Sumptuous Settings – a writing prompt

Today I encourage you to make your prose as purple as you like, in a quest to find out how much description you really need.

The Prompt

Write a story (set in your novel’s world) that makes sensation a priority. Use all five senses.

Tips

  • Don’t be afraid to write ridiculously floral prose today. You can always dial it back, but it’s fun to find new ways of describing things.
  • Don’t worry too much about pacing or characterization. This is an exploration of your world and the sensations a character might experience, walking through it.
  • Get outside, if you have to. Listen to things. Smell the world. See what you can feel. Then come back inside and write.

Don’t forget to leave a comment or do your Victory Dance!

Societal World Building – a writing prompt

Today we look at a less tangible aspect of world-building: What makes your society the way it is?

21The Prompt

Write a story focusing on an aspect of society that matters to you/your story. How did society get to a place where this is important?

Tips

  • You’ll probably have to go back into history for this (or ‘history’, if your world is completely made up).
  • Think about issues like gender/race/economic/religious norms. How did they get where they are? What made the norms, normal?
  • Pick something that matters to you. Don’t try to explain everything, just the thing that makes your blood boil, or that gets you excited.

Don’t forget to leave a comment or do your Victory Dance!

Concrete World Building – a writing prompt

Today I invite you to do some world-building, either for a novel in progress or for a story world you’d like to spend more time in, focusing on concrete aspects of the world.

The Prompt

Write a story that focuses on the discovery/invention/ramifications of something that shapes your characters’ physical world.

Tips

  • Some questions you might ask: Why do we have roads? What invention led us to spend our evenings the way we do? What does your futuristic society have that might need explained? How did those things come about?
  • Write a story based on the transition point between a world with those things and the world that came before (think: Marty McFly in Back to the Future arriving at his younger-mom’s house the very day her father hooked up their first TV. Rolling the TV into their dining room that first time, probably affected their family dinners forever!)

Don’t forget to leave a comment or do your Victory Dance!

Secondary Meeting – a writing prompt

Today’s writing prompt invites you to look back into your characters’ past again.

 

The Prompt

Imagine the first (significant) meeting between your protagonist and a secondary character

Tips

  • Again, if you’re not a novelist, imagine this scenario for a short story you’ve written in the past, or for one you’re planning.
  • If your novel-in-progress’s protagonist has a best friend, that might be the perfect person to choose here. If they have a ‘frenemy’, this story could shed some light on that relationship. You can even do this with a villain, if they have a history that begins before the novel starts.
  • Show us this meeting. Set up some of the dynamics we’ll recognize between the two characters later.
  • If your work-in-progress doesn’t have a great candidate for this story, invent one. A friend in the protagonist’s past, that we never meet in the later work, could set her expectations for all future friends (good or bad). Examine that.
  • If you need help getting to the emotional heart of the matter, take a look at Donald Maass’s newest book, The Emotional Craft of Fiction.

Don’t forget to leave a comment letting us know how you got on, or come on in to the community and do your Victory Dance!

 

A Refusal – a writing prompt

Continuing our week of prompts aimed at creating rich backstory for novelists and short story writers alike, today we create an alternate story for your protagonist.

The Prompt

There is a moment in every story where a protagonist has to make a choice: to take up the challenge of the story or to turn away. Everything else flows from that.

Today, write a story in which your protagonist makes the other choice. 

Tips

  • This will, of course, result in a shorter story than otherwise.
  • It will still have fallout. (Think: It’s A Wonderful Life, Sliding Doors etc.)
  • Examine that fallout in a story.

Don’t forget to leave a comment, or do your Victory Dance in the community.

The Protagonist’s Journal – A writing prompt

Continuing our series of prompts to help novelists as well as short story writers, today I encourage you to move forward a little in your protagonist’s timeline, but still stay before the main story.

The Prompt

Write a story about the days leading up to the beginning of your novel, or your story’s big incident. Alternatively, write a journal of those days from your protagonist’s point of view.

Tips

  • Use this story to ‘brain dump’ all the stuff that your reader doesn’t want to wade through before they get to the jumping-off-point for your story.
  • You can use this knowledge to season the story later, with a light hand.
  • Remember, you can recycle these stories are freebies and giveaways to help you promote your novel and build your audience.

Don’t forget to leave a comment to let us know how you got on.

Turning Point – A writing prompt for novelists

This week I’m focusing on prompts that novelists can use. If you’re  novelist, I don’t want you to feel like you’re wasting your time here at StoryADay May. While short story writers can easily use these prompts, too, you novelists will find much in them that enriches your work-in-progress.

Let’s dive in:

The Prompt

Write a story that investigates a turning point in your protagonist’s past.

Tips

  • Every interesting character has an internal struggle fighting with (or complementing) the external struggle of the plot. It usually stems from a character flaw/defect/protection mechanism they’ve been building for years. Use this prompt to write a story that captures the beginning of that character development.
  • If you don’t have a novel or work in progress, investigate a character from an earlier story you’ve written (or one you hope to write).

Lisa Cron’s Story Genius (referenced in the video) can be found here or requested through your local indie bookstore.

Second Look – A writing prompt from Julie Duffy

Today I encourage you to take a second look at a story you’ve written before.

The Prompt

Take a story you’ve written before and write it again from a different point of view.

Tips

You can rewrite the events of the story, as viewed by someone else.

You could choose to use the original story as a jumping-off point, that simply informs your knowledge of this formerly-secondary character.

Feel free to write the story in a completely different form (if the first one was a series of letters, you could write this one in a more narrative form.

Nightmare – A writing prompt from Maria Hazen Lewis

Today’s prompt comes from another wonderful writer from my local network.

The Prompt

I had a nightmare last night. I woke up and started writing….

About Maria Hazen Lewis

Maria Hazen Lewis writes women’s fiction in Pennsylvania.

Misapprehension – A writing prompt from

Today’s prompt is about the (sometimes comedic) art of misapprehension.

The Prompt

Today’s prompt focuses on misapprehension – that is, interpreting something incorrectly. Too often, in fiction, every character communicates perfectly. That’s not the way it happens in real life.

Example: award-winning author Harlan Ellison once misheard a conversation at a party. He overheard a woman say, “”Jeffy is fine. He’s always fine.”” What Ellison actually heard was “”He’s always FIVE.”” That inspired the story “”Jefty Is Five,”” about a boy who never grows up.

Alternately, the misapprehension could be visual. True story: when I graduated college, I moved to a southern town – one of those places where anti-intellectualism seemed to be the prevailing attitude. I met lots of girls there, but I was looking for an intellectual girlfriend. One day, while sitting in dingy waiting room, I saw a pretty girl outside. To my amazement, she wore a tee-shirt with the letters “”SPQR”” on it. SPQR stood for – in Latin – “”The Senate and the People of Rome.”” What kind of woman wore a tee-shirt that referenced Ancient Rome? I had to meet her! I rushed outside, saw the girl…and discovered that her shirt didn’t say “”SPQR.”” It said “”SPORT.”” Stretched around her well-endowed chest, the final letter was hadn’t been visible from where I sat. (I was so disappointed, I didn’t even speak to her.)

So that’s your prompt: misapprehension, either verbal or visual.

About Tony Conaway

Born in Philadelphia, PA, Tony Conaway has written and ghostwritten everything from blogs to books. He has cowritten non-fiction books published by McGraw-Hill, Macmillan and Prentice Hall. His fiction has been published in eight anthologies and numerous publications, including Blue Lake Review, Danse Macabre, Rind Literary Magazine, qarrtsiluni, The Rusty Nail and Typehouse Literary Magazine.

His odder work includes co-writing the script for a planetarium production, and jokes performed by Jay Leno on The Tonight Show. He blogs at http://wayneaconaway.blogspot.com/ He was recently a guest on the Indy Writer Podcast, talking about writing short fiction.

Poetic Inspiration – A writing prompt from Elise Holland

 

Poetic Inspiration: Let a Favorite Poem Breathe Life into Your Short Story

Reading poetry is a great way to inject beauty and inspiration into our daily lives. Select a poem that resonates with you, and let it inspire you as you write your next short story!

In order to provide a specific prompt, I suggest Shakespeare’s Sonnet 25, which showcases a theme of the power of love. Beneath the poem, you will find suggestions for other poets (both classic and contemporary), as well as specific ideas for incorporating poetic tools such as theme, imagery and rhythm into your prose.

The Prompt

“Let those who are in favour with their stars
Of public honour and proud titles boast,
Whilst I, whom fortune of such triumph bars,
Unlookt for joy in that I honour most.
Great princes’ favourites their fair leaves spread
But as the marigold at the sun’s eye;
And in themselves their pride lies buried,
For at a frown they in their glorie die.
The painful warrior famoused for fight,
After a thousand victories once foil’d,
Is from the book of honour razed quite,
And all the rest forgot for which he toil’d:
Then happy I, that love and am beloved
Where I may not remove nor be removed.”
– William Shakespeare
Sonnet 25

Tips

There is a vast array in styles of poetry, and not every single poem will resonate with you. With a little persistence, you will find the unique voices and poignant words to inspire your prose and warm your soul.

 

  • Interested in classic poetry? Consider delving into this book, which serves as a lovely anthology, showcasing the work of thirteen classic poets.
  • Consider that various aspects of a poem can inspire your short fiction. Here, we will examine theme, imagery and rhythm.
  • When studying a poem, look closely at its theme.
    Did the poet wax melodic about love?
  • Did he or she speak ardently about a particular social issue or current event that resonates?
  • What aspect of this theme are you drawn to, and how might you incorporate it into your own work?
  • Evaluate the imagery in the poem you study.
    • In the above poem, Shakespeare says “Great princes’ favorites their fair leaves spread, But as the marigold at the sun’s eye; And in themselves their pride lies buried, For at a frown they in their glory die.” What he is referring to, is that happiness found in shallow pursuits (in this case, in the fickle favor of those in high places) is fragile, and is often found wanting.
    • Later in the above poem, Shakespeare says “Then happy I, that love and am beloved Where I may not remove nor be removed.” In this way, the poem states that it is in unwavering love (where I may not remove or be removed) that true happiness is sought and found.
    • What images speak to you? How might you incorporate versions of them into your next story?
  • When considering rhythm:
    • Consider sentence length variety. For instance, one very short, moving sentence can have significant impact after a longer, complex or compound sentence.
    • Are you drawn to rhyme? You might include a subtle use of rhyme in a paragraph you are trying to drive home, or make memorable.
  • Once you’ve written your story, think about submitting it to literary magazines and/or journals. We would love to review your work at 2 Elizabeths! (2Elizabeths.com)

About Elise Holland

Elise Holland is co-founder and editor of 2 Elizabeths, a short fiction and poetry publication. Her work has appeared in various publications, most recently in Darling. Through 2 Elizabeths, Elise strives to create value and visibility for writers, through writing contests, events, and more!

A Mysterious Situation – Writing Prompt from Bea from The Busy Muse

Today, Bea from The Busy Muse gives us a scenario and encourages us to stretch our genre expectations…

Don’t forget, you can listen to the audio-only by subscribing to the podcast

The Prompt

Your company sends you to meet a costumer at their house. It’s a standard, nice neighborhood.

You ring and ring but nobody answers. The door is ajar, and you enter, calling aloud.

All is in order in the living room apart from an overturned potted plant on the expensive-looking rug…

Tips

  • You choose the atmosphere. Did the costumer run out to get milk or got kidnapped?
  • The setting is quite anonymous: can you create a fantasy story out of this? What about a science fiction piece?
  • Have fun thinking outside the box!

About Bea from The Busy Muse

Bea is a bilingual writer and freelancer currently living near Venice, in Italy. She blogs and helps writers with their writing and creativity at  . The Busy Muse. She brainstorms new ideas with her cat, who is very good at listening but not at providing solutions.

Chance Encounter – Writing Prompt from Sarah Cain

Today’s prompt, from author Sarah Cain, features a chance encounter. This is going to be fun!

Podcast version:

The Prompt

The chance encounter. Have you ever run into someone you know when you look grubby? Or maybe you see an old boyfriend at Starbucks. Or perhaps, as in Alfred Hitchcock’s famous Stranger’s On a Train, you run into a stranger who offers to do you a service, like murder, in return for you returning the favor. Think of a chance encounter that could leave you shaken, stirred, or in deep trouble.

About Sarah Cain

Sarah Cain is the author of the Danny Ryan political thrillers, The 8th Circle and One By One. She lives in the Philadelphia suburbs with her husband Howard, a former political consultant, and her two insane cats, and spends a great deal of time contemplating murder. In her spare time, she reads, plays Cards for Humanity, and dreams about moving to Ireland.

An Unlikely Meeting – a writing prompt from Charlotte Rains Dixon

Today, Charlotte Rains Dixon indulges in some whimsy, and I can’t wait to see what you come up with for this!

The Prompt

Write a story about what happens when a nun in a wimple, a man in cowboy hat and boots, and a bartender with a handlebar moustache wearing a red and white polka-dot bow tie meet in a tavern on a rainy night.

About Charlotte Rains Dixon

Just Prompt Me Book CoverCharlotte Rains Dixon mentors creative writers from passionate to published. Charlotte is a free-lance journalist, ghostwriter, and author.

She is Director Emeritus and a current mentor at the Writer’s Loft, a certificate-writing program at Middle Tennessee State University. She earned her MFA in creative writing from Spalding University and is the author of a dozen books, including The Complete Guide to Writing Successful Fundraising Letters, and Beautiful America’s Oregon Coast. Her fiction has appeared in The Trunk, Santa Fe Writer’s Project, Nameless Grace, and Somerset Studios and her articles have been published in Vogue Knitting, the Oregonian, and Pology, to name a few. Her novel, Emma Jean’s Bad Behavior, was published in 2013, and she is represented by Erin Niumata at Folio Literary.

Her prompt book, Just Prompt Me, was released in 2016, and is the first in a series.

Learn about her annual writing workshops in Europe at letsgowrite.com, and visit her blog at www.charlotterainsdixon.com, where you can find all kinds of tips and techniques on writing and creativity.

 

The Secret – a writing prompt from Marta Pelrine-Bacon

Today, Marta Pelrine-Bacon encourages us to get a bit mysterious.

The Prompt

She waited a week before revealing the secret.

About Marta Pelrine-Bacon

Marta Pelrine-Bacon is an artist, a writer, and a long-time StoryADay participant. Her debut novel The Blue Jar has recently been re-released, with a new cover, featuring Marta’s artwork.

Self Reflection – a writing prompt from Stuart Horwitz

Today, Stuart Horwitz invites us to a bit of self-reflection.

The Prompt

Think back to a time earlier in your life, maybe high school, when you knew a good person with whom you have fallen out of touch.

If you were to reconnect with this person right now, what one question would you ask them? Why are you asking that question — what does it say about your journey right now?

What piece of yourself are you currently focused on finding?

For memoir writers: write this now.

For fiction writers: turn yourself and your friend into characters. Write the story of their encounter.

About Stuart Horwitz

Stuart Horwitz is a ghostwriter, independent editor, and founder and principal of Book Architecture (www.BookArchitecture.com). Book Architecture’s clients have reached the best-seller list in both fiction and non-fiction, and have appeared on Oprah!, The Today Show, The Tonight Show.

He is the author of three books on writing: Finish Your Book in Three Drafts (2016), Book Architecture (2015) which became an Amazon bestseller, and Blueprint Your Bestseller (Penguin/Perigee, 2013), which was named one of that year’s best books about writing by The Writer magazine.

Getting Emotional – a writing prompt from Angela Ackerman

For audio only, subscribe to the podcast

Today, Angela Ackerman invites us to think about our character’s past emotional trauma and how it affects them in the present.

This is a really useful exercise for deepening any character in any length of story. Use it for a character from a novel, or for the character in a short story. It can’t help but make your story more rich.

And remember: emotion is the key to a reader connecting with your story.

The Prompt

Emotional trauma is an experience, or set of experiences, that can change your character in fundamental ways, altering their personality, embedding fears in their minds, affecting their ability to connect and trust others, and steering their needs and desires during your story.

Write about a wounding experience from your character’s past that changed them into who they are today.

HINT: most wounding experiences involve someone close to the character as it is the people closest to us who are able to do the most psychological damage.

For emotional wound ideas, try this list: https://onestopforwriters.com/wounds

About Angela Ackerman

Angela Ackerman is a writing coach, international speaker, and co-author of The Emotion Thesaurus: a Writer’s Guide to Character Expression and four other bestselling writing guides. A proud indie author, her books are available in five languages, sourced by US universities, and are used by novelists, screenwriters, editors and psychologists around the world.

Angela is also the co-founder of the popular site, Writers Helping Writers, as well as One Stop For Writers, an innovative online library built to help writers elevate their storytelling.

http://writershelpingwriters.net/
https://onestopforwriters.com

A Friendly Warning – a writing prompt from Phil Giunta

Audio-only: (if you like this, subscribe to the podcast)

Phil Giunta gives us a situation today that suggests mystery, but you don’t have to write a full-on mystery if you don’t want to.

It is, however, a great reminder that suspense plays an important role in all storytelling…

The Prompt

You walk into your office and see a new message written on your whiteboard: “Whatever happens, don’t die. See you Monday.”

The note is not signed and you’re not certain who wrote it…

About Phil Giunta

A Pennsylvania resident, Phil Giunta’s has published two paranormal mysteries, Testing the Prisoner, and By Your Side. His short stories appear in such anthologies as Beach Nights, the ReDeus series , and the Middle of Eternity series, which he created and edited for Firebringer Press. His paranormal mystery novella, Like Mother, Like Daughters is slated for release in 2017.
Phil is a member of the Greater Lehigh Valley Writers Group and served as chairman of their 2015 Write Stuff conference.
Visit Phil’s website: www.philgiunta.com

Writer’s Clue – Writing Prompt from LJ Cohen

LJ Cohen brings us a fabulous writing prompt today, for Day 4 of the challenge.

This is an example of how you can put limits on your writing options, to increase your chances of getting your writing DONE on a day when it seems impossible.

I know, it sounds counterintuitive, right? Limits make things easier?

But it’s true (you can Google it. Lots of experts say too much choice is a bad thing!).

Play along with LJ today, as she encourages you to fill in the blanks, and then flesh out a story from your notes.

The Prompt

Let’s play Writer’s Clue! Stories are about a person in a place with a problem. We can use the basic structure (modified to inject conflict) from the game.
For this story, write about Mx [1. a non-gendered title, in case you’re wondering. Now I’m wondering how to pronounce it…].___________ in the _________ room with a __________.
You can choose ordinary places or objects, or magical ones, you can set your story in the past, present, or future. It doesn’t need to follow the plot structure of the game in that there’s a murder you are solving; this is just a way to give a story a kick start.
For example, from one of my stories: Ms. Ro Maldonado in the derelict ship’s bridge with a malfunctioning AI. Change any one of the choices, and you have a different story.

About LJ Cohen

LJ Cohen is a fan of the Red Sox, Doctor Who & local food. A physical therapist for over 25 years, she now uses her clinical skills to hurt characters. She describes herself as a relentless optimist, potter, poet, and science fiction and fantasy writer. You can find her novels in all the usual places. PARALLAX, book 4 of her science fiction series Halcyone Space will be available summer of 2017. http://www.ljcohen.net
Don’t forget to check out LJ’s books and to leave a comment or post in The Victory Dance Group to tell us how it’s going!

The Doll Maker – Writing Prompt from Kylie Quillinan

Day Three! How’s it going?

You should be cruising into your writing by now and it probably hasn’t become either a habit or a chore yet. You might have finished stories on days 1 or 2, or you might have discovered that it’s quite hard to finish a story in one day.

Today’s prompt is the perfect one to use to create a flash fiction story: a short story (less than 1000 words).  Some tips: start in the middle of the story; use unusual imagery and word choices  to really make it ‘flash’; try to think of an ending that runs against our expectations. Make us FEEL.

Also, today’s prompt is a great example of why you should delve into writing communities. Kylie and I met at a conference and hit it off immediately. We write different kinds of stories, but it’s lovely to have a connection with someone who treats their writing with the same level of respect that I aspire to.

I highly recommend you make some writing friends and meet a Kylie of your own!

The Prompt

People called him The Doll Maker. Nobody ever wondered aloud why every doll had the same face.

About Kylie Quillinan

Kylie writes about women who defy society’s expectations. Her novels are for readers who like fantasy with a basis in history or mythology.

Her other interests include canine nutrition, jellyfish and zombies. She blames the disheveled state of her house on her dogs but she really just hates to clean. You can find her online at kyliequillinan.com or on Facebook.

 

Leave a comment or post in The Victory Dance to let us know how you got on with today’s story

The Latchkey Kid – A Writing Prompt from Jerry B. Jenkins

You’re back! It’s Day 2 of StoryADay May 2017 and you’re still here. That’s pretty impressive (believe me, not everyone makes it!)

Today’s prompt is from uber-best-selling author Jerry B. Jenkins. Check out the links below for more (free!)  writing advice from Jerry.

The Prompt

A socially awkward girl in her early teens is a latchkey kid, alone at home after school as usual. Flipping through channels she lands on one she soon realizes only she can see—and it’s from the future.

About Jerry B Jenkins

Jerry B. Jenkins has written over 190 books with sales of more than 70 million copies. He’s had 21 New York Times bestsellers, including the Left Behind series. He now shares his writing knowledge with aspiring authors. To get free writing training from Jerry, click here: www.jerryjenkins.com/how-to-write-a-book
Leave a comment to let us know how you got on, or post in The Victory Dance Group.

The Dead Friend – Writing Prompt from Gregory Frost

It’s here! StoryADay May 2017 is here!
I know you’re excited, so I won’t take up much of your time.
Just remember:
  • Set your own rules for the month
  • Get to the end of the story
  • Post in the blog comments or in The Victory Dance group
That’s it!
Here’s your first (optional) writing prompt, from Gregory Frost, who is not only a great writer, but is also a wonderful writing teacher here in Pennsylvania. If you get a chance to see him at a conference or a college don’t miss it!

The Prompt

You attend the funeral of an old friend.
Afterwards, in the mail you receive a postcard. It’s from the friend, and it reads “I’m not dead. Meet me Tuesday night at 8 at ____________.” And signed by him/her.
First make a list of possibilities for how this could be the case.
Begin your story with, or after, the arrival of the postcard.

 About Gregory Frost

Gregory Frost is the author of eight novels (including Shadowbridge, Lord Tophet, and Fitcher’s Brides) and various stories of the fantastic, including “No Others Are Genuine,” a Stoker Award finalist, and “Lock Up Your Chickens and Daughters, H’ard and Andy Are Come to Town,” a collaboration with Michael Swanwick that took home an Asimov’s Magazine Readers’ Award for 2015.
Leave a comment to let us know how your story turned out or post in  The Victory Dance group. And we’ll see you back here tomorrow

SWAGr post for June 2016

StoryADay May 2016 may be over, but the writing goes on: tell us your commitments for June, and get ready for the 7DayStory course and, of course, StoryFest, our annual celebration of the story!

OHMYGOODNESS I can’t believe StoryADay May 2016 is over! I’m relieved, I’m distraught, I’m going to miss checking in every day and seeing all the new stories and new friends appear. BUT IT DOESN’T HAVE TO END! Here’s the Serious Writers’ Accountability Group, to keep us all together throughout the rest of the year.

Next week I’m running the #7DayStory email course (Write, Revise & Release a short story in a week). More details to come!

And don’t forget STORYFEST 2016 is coming, June 10-12: a celebration of the stories you’ve written and the friends you’ve made. Watch your inboxes for details.

Every month we gather here to discuss what we’ve achieved and commit to making more progress in our creative lives in the coming month. We call it our   Serious Writer’s Accountability Group or SWAGr, for short! (We’re serious, not sombre!)

What people are saying about StoryADayMay 2014

Leave a comment below telling us how you got on last month, and what you plan to do next month, then check back in on the first of each month, to see how everyone’s doing.

(It doesn’t have to be fiction. Feel free to use this group to push you in whatever creative direction you need.)

Did you live up to your commitment from last month? Don’t remember what you promised to do? Check out the comments from last month.

And don’t forget to celebrate with/encourage your fellow SWAGr-ers on their progress!

****

Examples of Goals Set By SWAGr-ers in previous months

  • Write a story a day in May – everyone!
  • Revise at least 10 short stories – Iraide
  • Write two short stories. – Jami
  • Attend one writers’ conference – Julie
  • Write fable for WordFactory competition – Sonya
  • Re-read the backstory pieces I wrote in May and see if I can use them within my novel – Monique
  • Research the market – Jami
  • Focus on my serial – Maureen

 So, what will you accomplish this month? Leave your comment below (use the drop-down option to subscribe to the comments and receive lovely, encouraging notifications from fellow StADa SWAGr-ers!)

(Next check-in, 1st of the month. Tell your friends. )

A Month of Writing Prompts 2016

Don’t forget, if you need inspiration for a story you can still get ALL THE PROMPTS from StoryADay May 2016 and support the running of the StoryADay challenge at the same time. (I’m really proud of this year’s collection!) Give a little, get a little :) Click here. Now only $2.99

Go Big (And) Go Home

This is it! You’ve made it!

This is the moment you’ve been waiting for. Today you’re going to take everything you’ve learned this month and write the story you’ve been waiting to write—the story you could not have written before today.

The prompt

Go big or go home

Tips

  • If you have written at all this month, you’;; have shaken loose some writing muscles, learned ways of creating time, making your writing a priority, and silencing your inner critic sot hat you can get that first draft written. Now, take all the lessons you learned about what you do best, stuff your inner critic and your inner editor into the sack, shove it under the bed, close the bedroom door, lock it, put on some earmuffs and write the story you want to write, today.
  • Go big. If you light dark stories, but think you’re too nice a person to really be writing dark…forget it. Go really dark.
  • If you discovered this month that you’ve a talent for being funny, go big today, be hilarious. Be outrageous. Write something so silly, so funny that you make yourself laugh.
  • If you’ve discovered a talent for romance, go gushy today. Target their heartstrings, make yourself cry, make yourself swoon. Don’t worry what anyone else will think. You never have to show the stories to anyone!
  • Maybe you discovered you’r good at writing things a little bit sexy. Go wild today. Say the things you never thought you could say. If you’re worried, handwrite it and then have a ceremonial burning. If you’re really shy, tell the story to yourself by whispering it, in the shower.
  • Go further than you ever thought you would. You can always dial it back and rewrite or use this memory as a yardstick for future writing when you know you’ve gone too far. But try to go too far today.
  • Today is all about joy. Make sure you are feeling the joy, and whatever you decide to write. It can be short, it can be long, it can be brilliant, it can be a mess. Just have fun.

Thank you so much for playing along this month

. I hope you learned a few things. I hope you’ve got the creative kick in the pants you were looking for. **Leave a comment and let us know what you wrote today, what you learned this month just how glad you are to be finished 🙂

And remember, keep writing!!

Haven’t joined the mailing list yet? today’s a perfect day to do it. We’ll be back here tomorrow with the SWAGr accountability group to declare our writing goals for the next month. Come back each following month to tell everybody how you got on. The accountability group is the most powerful way I’ve discovered to stay true to my writing. I hope you’ll join us.

The Power Of Three

If you wrote every day this month, you’ve written a decade of stories three times already. Three batches of 10 stories. Doesn’t that feel neat?

That’s because it conforms to the Rule of Three. For some reason humans love things that come in triplets.

This is a really powerful technique for making stories feeling balanced and deep.

The Prompt

Write a story using the rule of three

Tips

  • You’ve probably noticed that, in many stories, somebody tries and fails, tries and fails, tries and fails, three times. They might succeed on the third try. But they won’t succeed on the second try. That story structure has less resonance than if they fail twice and succeed n the third.

  • Character groupings often come in threes as well: you have the the hero, the smart one, and the funny one.

  • Even the fundamental story structure is made up of three parts: the beginning, the middle, and the end.

  • You can use send your character on a quest where they must complete three actions.

  • Perhaps your character gets three wishes, or three questions.

  • Maybe you can really play with this and drop the power of three in all over the place: every paragraph has three sentences; every sentence has a three syllable word in it. (I’m not sure that would make for great story but hey, we’re getting to the end of the month and were all getting a little punch-drunk!)

Leave a comment telling us how you use the power of three in your story today.

Torture Your Protagonist

One of the biggest problems in fiction is when a writer creates nice characters and then doesn’t want to hurt them. Today, let’s make it hurt!

The prompt

Torture your protagonist

Tips

  • This may come easily to some of you, so you don’t need to read any further. If you’re already good at torturing your protagonist. Just go and get writing!

  • For the rest of us, there’s a temptation to let our characters be funny and nice and lovable. We don’t want to make unsympathetic. However, if they’re too perfect, they’re not interesting.

  • Let’s think back to the earlier story, where I asked you to create a flawed protagonist. Wasn’t that fun? You can still have a sympathetic character by letting them be terrible at one thing, especially if they’re very, very good at a lot of other things.

  • You want the reader to root for your character and the won’t if she’s perfect.

  • Torturing your character doesn’t really mean doing terrible things to them. It just means separating them from their goals and desires.

  • Remember my story about the person who wants the chocolate cake? She’s witty and feisty and could be running around the world getting everything she wants, but the real story doesn’t start until she separated from her heart’s desire: the chocolate cake. I could write all day about my witty-and-feisty character and eventually you would stop reading, if I didn’t torture her little bit.

  • Think about your character’s desires their wants and needs. How can you separate them from the things they want, at least temporarily.

  • It can be their own internal demons that are keeping them from what they want. Or it can be an antagonistic force such as a natural disaster. Or it can be an antagonistic character such as an loving, but overbearing mother. Or it can be a straight-up villain.

Did you torture your character today? Leave a comment telling us what you did to your character and if it came naturally to you or if this is something new. If you are ignoring these prompts and writing your own stories, leave a comment and let us know how it’s going!

Welcome to StoryADay, Week Five!

This is it! Can you believe it?

Three more days to go!

I’m calling this partial-week The Last Hurrah.

This week we’re going to:

  • torture your characters
  • look at the rule of three

And then on the final day I am encouraging you to

  • go big or go home.

(Actually, you’ll probably go big and go home, but that’s OK too)

I applaud everyone who is still turning up at this point in the challenge whether or not you’ve written every day, whether or not that all your goals, the fact that you’re still turning up here makes you a winner in my book.

Three more days. Let’s do this!!

Go At Your Own Pace

Day 28

Pacing

As you look back at your stories this week did you notice anything in particular about pacing — How quickly the action flowed from one incident to the next?

The prompt

Write a story paying attention to the pacing

Tips

  • In a fast, plot driven story your pacing will be fast, too. Things happen quickly. We’re off. We run. Things happen. The language reflects that. There’s not a lot of standing around looking at things once the action gets underway. That’s not to say that you can’t have slow passages and descriptive moments. However, they generally come before the quick action happens.

  • In a literary or inward-focused story, the pacing is more languorous, with your characters pausing lots of delicious description, a whole lot of internal dialogue and long sentences with lots of complex clauses.

  • Within every story the pacing should vary. If you attempt to write a whole story at one pace, you will either leave your readers breathless, or bored.

  • Remember to make the language match the emotion of the moment: choppy and brisk when things are exciting, long and complex sentences when things are relaxed.

Leave a comment telling us what piece you were aiming for today, overall. Did you notice anything about your writing as you looked over your pieces this week?

Write At Your Natural Length

Continuing the theme of reaching to your strengths, this week.

By necessity, in a challenge like this, you will likely have been writing very short stories. (I do know some people who managed to stretch to a few thousand words on some of the days, but for the most part if you’re finishing stories during this challenge it’s probably flash fiction.) For me, that’s fine. If you naturally trend long, today’s your day.

The prompt

Write to your natural length

Tips

  • I’m a natural sprinter (like Gimli the dwarf). Some people are ultra marathoners, like Brandon Sanderson. What’s your natural length?
  • Today I give you permission to write a partial story, a scene, and extracts from a longer tale. It doesn’t have to feel complete, like a short story should, but it should still have something of a story arc. Use today to practice that.
  • For example, if you have novel-in-progress, use today to write a scene from that novel. Because you’re continuing the longer work you don’t have to explain the setting and the characters, just jump in.
  • If you don’t have a novel or longer project that you’re working on take a few minutes to daydream. If you were writing a novel what would it be about? Spend a few minutes imagining the setting the characters and then pick a dramatic moment in the story. Write that scene, as if you’ve already written everything that comes before this point in your “novel”.
  • Even if you are writing a novel, you can write a dramatic scene from a hypothetical-other-novel, if that sounds like fun to you)
  • After having spent the best part of the month writing short stories you may find that your scenes start to come out with a stronger narrative shape than they used to.

Leave a comment telling us how your writing went today. What did you write that? I don’t forget, if you’re enjoying this prompts, share them.

An Emotional Rollercoaster

Today we’re taking your readers on an emotional ride!

The prompt

Write a story designed to elicit specific emotions in the reader

Tip

  • In looking back at your stories this month, have you noticed that you are better at eliciting certain emotions than others? Perhaps you’re good at scaring people. Perhaps you’re good at writing tearjerkers. Perhaps you good at making people laugh. Or making people feel the beauty of the situation or your words.

  • Even if you’re not sure what you’re best at, pick an emotion today that you would like to make your readers feel. This is your chance to go all “Stephen King”, or “50 Shades Of Gray”.

  • In order to elicit emotions in readers you’re going to have to make them care about your character. Then you have to put that character in peril.

  • Peril doesn’t necessarily mean dangling them off a cliff. Just remember to focus on what they really, really want…and then take it away from them.

  • The more you can keep the reader inside the heart of your character the stronger their reaction will be.

Leave a comment to let us know which emotion you went for today. And remember, if you’re enjoying these prompts, why not share them?

Change Your Point Of View

Today were looking at point of you again, but in a slightly different way

The prompt

Pick a point of view you don’t usually use and write a story in it

Tips

*Look back at the stories you’ve written this month or in the past. Do you have a favorite point of view? Do you always default to first person or third person? Write a story today in a different POV.

  • If you flip back and forth between different perspectives frequently, just decide which to use today based on what you’ve written so far this month. What have you done most of? Choose that.

  • Each point of view brings with it restrictions and possibilities. If you frequently right in the same point of view you may be limiting yourself

  • To demonstrate the power of POV, you may want to repeat the exercise we tried earlier in the month of taking a story that you’ve previously written and writing it from another point of view. This time however I want you to keep the same character as the protagonist. Simply change the “I said “to “he/she/it/they said”.

  • Try to focus on the opportunities that this new perspective offers. If you’re shifting from third person omniscient to a limited/first person perspective, **really dig into the facts really dig into the characters thoughts and emotions. In these more limited perspective there’s no excuse for “Telling Not Showing”. Everything can be written as if we’re riding along on their shoulder, experiencing everything with them.

  • If you’re moving from a limited perspective to a third person omniscient, celebrate the fight that you cannot see things from different peoples’ perspectives. The most effective, least confusing way to do this is to have seen breaks between each head hop in the short story. (You probably don’t want to do it more than a couple of times but it can be quite fun to have most of the story told one person’s perspective then have a line break and give another character’s perspective as the conclusion of the story revealing a lot about the truth of the situation that, perhaps, the first character didn’t know.)

  • If you hate moving away from your favorite point of view that’s fine. You don’t ever have to do it again. Sometimes creative failures are essential to teach you what to avoid in future.

Leave a comment telling us what you discovered in your writing today. Perhaps you are very versatile with point of view or perhaps this was ridiculously hard. What did you learn? And remember, if you’re enjoying these prompts,share them.