[Write on Wednesday] Fun With Vitriol

Ever hated a place? I mean really hated it?

Rage (Portrait)
I’ve been reading a few books recently where a character pours his emotions about his life and everything in it, into his description of where he is.

The authors used the character to write passionate, scathing, vitriolic critiques of the places. Reading them gave me a gleeful, naughty chuckle because I am so darned polite and evenhanded that I could never say that kind of thing about any one, place or thing. But maybe my characters could…

The Prompt

Write a story in which one of your characters rips the setting to shreds.

For inspiration you could take a look at how the various characters look at the locations in Ken Follet’s sprawling Fall of Giants. At one point Billy, going home to the town he has longed for, suddenly finds it “small and drab, and the mountains all around seemed like walls to keep the people in.” [1. Follett, Ken (2011-08-30). Fall of Giants: Book One of the Century Trilogy (Kindle Locations 15428-15429). Penguin Group. Kindle Edition.]

Or look at how another Billy sees the towns he visits as a returning Iraq war hero in Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk.

For a more extreme version, (and if you can take some furious-but-funny foul language), have a look at the opening section of A Big Boy Did It And Ran Away by Chris Brookmeier. Keep reading until you get to the bit about Aberdeen. (I will refrain from comment as I have family in Aberdeen. But tell me that writing doesn’t leap off the page!)

Ready to let a character trash something?

Go!

Post your writing in the comments, if you dare!

[Writing Prompt] Word List

A silly and simple word-list prompt today:

The Prompt

Write a story that includes the words

Enflame, nugget, jingle, spelling and flight.

Make it short, make it long, but make it happen!

Go!

And when you have written your story comment on this post and let us know how it went.

[Writing Prompts] 2 Points of View Part II

You’ve made it! Fireworks #1Congratulations to anyone who wrote at all this month and I’m prostrating myself on the floor before any of you who are sitting down to write your 30th story. Really. I bet you’ve learned a ton this month, right?

The Prompt

Take the story you wrote yesterday (or any day) and rewrite it from the perspective of another character in the story.

Tips

  • Remember that the only ‘truth’ in a story is the truth as your protagonist sees it — preferably an emotional truth.
  • Remember that your former protagonist is now only a supporting character. Everything you show about that character should only serve your new protagonist’s point of view (even if you KNOW why the former-protagonist really slapped the old lady, in this version you should probably only show the new protagonist’s perception of that act).

And now:

Thank you so much for coming along on this journey this month.

I’d LOVE to hear about what you’ve learned. If you can take a moment, please send me an email (julie at storyaday dot org) and tell me one thing you discovered on your journey this month. (Perhaps it’s about how or when you work best, perhaps it was about the ideas that came to you, perhaps it was about how to carry on after a bad day…)

If you’re subscribed to the Daily Prompt email, don’t think I’m going to leave you stranded. You should still receive one email a week (on Wednesdays), to keep you writing throughout the rest of the year.

If you want to keep up with the news about the next StoryADay challenge (May 2013) make sure you’re on the Advance Notice List. I send occasional emails to this list, mostly with news about the upcoming challenge.

If you’d like to hear from me occasionally about writing courses, ebooks and other creativity-enhancing goodies, make sure you’re on my Creativity Lab list. It’s an even more infrequent mailing which goes out only when I find a great tool I want to share with you (hint: there’s a big thing coming in October, which will help you keep writing and polishing stories throughout the year). Join the Creativity Lab List here.

And lastly, thanks again for joining in. It give me so much pleasure to see people writing and getting joy from putting in the work!

Keep in touch and keep writing,
Julie

[Writing Prompt] 2 Points Of View Part I

We’re almost at the end of the month! Congrats to anyone who has written at ALL this month and HUGE, HUGE congrats to those of you who have 28 stories already. Two more and you achieve SuperHero status!

The Prompt

Write a story with more than one character today, so that tomorrow you can rewrite the story from the other character’s point of view.

Tips

Remember that the ‘truth’ of the story is not so much in the details of the events as the details of how the protagonist tells/sees the story.

[Writing Prompt] World Building

Writing a story is more than just throwing some characters into a situation and seeing what happens. A good writer builds a whole world around the story of the characters.

This is more than setting: it’s also the soundtrack, the slang people use, the color palette of the rooms, the social hierarchy hinted at…

The Prompt

Spend Some Time Painting A Realistic World Around The Edges of Today’s Story

The most obvious place to find examples of this ‘world-building’ is in science-fiction (especially futuristic or space stories) and fantasy. Each of these genres has to define everything for the reader from social structures to the shape of the vehicles, to the way gravity works in this world (think Harry Potter’s wizarding world and its unconventional public transport, or Star Wars vs. Firefly in how they handled the sound of space ships.)

But every story needs a certain amount of ‘world-building’. In a Hercule Poirot story we are in a world of drawing-rooms and exotic locales, and a certain class strata. In 50 Shades of Grey, we are introduced to a world where certain people define the shape of their relationship with detailed contracts.

Pay attention to the details of your world today.

Go!

And when you have written your story, log in and post your success in The Victory Dance group or simply comment on this post and let the congrats come flying in.

[Writing Prompt] Ageism

Today we’re going to take a look at a character from the perspective of age.

The Prompt

Write About A Character In A Different Age Group

By “different age group” I mean either someone who is not the same age as you or someone of an age that you don’t normally write about. Also, you can decide to write about someone in an age band that no-one ever writes about (well hardly ever. Not ‘never’. It’s a big universe…)

Tips

Get inside the skin of the character
Don’t write ABOUT their age, just let them BE that age
How does their age affect their thoughts, reactions, physicality, the scope of the story setting?
How do other characters react to them, and is that affected by their age?

Go!

And when you have written your story, log in and post your success in The Victory Dance group or simply comment on this post and let the congrats come flying in.