, a flower.
Tell a story about your character that includes a detail that tells us something more about your character.
Welcome to Week Four!
This week I’m providing you with story starters, to give your imaginatiosn a little kickstart.
Your character wakes up in a space they don’t recognize.
They could wake up in a white van, a locked room, or anywhere that is completely different form their everyday. This gives you the opportunity to explore your character in interesting ways.
There may be other people inside the space, outside the space, interacting with them, or not.
Have fun with this, today!
The only qualification to be a ‘Superstar” is a desire to write and support your fellow writers.
A supportive group of committed writers, who meet virtually, support each other’s efforts, and inspire each other.
Registration for 2024 open now-June 8, 2024
A 6-part journey through the short story.
Starts Jan 3, 2025