Fight To The End | StoryADay 2024 Day 10

No more unsatisfying endings!

The Prompt

Write a story about a character who is engaged in a contest that matters very much to them. You may or may not reveal the result, at the end. Your choice.

Things To Consider

A lot of writers struggle with ending a short story.

This comes down to one of a few problems

They don’t know when the story is ‘over’
They are afraid of tying things up too neatly in a bow and seeming cheesy

The solution to problem #1 is to figure out what the central point of your story really is.

It’s easy to keep writing, introducing new characters and new situations, but at some point you have to start making decision and shutting down your characters’ options, driving them down a funnel towards the ending. (I know, I know, making decisions is hard. But that’s what we’re doing, as writers: making a series of decisions for all of our characters. No wonder this is exhausting work!!)

When you know the point of your story, you can decide how to end it.

For example,

Winning And Winning Some More: in many movies about sports teams, especially underdogs, the team is engaged in a final contest. For a moment it seems like all is lost, until they rally and then, at the final buzzer, someone throws/hits/kicks/lobs a ball that lands exactly where it needs to, to put them over the top for a win.

This is a neat, happy, and rather cliched ending, but you can pull it off if the reader is invested in the characters and their success.

Similarly, romance stories end with the main couple getting together, but the inevitability of this ‘neat’ ending, doesn’t spoil the ride because we are rooting for each character to get out of their own way and let themselves accept love.

Failing (but also winning): SPOILER ALERT, the end of the Star Wars universe movie Rogue One is far from a traditionally happy ending, but it was a deeply satisfying ending. The characters we cared about made a huge sacrifice for the greater good, and along the way resolved a bunch of their personal demons.

If this movie had ended with everyone escaping to live happy, uncomplicated lives, I would have thrown my popcorn at the screen.

The Unresolved Ending: More SPOILER ALERT: in the finale of the long-running series Angel, the main characters have overcome a lot of squabbling to come back together as a team. They face the final conflict against terrible odds: cornered at the end of an alley facing down a bunch of demons. They’ve got out of this kind of situation before, but this one seems particularly dire.

Because this was the last time we were ever going to hang out with these characters the stakes were particularly high. Instead of creating a neat ending that would satisfy some viewers and enrage others, the writers had the characters rally as a team one last time, grin at each other and charge into the fight…at which point the end credits rolled. It was satisfying because the larger story of the series been wrapped up, but the final outcome was left to our imaginations.

Upgrade now to the Online Challenge Handbook

Get the Challenge Handbook, with helper videos, audio and text PLUS daily warm ups and brainstorming exercises designed to jumpstart your writing, daily.

Write with us during May or go at your own pace.

Access immediately. (Will stay online as long as I’m running StoryADay!)

Only $31 during the challenge. Price increases to $97 on June 1, 2024

Here’s your next Game Piece. save the image and share on social media with #storyaday

Prefer paper crafts? Here’s the cut & paste version

Creating Conflict | StoryADay 2024 Day 9

Conflict is the beating heart of your story

The Prompt

The characters in your story today are stuck and need to work together to escape

Things To Consider

If character is the emotional heart of a story, conflict is the engine of the plot. Conflict doesn’t have to be something huge and traumatic.

It can be as simple as a disagreement about whether the coffee should be decaf or whether the person suggesting that is a monster caffeinated.

Every conflict is an opportunity to explore the motivation and values of your characters, and to point up the differences between them.

This is another great opportunity to take characters from another work-in-progress and dig deeper by putting them into a story.

One of the things that can easily get lost in a novel—especially after we fall in love with our characters—is conflict. We can spend so much time exploring their inner lives that we forget to torture them just a little bit.

Use today’s story to make life a little uncomfortable for your character. Sources of conflict to mine:

* Communication difficulties – misunderstandings, talking at cross purposes, someone not saying what they mean, linguistic difficulties…have you ever sat at dinner with your father and your brother and marveled at how they can argue over the minutiae of a how to talk about problem even though they agree on the bigger issue? (Asking for a friend…)

* Conflicting approaches to getting a task done – two characters may both want to escape the ravine they’ve fallen into, but one may want to follow the river until it reaches an outflow while the other wants to scale the cliff and get back on track as soon as possible.

Or, in a more mundane example: you take a wrong turn on the way to a party. You and your companion still both want to get to the party, but whereas your companion wants you to make a u-turn, you’re sure you can find an alternate route if you keep going forwards. Both of you are determined to do it your way. Why does it matter so much to each of you? What does it say about you as a character and about your relationship?

What else is feeding this conflict? What happens when you take that right turn down a quiet street, and how do each of you react to a, the events that greet you and b, the decision that led you there? Can you see how the story begins to emerge as you introduce conflict?)

* Conflicting wants/needs – perhaps one of your characters is less motivated to escape than the other. Why? Are they honest about it with the other character (or themselves) or not? * Lack of resources – conflict doesn’t always have to be interpersonal. It can be about a group of people in conflict with their environment. It’s easy to escape from a locked room if you have a key, harder if it’s barred from the outside.

Don’t forget, however, that it keeps things extra spicy if there is also interpersonal conflict, as stress levels rise.

Upgrade now to the Online Challenge Handbook

Get the Challenge Handbook, with helper videos, audio and text PLUS daily warm ups and brainstorming exercises designed to jumpstart your writing, daily.

Write with us during May or go at your own pace.

Access immediately. (Will stay online as long as I’m running StoryADay!)

Only $31 during the challenge. Price increases to $97 on June 1, 2024

Here’s your next Game Piece. save the image and share on social media with #storyaday

Prefer paper crafts? Here’s the cut & paste version

Character & Power | StoryADay 2024 Day 8

Character sheets are all very well, but no man is an island…

Bonus: if you’re starting to struggle, check out the SOS – Save Our StoryADay Guide now to get back on track

The Prompt

Write a story in which your character interacts with three other characters, one who has power over them, one whom they have power over, and one who is on an equal footing with them.

Things To Consider

Character biographies and archetypes are all very well as a starting point, but a person’s character is not fixed, nor does it ever fit one archetype. People are complex and and society even more so.

People show different parts of themselves in different situations. A useful way to decide which aspects of your character to show in a particular scene is to think the power dynamics in that scene. And remember: power can be psychological, physical, or the power of the group.

Our characters react based on who has the most power in an interaction. This dictates which masks they use to fit into a situation (or sometimes, to stand out) or whether they can be raw and vulnerable. Psychological Power

There are a bunch of old sayings like: you can judge a person’s character by what they do when no-one’s looking, or by how they treat ‘the staff’ (which, these days, tends to mean waitstaff, valet parkers, grocery store clerks or anyone they perceive as having less power than them in a given situation).

And this is true to a certain extent that these action reveal a person’s character and values.

But none of these interactions reflect how that character always acts. Nobody always acts as their best or worst self. And few people remain unchanged throughout their lives.

Physical and Social Power

In The Expanse series by James S A Corey one of the most interesting characters is Amos Burton, who is always, phsyically, the most powerful person in the room and the most comfortable with violence as a solution. In a room full of violent thugs, he is absolutely at ease.

Over the course of the series we don’t see his values change, but we do see him learn how to act in different situations, based on his desire to stay with the crew. It doesn’t feel insincere because his actions are not always dictated by his values and that feels very human.

He still has no problem with violence but he knows his captain does. He masks that part of himself because the captain of the ship has power over him, and the collective power of the rest of his crew is greater than his individual power (even though he could beat them all to a pulp if he felt so inclined).

Power Dynamics for Writing

In each scene of a story, in each interaction, we are seeing a snapshot of your characters. How they act in general is not necessarily how they will act in this moment.

But how to decide?

If you’re not sure what to do with a character in a scene, look around.

Who else is in the scene, and how much power does your character have, relative to them?

How does that affect how your character acts?Do they hold themselves differently? Do they speak differently? And how does that affect their mood and actions going into the next scene, where they might interact with someone with a different power relationship.

It doesn’t necessarily mean they’re being insincere in any of those situations. Rather, they are operating on a high-level understand of social dynamics. (Being human is complicated!)

Upgrade now to the Online Challenge Handbook

Get the Challenge Handbook, with helper videos, audio and text PLUS daily warm ups and brainstorming exercises designed to jumpstart your writing, daily.

Write with us during May or go at your own pace.

Access immediately. (Will stay online as long as I’m running StoryADay!)

Only $31 during the challenge. Price increases to $97 on June 1, 2024

Here’s your next Game Piece. save the image and share on social media with #storyaday

Prefer paper crafts? Here’s the cut & paste version

Title Longer Than Story | StoryADay 2024 Day 7

I feel like I should have worked harder on the title for today’s prompt…

The Prompt

Write a short story in which the title is longer than the short story itself

Things To Consider

If you’re looking for a more serious take on titles, listen to this podcast episode where I talk all about titles, and download my Terrific Titles Guide.

Sometimes contents and anthologies call for stories of a very particular word count. I am often asked if the title counts towards the limit.

It does not.

Therefore, if you’re feeling cheeky, it can be fun to write a story with a ridiculously long title.

In fact, this year I heard of a contest that called for exactly this: a story with a title longer than the body of the story. In this case you may find yourself playing with the premise of a story for a while before you begin to compose the finished article.

You may need to get up and pace around or go for a long walk, or, if you happen to read this at the start of the day, mull over it all day before you sit down to write. Sometimes that’s how writing goes.

The title you end up with will probably do the work that’s usually done by the opening paragraphs of a more traditional story: establishing the setting, the tone, the character, their desire and the obstacle to that desire.

The story itself will probably take the form of an ‘answer’ to the puzzle you set up in the story. I’d aim for a title that uses up 2/3 of the total word count, and a ‘story’ that is no more than 1/3 of the words. Here are some examples of short stories pretty long titles, but I think we could take similar ideas and expand them in interesting ways.

My Last Attempt to Explain to You What Happened to the Lion Tamer – Brendan Matthews

The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven – Sherman Alexie

What We Talk About When We Talk About Love – Raymond Carver

These are novels, but I hope they’ll give you a sense of what I’m looking for today:

No Matter How Much You Promise to Cook or Pay the Rent You Blew It Cauze Bill Bailey Ain’t Never Coming Home Again; A Symphonic Novel – Edgardo Vega Yunqué

Or how about this well-known novel that are rarely given its full title?

The Personal History, Adventures, Experience and Observation of David Copperfield the Younger of Blunderstone Rookery – Charles Dickens

And my absolute favorite:

The Life and Strange Surprizing Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, Of York, Mariner: Who lived Eight and Twenty Years, all alone in an un-inhabited Island on the Coast of America, near the Mouth of the Great River of Oroonoque; Having been cast on Shore by Shipwreck, wherein all the Men perished but himself. With An Account how he was at last as strangely deliver’d by Pyrates – Daniel Defoe

Could you write a title like that and a quick one-sentence riposte as the body of the story?

One of my favorite things about short stories is their ability to defy expectations.

See what you can do with this challenge today. Leave a comment and let us know know how you got on. Was this faster than usual? Slower? Fun? Annoying? Join the discussion!

Leave a comment and let us know how it went!

Upgrade now to the Online Challenge Handbook

Get the Challenge Handbook, with helper videos, audio and text PLUS daily warm ups and brainstorming exercises designed to jumpstart your writing, daily.

Write with us during May or go at your own pace.

Access immediately. (Will stay online as long as I’m running StoryADay!)

Only $31 during the challenge. Price increases to $97 on June 1, 2024

Here’s your next Game Piece. save the image and share on social media with #storyaday

Prefer paper crafts? Here’s the cut & paste version

Word List | StoryADay 2024 Day 6

This is such a ridiculous prompt you can’t possible ‘fail’

The Prompt

Write a ~~word~~ story containing each of these 10 words

Why
Misery
Consternation
Pallor
Orchestra
Forgive
Paper
Entry
First
Grandmother

Things To Consider

I expect many people reading this prompt to have a viscerally negative reaction. “How am I supposed to write anything good with a list of random words?!”

Answer: you’re not.

Today’s prompt is an exercise in coming to your desk, writing something awkward and keeping going away.

There will be many, many days as a writer when you need to write a scene or a story that just isn’t flowing the way you want to.

The ability to keep writing anyway is an essential skill. We all need to practice allowing the first draft to be janky, awkward, a little bit ugly…and finishing it anyway.

It’s easy to say, but harder to do. So today, I’m intentionally setting the bar low. Of course you’re not expected to write a masterpiece with a collection of words I plucked randomly from a book (“The Art of the Short Story”, Dana Gioia & R. S. Gwynn, Pearson Longman, 2006, in case you’re interested).

If you’re not entirely sure how to use a particular word, let one of your characters use (or misuse) it.

Their use of that word—or how they react to being corrected—can more effectively show us the character than any explanatory note from a narrator’s voice. Remember words can be used in metaphorical ways, not just literally.

If you are resisting this prompt, make doubly-sure to give this one a try. In my experience, the prompts people resist are the ones they learn the most from. Sometimes they even end up with stories they love!

Leave a comment and let us know how it went!

Upgrade now to the Online Challenge Handbook

Get the Challenge Handbook, with helper videos, audio and text PLUS daily warm ups and brainstorming exercises designed to jumpstart your writing, daily.

Write with us during May or go at your own pace.

Access immediately. (Will stay online as long as I’m running StoryADay!)

Only $31 during the challenge. Price increases to $97 on June 1, 2024

Here’s your next Game Piece. save the image and share on social media with #storyaday

Prefer paper crafts? Here’s the cut & paste version

Like You, But Not | StoryADay 2024 Day 5

Starting with yourself is a short-cut to character-building

The Prompt

Use the Short Story Framework to help you write a story about a person who lives a life quite like yours but does not behave the way you do

Things To Consider

I hope you kept your copy of the Short Story Framework handy after yesterday’s prompt because we’re going to use it again today, to prove to you that, though it is a framework, it doesn’t have to produce formulaic stories.

Start with a character who lives a life like yours because it will take you less time to invent the surroundings of the story, this way.

Choose a situation that might enrage, frustrate, or delight you.

Give it to a character who seems like you, at first glance, but who reacts in ways you suspect you never would.

This can be an opportunity for you to be delightfully naughty or admirably honorable.

Make sure to disguise yourself a little bit, in case you ever show the story to anyone 😉 Use the short story framework and really dig into the ‘and because of that’ portions, making sure your character reacts in ways that you would not or could not.

What possibilities does that open up? What will be the consequences for your character?

On Keeping The Story Short

Along a highway near my house, some enterprising homeowner once planted a stand of bamboo to shield their yard from the traffic roaring by.

Sadly, nobody had warned the homeowner about bamboo’s insanely aggressive spreading habit.

Now a huge swath of the highway is bordered by a fragile forest of waving stems that ‘escaped’ from the original yard. The bamboo wreaks havoc on the traffic patterns every time Pennsylvania’s harsh winters flatten portions of it with wind storms or heavy snow.

If only someone had told the original homeowner to plant their bamboo in a sunken concrete tub that woud have contained the ravenous rhizomes and stopped the spread!

Likewise, stories we intend to write as short stories have a strong tendency to want to grow into novels. The best way to keep this from happening is to set some firm boundaries around your story idea.

Here are some boundaries that may stop your story from turning into yet another novel-in-progress

* Limit the central incident of the story to one moment in one day in the life of one particular character
* Limit the number of characters who appear ‘on screen’ or who need their relationships to the main characters explained. Two or three characters who appear in the story are plenty.
* Limit the number of locations your story occurs in. The more locations you include, the more description you need, and the longer the story will need to be, and the more distracted the reader will become (remember, short story readers assume every detail is important. If you introduce five locations they will begin to become overwhelmed)
* Choose your details like a minimalist. Choose few, but very specific objects, smells, tastes and sights. Oddly, the more specific you are about a couple of details, the more realistic the story feels (yes, even if it’s happening in an alternate, futuristic, universe!)

Did you have fun with your story?

Leave a comment and let us know how it went!

Upgrade now to the Online Challenge Handbook

Get the Challenge Handbook, with helper videos, audio and text PLUS daily warm ups and brainstorming exercises designed to jumpstart your writing, daily.

Write with us during May or go at your own pace.

Access immediately. (Will stay online as long as I’m running StoryADay!)

Only $31 during the challenge. Price increases to $97 on June 1, 2024

Here’s your next Game Piece. save the image and share on social media with #storyaday

Prefer paper crafts? Here’s the cut & paste version

The 40-Minute Story | StoryADay 2024 Day 4

Write like the wind, friends!

The Prompt

Write a story that begins with a character buying tickets at a ticket booth

Things To Consider

Is it really possible to write a short story in 40 minutes?

Yes!

It might not be a fully-drafted short story. It might not be a good short story. Or it might (I’ve certainly seen people turn out a draft that flowed beautifully and needed minimal tweaks to fix. Sometimes racing to the end is exactly what a brain needs!).

However, the point of today’s story is to teach you to push through the messy middle and get to the end, and appreciate how that process makes all the different in your sense of achievement, and your ability to revise the story later.

Here’s how to structure your 40 minutes

Use the Short Story Formula to help you brainstorm.
Set a timer!
Spend 5 minutes, using the Short Story Framework. Brainstorm ONLY up to the FIRST “and because of this. Who is your character. What do they want from the ticket booth and is that part of their desire or just something they’re doing while they plan the next part of their story? Where and when is this taking place? What is keeping them from today’s greatest desire? (Remember, their greatest desire really can be ‘a glass of water’ or ‘comfortable shoes”. It doesn’t have to be something life-changing!)
Spend 5 minutes writing the set up you just mapped out. You should have reached the first ‘and because of that’ and allowed them to DO something. • Now turn to the next ‘and because of that’. As you were writing the first part, you likely started to have ideas about what this might contain. Make some quick notes and then…
Spend 25 minutes writing two more complications (“And because of thats”). Remember, everything grows out of character and the logical consequences of the actions they take. Are they making it easier or harder to get to their goal? Are they going consistently in one direction or taking two steps forward and one step back? • During this time you’ll start to have an idea of endings. Pick the one that sounds the most fun to you (fun can be ‘horrific/depressing’!)
At some point during this 25 minutes your writing will begin to flow and you’ll start to understand what this story wants to be. It won’t be perfect yet, but you can make notes about these insights and come back to them, later. • At the end of that 25 minutes, set a timer for 5 more minutes and write your climax and resolution. (You may have to type ‘[transition to ending]’ and move along, if you’re running out of time and haven’t written everything you wanted to write.
Tips for the ending: Do you want it to be a happy ending or a sad ending? If the character achieves their goal, it might be a sad ending, but not necessarily. If the character desired something that was wrong for them, and doesn’t achieve it, that could be a happy ending!
Make sure there is a moment in the story where the character makes a big choice that exemplifies the change that they’re making through this story.
Spend 5 minutes wrapping up the story in a sentence or two, then spend the final 5 minutes thinking about your opening and ending lines. Do they feel like they belong to the same story? Can you tweak them now to hint at the theme?
Then take the rest of the day off! Seriously, it’s really important to celebrate reaching the end of your story and letting yourself off the hook for the rest of the day. You can, of course, work on other creative writing projects if you wish, but sometimes it’s worth savoring the win for a while. You know you’re coming back tomorrow, right?

Most importantly of all: if you are starting the challenge today, or have ‘missed’ a day, DO NOT GO BACK AND ATTEMPT TO CATCH UP, today. If you have written a story today, you are winning. Enjoy it.

Leave a comment and let us know how it went!

If you enjoyed the brainstorming exercises today, get more like this when you:

Upgrade now to the Online Challenge Handbook

Get the Challenge Handbook, with helper videos, audio and text PLUS daily warm ups and brainstorming exercises designed to jumpstart your writing, daily.

Write with us during May or go at your own pace.

Access immediately. (Will stay online as long as I’m running StoryADay!)

Only $31 during the challenge. Price increases to $97 on June 1, 2024

Here’s your next Game Piece. save the image and share on social media with #storyaday

Prefer paper crafts? Here’s the cut & paste version

100 Words – Inanimate Object | StoryADay 2024 Day 3

A story about stuff

If you’re getting stuck, consider getting the StoryADay Challenge Handbook It comes with warm-up and brainstorming exercises for each day and each prompt.

The Prompt

Tell a story of an inanimate object in 100 words

Things To Consider

You may want to anthropomorphize the object, giving it a personality and desires and a level of agency that makes sense for your story OR how about telling a story about why it’s important in the life of a character — or more than one character?

(Top tip: if you have a novel on the go, or other stories you have written before, use this as a chance to deepen an existing character’s backstory.

Why do they care about this object and what can it tell you as you write more stories about them?

These details don’t need to turn up in your 100 word story, but probably will inform your future writing.)

100 word stories are a great chance to practice ‘show, don’t tell’, the art of putting the reader in a scene and not over-explaining. Drop us right into the situation and hint at either the problem or the resolution.

Remember: the more specific a detail, the more realistic and universal a story seems. Odd, but true.

A story this small may be easiest to write by describing one moment, but I bet some of you are going to greet that suggestion with a cocked eyebrow and an ‘oh-ho, watch me tell a four-century story in 100 words’. Good for you. I can’t wait to read it 🙂

Leave a comment and let us know how it went!

Upgrade now to the Online Challenge Handbook

Get the Challenge Handbook, with helper videos, audio and text PLUS daily warm ups and brainstorming exercises designed to jumpstart your writing, daily.

Write with us during May or go at your own pace.

Access immediately. (Will stay online as long as I’m running StoryADay!)

Only $31 during the challenge. Price increases to $97 on June 1, 2024

Here’s your next Game Piece. save the image and share on social media with #storyaday

Prefer paper crafts? Here’s the cut & paste version

Two Characters Duke It Out | StoryADay 2024 Day 2

Limit your characters to maximize your chances of finishing a sthort story today

The Prompt

Limit your story to two characters. Each wants the same thing, but for different reasons

Things To Consider

Have you ever sat a a dinner table and listened to two relatives argue, only to discover, when you listen carefully, that they’re actually arguing the same point, just from marginally different angles?

(In my experience this happens with fathers and sons a lot. They agree on the big points but nitpick the expression of them to death, until everyone else slinks away from the dinner table and hangs out with mom and her box of wine, in the kitchen).

In this moment of what seems like deep divisions in our politics, if you dig deeper you mostly find that humans want the same things, they just differ about how to get there: we want to feel safe, to have love in our lives, to have some degree of autonomy, to do rewarding work, to make a difference.

But writing a story about such lofty ideas is not terribly compelling, so let’s bring this down to a more mundane level. Perhaps your characters both want a healthy meal but are bickering about whether that means a deep-fried, but vegetarian meal or one that includes grilled meat and seared vegetables.

As they walk and talk and try to pick a restaurant, their conversation might reveal other, deeper problems—or joys—in their relationship. Perhaps your characters are trying to break out of a locked room they’re stuck in.

Both have strong opinions about the best way to do that. This could be a simple puzzle (how will they escape?) or, again, you could reveal more about each character and their relationship to each other, based on the options each puts forward or in the way they physically approach the eventual escape.

I’m asking you to write this story with two characters for a couple of reasons

If you only have one character in a story it can become very passive, with lots of internal though and very little action, which makes it hard to engage a reader and make them care….unless your character has a strong and quirky voice (and we’ll be talking about that later this month);
The energy of a story is conflict. This can be conflict between what a character wants and what they are currently qualified to achieve, but when you introduce a second character you have many more types of conflict available to explore.

Plus, when you have characters interacting physically and verbally, you have built-in action to keep the reader interested and feeling like this is a thing that actually happened, in an actual physical space, and not simply an intellectual exercise or essay that they’re reading.

Other things to think about:

Don’t give us too much backstory. Short stories often work best when grounded in the moment, with only hints about the larger world the characters inhabit.

Give them one problem to deal with or bicker over, and then end the story. Remember, you’re coming back tomorrow to write again, right?

Leave a comment and let us know how it went!

Upgrade now to the Online Challenge Handbook

Get the Challenge Handbook, with helper videos, audio and text PLUS daily warm ups and brainstorming exercises designed to jumpstart your writing, daily.

Write with us during May or go at your own pace.

Access immediately. (Will stay online as long as I’m running StoryADay!)

Only $31 during the challenge. Price increases to $97 on June 1, 2024

Here’s your next Game Piece. save the image and share on social media with #storyaday

Prefer paper crafts? Here’s the cut & paste version

The Five Sentence Story | StoryADay 2024 Day 1

You CAN write a story in five sentences. Really!

The Prompt

Tell a story in Five Sentences from an idea you’ve been saving up for when you’re ‘ready’

Things To Consider

I know you’re probably raring to go, ready to write your brilliant, 4,000 New Yorker story that will guarantee your place in the literary pantheon for generations to come…so allow me to reset your expectations just a tad.

This month-long challenge is about reminding yourself that you are a writer, that writing matters to you, and that you can write whenever you want…and that writing is fun! All it takes, to tell a story is five sentences.

Don’t believe me? Try it.

Here’s what you need:

A character with a desire
A setting, in time or place
An obstacle to the character’s desire
An action taken by the character that brings them closer to or further from that desire
An outcome. And yes, you can do this in five sentences.

(NB. They can be long sentences, and you don’t have to use one sentence for each item. In the following example, I use one sentence to cover setting, character and desire, and use the spare sentence to fill out the action)

When the casting directors for The Bachelor came to town, Cindy really wanted to give it a go, “Not to get a husband, or anything…Just to have a few laughs, maybe meet some more women my own age…” {SETTING, CHARACTER, DESIRE]

“Don’t be ridiculous,” her step-mother snapped, as she squeezed both of Cindy’s step sisters into too-tight, too-short dresses and screamed at the neighbor’s 13 year old son to come over and cut off the wifi so Cindy wouldn’t be distracted from her chores by shopping for suitable audition outfits online. [OBSTACLE]

As the Uber bearing her family pulled away, Cindy sighed and resigned herself to watching online updates—she was sure she’d be able to find some on Instagram after she had reset the wifi—but before she could do any of that, their neighbor Mrs Pharey appeared at the front door, thrust a blue-silk jumpsuit into her hands and scurried away again, shouting behind her, “Remember to book your Uber home for before the surge pricing kicks in!”

Giggling, Cindy changed into the jumpsuit and sped off to the convention center where she was promptly eliminated in the first round of the auditions. [ACTION]

On the long walk back to the main doors, she struck up a really interesting conversation with Jenny, the show’s story editor who told her she was looking for an apprentice if Cindy was interested, and that she should consider coming back to California with them, which she did, but not before making time to return the blue jumpsuit to Mrs Pharey, because Cindy wanted to start her ‘happily ever after’ on the right foot. [OUTCOME]

Now you try it.

The reasons I’m asking you to use your Big Idea, the one you’ve been saving, is A, to take away some of your magical thinking around it. and B, I want you to always be using your best ideas.

Don’t worry that you’ll run out.

More ideas are coming. Better ideas. More exciting ideas. Ideas better-attuned to the person you are in the moment you sit down to use them.

The more ideas you use the more ideas you generate. Don’t be afraid to use them and (in case that is freaking you out…) You can always use it again later, when whatever you’re waiting for (time? Talent? Magical fairy dust?) comes along.

Artists ‘repurpose’ their own ideas all the time. Don’t worry about it!

In fact, ‘don’t worry about it’, could be our motto this month, so we might as well adopt it here, on Day 1!

Remember, do your best to finish the story today, no matter how messy the middle is. We’re not aiming for perfection, just for completion.

Everything can be fixed in the edit. (Or abandoned. Abandoned is fine, too. You can always write more stories!)

Leave a comment and let us know what you wrote about and how it felt. (As a reminder, I don’t tend to recommend posting your stories in the comments here, except very rarely and here’s why. Treat your writing this month as your own secret pleasure, but do share with us how it’s going.)

Leave a comment and let us know how it went!

Upgrade now to the Online Challenge Handbook

Get the Challenge Handbook, with helper videos, audio and text PLUS daily warm ups and brainstorming exercises designed to jumpstart your writing, daily.

Write with us during May or go at your own pace.

Access immediately. (Will stay online as long as I’m running StoryADay!)

Only $31 during the challenge. Price increases to $97 on June 1, 2024

Here’s your next Game Piece. save the image and share on social media with #storyaday

Prefer paper crafts? Here’s the cut & paste version

Just Released: Save Time with the StoryADay Challenge Handbook

Ever have one of those days where you want to write, but get to your desk and…nothing?

Well, I created StoryADay May for you (and me).

And this year I have a fantastic new way for you to gain all the benefits of StoryADay: but spend less time wondering what to write: The StoryADay Challenge Handbook.

With daily warm-ups and brainstorming sessions, this new StoryADay experience will propel you into your writing day and let you get to the fun stuff (the writing) no matter how busy you are.

Whether you’re planning to write a StoryADay in May or just want to be able to show up at your desk any day, write, and walk away feeling like you’ve flexed your writing muscles, improved your grasp on the craft, and created something real.

I built the StoryADay Challenge Handbook so you can get more out of this year’s writing prompts, in May…or any time you want to write.

(And this one is specially designed for the introverted writers who aren’t interested in writing sprints or hangouts or really anything other than getting words on the page and growing their skills.)

I’ve taken everything I’ve learned over the past 15 years about short stories, writing, writers, and prompts, and put it together in this brand-new offering. I think you’re going to love it (and the special 15th Anniversary discount….it’s like nothing you’ve seen from me since 2018!).

Find out more here

If you’re longing to get to your desk more often, and feel more fulfilled when you walk away, check out the brand-new StoryADay Challenge Handbook

Keep writing,

Julie

P. S. Yes, the writing prompts will still be coming to your inbox for free, if you’ve signed up. The Handbook adds video, audio, an ebook collection, and daily warm ups and brainstorming exercises designed to propel you into your writing, whether you’re taking the StoryADay May Challenge, or simply want to use it throughout the year to jumpstart your writing day. Grab your copy now

Daily Writing is…Easier?

I know I say you should set your own rules for StoryADay, but the truth is, committing to writing daily, can be…easier. Here’s why…

Leap Day Deal

LEAP DAY SPECIAL $229 (regularly $497) or 54% off! https://stada.me/leapday

Listening after Leap Day? It’s still a bargain and you can get started today: https://stada.me/iwriternow

What We Crave

“In a digital world saturated with technicolor brilliance and filtered, unobtainable beauty, modern humans seem unmoored and at sea. We crave stories to tell us who we are.” – Min Jin Lee, Best American Short Stories 2023

When I first logged on to the Internet in 1993, I was thrilled by the possibilities of connection.

When, some time later, I clicked on my first hyperlink (on a page that gloried under the catchy address of something like “74.6.143.25”) I distinctly remember thinking,

“This is exactly how I want life to operate,”

and, at the same time,

“I am in sooooo much trouble.”

Picture me, hunched in front of a mushroom-colored 14-inch monitor, clicking and reading, and clicking and reading, and leaping down the rabbit hole

We Were Warned

That first hyperlink was the start of something that changed the world and I was there for it.

But it turns out I was Mickey Mouse in the Sorcerer’s hat, summoning a wave I couldn’t control.

I was the old woman with the magic porridge pot.

I was King Midas.

We all were.

(It’s 1999, and the distractions have only got shinier! Like my cheeks!)

The Sorcerer’s Apprentice thought he wanted power. What he really needed was control.
The old woman with the magic porridge pot thought she wanted an endless supply of food. What she needed was ‘enough’.
We thought we wanted endless facts, exposure to more people, more ideas. What we need is the wisdom that comes from enough knowledge.

The stories tried to warn us.

Writers Have A Head Start

Yes, we get distracted by the glossy online world sometimes, but writers really do have a huge advantage over other mortals.

We go out of our way to make time to create worlds and characters who wrestle with big human questions:

What if I break the rules, just this once?
What if I had everything I ever lacked?
What if they won’t love me?
What’s beyond the fence at the end of the garden?

Believe it or not, most people are rushing through their days NOT staring into space and thinking about these things.

But when they do have time to unwind, they all want to do it with stories: in books, on screens, in song.

Because stories — not facts, not reels, not personality quizzes — tell us who we are.

Your Turn

Make some time for your writing in the next three days.

Use this prompt if you need a nudge.

And please believe me when I say

“You are a writer. Stories are what make us human. Stories keep us safe. Stories show us how to be human. Stories are the way we learn. No matter how ‘big’ or ‘small’ your stories and your subject matter, your stories matter.”

What’s your biggest distraction from your writing? How did you last conquer it. Leave a comment!

Day 5 – Put It Into Practice

Ready to put a ring on it?

Make it work, long-term

Today’s task is to make a plan to make it stick.

You’re inspired (and inspiring!), but will you still be working towards unleashing your awesomeness into the world, two weeks from now?

In a moment, I’ll offer you one way you could build your practice and skills (in the StoryADay I, WRITER Course), but before that, let’s talk about one more principle that will strengthen your practice.

The Question To Ask, Every Time Your Approach Your Desk

I first heard this question from high-performance athletic coach Kevin Willis, but it made so much sense to me that I knew it would apply to a writing practice, too.

(Big surprise, huh? Athletes and writers are both humans, trying to change their behavior and achieve extraordinary things.)

When you sit down to play with your words, ask yourself if, today, you are trying to

- Be Good or

- Get Better?

If you’re focused on ‘be good’, you’re comparing yourself to others.

There’s a time for this– when you’re sending work out into the world– but it’s not where every day should start.

You can’t compare your first drafts to William Faulkner’’s published works!

If you’re focused on ‘getting better’, you are comparing yourself to your own best, to your yesterday, your skills and output last year…

This is a much more helpful place to be, as you approach your desk.

If you’re feeling stuck, unable to make progress, as yourself “Am I trying to be good, or get better?’

How To Make Progress, Long-Term

As you take your manifesto into your world, making today’s excitement last is going to require

- A plan of study

- A commitment to come back, week after week, no matter what lies your emotions tell you

- Support from other writers

And you can absolutely build that, by yourself.

Or…you can take advantage of the structure, lesson plan, and community I’ve put together in the upcoming StoryADay I, WRITER Course.

(Did you like that segue? I know you see what I did there)

Seriously, though, you do not have to do this by yourself.

In fact, if you’re anything like me, with the best will in the world, you CAN’T do this by yourself.

And maybe, like me, you’re getting sick of repeatedly doing that experiment.

It’s time to try something new.

The I, WRITER Course

The StoryADay I, WRITER Course is your chance to spend 6 weeks, going through lessons (like the work you’ve done in this challenge) and workshops that let you build your writing skills in around 90 minutes a week.

You’ll get 2 writing assignments each week (do one, or both) so that you can practice what you’re learning AND build your writing practice week after week, until it feels natural to be making time for your writing and for getting better.

And it’s all broken out into different areas of study (Imagine, Write, Refine, Improve, Triumph, Engage and Repeat) so you never feel overwhelmed.

Everything is shared in video, written and audio form and broken down into convenient bite-sized chunks (kind of like this challenge!) so you can work on each week’s content whether you have a block of 90 minutes or a few minutes on your lunch break.

You can read all about it here.

Doors open today

JOIN I, WRITER

Bonuses

It’s one thing to sign up for a course, quite another to actually DO the course.

So I’ll email you every week to introduce the topics for the week and remind you to log in and check out the new materials.

PLUS I’m gifting you the StoryADay Challenge PLUS, 31 days of writing prompts and inspirational videos that I created for my StoryADay Superstars group. It’s the best of the prompts and advice that I can give, and it leads you through 31 days of short story writing.

Originally priced at $297, I’m opening it up to you as part of this round of I, WRITER.

JOIN I, WRITER

Don’t Wait Any Longer

Imagine making your writing stick, this time.

Imagine seeing the pride in the face of your friend who always believed in your talent, when you tell them “I’m writing”.

Imagine hearing friends and relatives casually talk about ‘my Nana/buddy, the writer’.

That’s a gift, not just to you, but to them.

It needs more creative people.

And you? You need – you deserve – to be able to lift your head from the daily grind and be the person you know you’re meant to be…even for a few minutes a day.

The I, WRITER Course gives you a structure and an excuse, to do that over the next 6 weeks.

I’ve seen people come out the other end of this course with writing firmly anchored in their life. And with this certain knowledge that if they show up, the writing comes.

When they do, they keep getting better and they keep getting happier.

And they keep living up to their own expectations of themselves and the expectations of the people who love them.

I don’t want you to wait. I want you to start acting on the amazing manifestos that I’ve seen in this challenge.

I think it’s time that we step up and be courageous and put all of this good out into the world.

I hope you’ll join me in the course.

JOIN I, WRITER

And keep writing,

P. S. What’s your plan for putting your manifesto into practice. If you don’t have one, borrow mine and join I, WRITER

Day 4 – Let’s Make It Real

Ready to put a ring on it?

Welcome back!

It’s no small thing that you’re still here, still working towards creating a powerful tool to support your writing practice…and I salute you!

Over the past few days you have

Identified your Fairy Art Parents, the people in creative lives who inspire you. You have noted down what it is about their art and the way they live, their artistic lives that really inspires and moves you.
You’ve noted the commonalities that crop up among all the people and works that you really admire.
And you have taken the step of writing your manifesto

This manifesto may scare you a little bit, because it’s deeply connected to your values and the things that make you most uniquely you.

You don’t have to live up to this every minute of every day. It’s a guide. It’s guardrails, for when things start to go wrong. A reminder of where you want to be going.

Today’s Task

When your version of the doucment

Is a little bit frightening, or a little bit exciting,
Makes you a little bit surprised at yourself,
Feels a little ambitious.

Then go ahead and sign it.

And date it.

Keep a copy of it (printed or digitally) somewhere you can see it, every day.

A Living Document

This version will serve you for a while.

I’m encouraging you to date it because you may want to come back to this exercise in the future and see how things have changed.

(Probably your values wno’t have changed but you might have more fairy art parents, and a deeper understand of yourself as a writer).

Every time you sit down to write a new work, every time you pitch a new idea, every time you continue a piece that you’ve been writing before, take a quick look at your manifesto. And remained yourself of what you are trying to achieve.

Not what someone else thinks you should be doing.
Not how someone else thinks you should be doing it.
What you are trying to achieve.

Not just today. But in your writing life as a whole.

Use the manifesto. Every time you sit down to work.

What’s Next?

So now you have your writer’s manifesto. I want you to come back tomorrow so that we can talk more about exactly how you can use this document. To help you. write more, write better, never work on ideas that don’t matter to you or in a way that doesn’t resonate with you.

So come back tomorrow and we’ll talk about that and we’ll really start to put this into practice in your creative life.

How do you feel about the document you have created? What surprised you about this process? Leave a comment:

Day 3 – What Matters To You?

It’s time to write it down!

Welcome back to this five day challenge.

Over the past couple of days (Day 1 | Day 2), we’ve taken some time to look at your role models in your artistic life, your fairy art parents.

You’ve identified who they are and what you admire about them, and analyzed the commonalities among them.

Today, we start putting together your Writing Manifesto, based on what you’ve learned. This is a guiding document for you as you work on play in your creative space.

And it works from project to project, from scene to scene. (Sometimes I get stuck on a scene and I can’t figure out why I can’t go forward and I realize it’s because it’s not following any of the principles that I’ve set down for myself as an artist.

Working on projects that matter, in a way that aligns with your values and inspiration, makes makes finding your voice so much easier.

It makes everything better.

So let’s get started. Are you ready?

STEP 1

Look at all of the notes you’ve made over the past couple of days about qualities in your fairy art parents that resonate most deeply with you.

(They resonate with you because they matter to you too. And once you’ve got that, I want you to write the words. In my.)

Step 2:

Write

“In my creative life I will be…”

…then list the things that matter to you.

My Example

In my work and my life I will be OPENHEARTED, OPTIMISTIC, always looking for the HUMOR, even when it is dark. SKEPTICAL, but not cynical.

FORGIVING of my work’s flaws.

PROLIFIC and POSITIVE and always producing the next thing.

Committed to the CRAFT (read lots, analyze and share, put into practice).

Committed to the COMMUNITY (past, present and future. Part of a lineage.)

UPLIFTING (this doesn’t mean Pollyanna-is. Remember my mentors.)

A BELIEVER that ART MATTERS.

I create worlds I want to live in, and inspire others to do the same (not just on the page).
Julie Duffy

(Watch the video above at the 02:10 mark, for my explanation of how I came up with this)

A Writer’s Manifesto means that, with every project, you can if something’s not working, you can look and see where it’s not aligning with your values, where it’s not aligning with your strategy for your writing life.

The Decision Filter

Mine has become a decision filter for everything I do in my writing.

It’s easier for me to ignore the shiny objects that pop up, and the temptation to think I need something new to work on. One look at my manifesto and I realize maybe I need to make THIS project work the way I want to work!

I was really surprised by the clarity it brought me…and lots of other writers have told me the asme thing.

Write Your Manifesto Now

This part is going to take a little more time than what you did on the first couple of days of this challenge. And that’s okay.

Don’t work on it for hours, just 15 minutes or so.

Write down some of these things for yourself and to start creating that document in my writing life,

I will…
I will be…
I will not…
I will not be…

it’s not about writing out plans like “I will have a writing contract by the end of the year”. It’s about your approach.

Mine were about being upbeat and optimistic. Yours might be about being sincere and unafraid to write a sad ending.

Really dig for what’s important to you.

When you do, you’ll write the work that only you can write.

The work that people are craving.

You will have the voice that is unique to you.

That is going to make everything that you write better.

Focus on your words.

Sit with it, overnight.

Come back tomorrow, to find out what’s next.

Keep writing,

Leave a comment: how did it feel to record your creative values where you can see them?

Day 2 – Let’s Get Together

Day 2! Keep up the good work!

We’re back for day two of this five day challenge, which is going to get you on a path to understanding

who you are as a writer, and to
keep you on that path.

Anytime you get stuck, anytime you find yourself not making progress, you can come back to the document you are creating this week.

It’s more effective than any other productivity hack like making appointments with yourself or setting deadlines and word count goals.

Those things can all help for awhile. But what matters is the story under the story:

Who are you as a writer, and what is the story you’re telling yourself?

Yesterday, you identified people you admire as creatives and wrote down what you admired.

I encourage you to think about these people as your Fairy Art Parents. These are the people who are guiding the way for you. These are the people you want to be like, but in your own way

Find The Common Threads

Today, I want you to look through that list and find the commonalities between them.

For example, for me, I quickly realized that optimism, humor and open-heartedness were something that all of my people that I admired had in common.

It wasn’t about winning awards or being famous. It was their approach to life and creativity. That was what they had in common that I admired.

So those things belong on my list of what matters to me about writing.

I realized that my fairy art parents also had in common, a commitment to the craft and to turning out work.

I also saw a strong sense among all of my fairy art parents, that art matters. Art is life changing. Art is important. They really felt that creative work can change the world, and I realized that’s something I really believe too.

Your Turn

Go through your fairy art parents and the list of things that you wrote down that you admired about them. Look for those commonalities, circle them, write them out in a separate list. Do whatever makes sense to you to highlight those things…

And then just ponder that for the rest of the day and you’ve completed today’s part of the challenge.

Tomorrow, we’re going to come back. And put all this stuff together. In a way that is going to help you figure out your. Writing Manifesto, your values, and the things that will keep you on the track.

But don’t worry about that yet.

Leave a comment to let us know what you found in common among your Fairy Art Parents.

And I’ll see you back here tomorrow.

Keep writing,

Day 1 – Your Fairy Art Parents

It’s Day 1! Let’s get started!

After we finish these five days, you will have a really strong sense of why you’re writing.

What you SHOULD be writing.
What your SHOULDN’T be writing.
WHO your role models and mentors are
How to stay on track and truly BELIEVE that you are a writer and you should be doing this work.

Over the next 5 days we’re going to create your ‘Writer’s Manifesto’, a document that will help you understand why writing matters to you and what you want to bring into the world, through you creativity.

It acts as a decision-filter for the way you work on every scene, every story, every piece.

Two Examples

When I was procrastinating on revisions to a story, I wasn’t sure what was wrong. Then I looked at my Writer’s Manifesto and realized that the cynical little story I had drafted didn’t match my goals for me, as a writer and human.

That realization freed me to let that draft go, and work on something better…which came much more easily.

Likewise, in trying to write a scene in my novel, it kept trending to a tone that didn’t match what I had written as my aspirations for my work. Remembering that allowed me to find a better tone for the scene, which then flowed better, because I believed in it more.

STEP 1 OF YOUR MANIFESTO

We start by figuring out who we admire, as creative — who are our ‘Fairy Art Parents’…

TASK

Write a list of creative people you admire and what attracts you to them.

Don’t spend too long on this.

For example, I wrote:

Amanda Palmer. For her commitment to making the art that only she can make and for finding ways to get paid for it. outwith traditional structures. And for her commitment to openness.

Mary Robinette Kowal science fiction, fantasy author, whose pursuit of the craft of writing and storytelling is detailed and, logical. For her willingness to share that with others and to keep on turning out her own work and building an audience at the same time.

Nick Stevenson for what I call his calculated openheartedness, the way that he communicates with his readers.

Kim Stanley Robinson for his unique style and optimism.

Neil Gaiman for the same things, and for the literary family tree that he grew out of.

Terry Pratchett and Douglas Adams for their quirky style, their humor, their big ideas and for the fact that what I get from them. I can only get from them.

WRITE YOUR LIST

So write down your list of people who inspire you, writers, artists, creative types.
And then write down what it is that each of those people. What you admire about them and the way that they do business.

Today’s is a tiny task, but it lays the foundation for the really important process that we’re going through this week.

We’ll be back tomorrow to take the next step with this list that you’re making today.

Who did you pick as your Fairy Art Parents. Leave a comment and let us know!

Keep writing,

P. S. Have a friend who should be going through this challenge with you? Send them a link to sign up at storyaday.org/jan-challenge

Through A Portal…

A writing prompt from the archives, to prove that originality is not something you should worry about!

…to the archives

When I talk to new writers they are often concerned that their ideas aren’t ‘original enough’.

Of course, the more we write and the more we hang out with other writers, the more obvious it becomes that originality comes from you, not from the idea.

Ideas are everywhere.

Nobody will ever treat an idea in exactly the same way you will, so you can stop worrying about ‘being original’ right now. You ARE original. You can’t help it.

And to prove that, I’m sending you to a popular guest writing prompt from 2020, from author, podcaster and puppeteer, Mary Robinette Kowal.

So far, this prompt has sparked two very different stories that have been published and a whole novel that is still in progress…and those are just the ones I’ve heard about.

What can you do with this prompt, this week?

Keep writing

Julie

P. S. If you’d like more in-depth writing prompts, weekly, complete with a writing lesson and a jolt of inspiration from me, consider the StoryAWeek newsletter

The Enduring Benefits of a Coach

A young man sat at a piano, his fingers easily traveling over the keys…until a grumpy old guy with a vaguely Eastern-European accent, batted the younger man’s hand away.

“You have to breathe after this phrase, to bring life into the music.”

I was astounded.

The old guy was correcting the piano playing of Jon Battiste, who had recently been nominated for 11 Grammys and who is one of the country’s most beloved musicians.

And yet, Battiste listened to his old teacher, breathed, and nodded appreciatively as he heard the change in his playing.

Everyone benefits from expert coaching, no matter whether they are starting out, or scaling the heights.

If you want to make progress in your writing, faster, and with fewer wrong turns, it’s worth asking yourself if it’s time to get someone in your corner.

My superpower is that I can really hear what writers need, and what they may not be able to hear themselves say.

Your gift is your writing. What are you letting get in the way of that?

Let’s find out.

If you already like my style, and know you’re ready to commit to your writing, watch this video and then let me know you’d like to talk.

Keep writing,

Julie

P. S. Where do you want to be this time next year? And what are you going to do, to ensure you get there? Let’s talk…

Happy People-Watching Season!

During the busy holiday season (when did October-Jan become ‘the holiday season?!) we’re all overwhelmed with inboxes full of holiday greetings, people trying to sell us things, and the inevitable (endless) invitations to social events. (or a feeling of nostalgia for the days when we used to get more invitations…).

This is just a quick love-note from me to encourage you, in case you’re feeling like you’ll never have time to write on your work-in-progress again.

This is actually a great time for writers:

All those people getting together and interacting in ways they wouldn’t on a normal day? Fuel for your next crowd scene!
All those smells and tastes and sights that only come around once a year? Grab a notebook and capture the exact words that you can use later to recreate a similar scene in your fictional world (a quick trip to the bathroom can be your friend, here!)
All the feelings inside you, as you wait anxiously or excitedly for your celebration to begin? Pinpoint where they are happening in your body and how they manifest. Write them down and give them to a character (a great way to go beyond ‘she gasped’ and ‘his eyes widened’!)

Grab your notebook. Stay hydrated. Take breaks (get outside if you can) and try to remember: it’s all material!

Keep writing,

Julie

P. S. StoryADay’s 15th year is coming up in 2024 and I’d love to see it back on the Writer’s Digest 101 Best Websites for Writers list for the anniversary, so if you’ve ever taken part or gained any inspiration from the StoryADay blog, podcast, emails or challenges you can let Writer’s Digest know here.

It’s Time To Tell Holiday Tales

Have you thought about writing a holiday story?

In my world October 31 ushers in what feels like one big long holiday season: from Halloween, to Guy Fawkes in the UK, to Thanksgiving in the US, and then the headlong rush through Hannukah, Christmas, Diwali, Kwanzaa, New Year and Lunar New year…and blink! We’re almost at Valentine’s Day!

Join the Holiday Stories Workshop, Nov 20, 2023

Write a holiday story with us in the brand-new workshop.

There’s no doubt these next few months are busy and freighted with expectations (have you thought about your end of year review? Your New Year’s Resolutions? If you’ll send holidays cards? Whose house you’ll go to for which family gathering? What topics are safe to talk about?!)

In simpler times*people used to gather round and tell stories at holiday gatherings.

(*times were never simpler. They were always full of complicated humans with complicated needs)

Holiday Story Traditions

In Dickens’ time ghost stories were in fashion.

Hans Christian Anderson went in for tragic tales of noble poverty.

Nowadays we have the Hallmark Christmas Movie and the Holiday Disaster Film as our new ‘fireside’ traditions.

But have you given any thought to writing a holiday story of your own?

I started doing this a few years ago, sending each year’s story out to friends as an alternative to the dreaded family newsletter. I only sent them to people who I thought would enjoy them, and only when I had a chance to write something I felt good about.

Writing a holiday-themed story is a great way to

Get in the mood ahead of time (it’s a good idea to start early)
Have something to talk about that’s not politics, religion, or money, when you get to the family gathering
Slowly build a collection of stories with a similar theme you could put together in an anthology
Have an excuse to get some writing time before the holiday rush starts (or during it).
Exorcise the demons of all that socialising, especially if you start writing next year’s story when you get home from a particularly ‘colorful’ event, this year.
Always have something on hand for the holiday-themed hungry calls for submission that will start appearing next July.

There are so many tropes and traditions to play with when it comes to Holiday stories, and I’ll be back soon with some ways for you to think about them.

But for now, I must dash and grab some brandy. I’m already late to soak the dried fruit for this year’s Christmas cake…

Have you written holiday stories? What holiday would you choose if you did? What would be your ‘must-have’ ingredients to make truly a holiday story? Leave a comment!

Creating a Creative Commute

A new way to get to your writing faster and do better, more creative work

Life is busy and it’s hard to fit writing in.

And even when you do make time to write, it can be hard to adjust your brain’s settings from ‘life out there’ to ‘life in here’ quickly enough to make the most of your writing time.

I call this process ‘the commute’.

Finding the right way to commute from your daily life to your creative life, can make a huge difference to your productivity and happiness.

Abrupt Transitions – Good for Drama, Bad for Real Life

When my kids were babies and I was adjusting to being alone at home with them all the (very) long day, I really looked forward to their dad coming home.

Unfortunately for him, he had a very short commute. It didn’t give him time to transition out of being an orderly scientist in the lab and into being just another one of the clowns in the three-ring circus that was our toy-strewn living room.

The transition was jarring and, for a while, it didn’t go well…

…Until he learned to use his short commute consciously, to shift his mood and expectations. No more mental auto-pilot on the drive home.

Now, he deliberately prepped for his second job, and didn’t come in the door until he was ready to be pounced on (often literally, when it came to the kids) by three needy people who were ready for a break from each other.

Likewise, if you try to rush from ‘doing all the things in my daily life’ to ‘I must be creative immediately’, it’s a jarring transition and your brain will likely go on strike..

It needs a bit of a commute.

But What If Your Commute Takes Too Long?

My commute from my last office job took well over an hour, meaning that I had plenty of time to unwind from the stresses of the day, before spending quality time with my husband...for the short amount of time we could spend together before it was time to go to bed, get up early and do it all again.

The long commute cut too deeply into how I wanted to be spending my time. Eventually, I left that job.

Many of us use practices and rituals to help us commute mentally from our daily lives to our creative lives. Maybe you use Julia Cameron’s “Morning Pages” or j you journal, or use some other ritual –perhaps involving scented candles, meditation or soothing music.

And while I love the principal behind all these ideas, it becomes a problem if you’re using all your time and mental energy to warm up, and leaving nothing for the projects you really want to work on.

And what if, like many busy caregivers, employees, and you know, living people, you only have 20 minutes here and there in which to get some writing done?

You can’t spend the whole time commuting or you’ll never get to the good part.

My Recent Experiment

I love some stream-of-consciousness Morning Page writing to floss out my brain, but what would happen, I asked myself, if I didn’t have to write three pages?

It’s something that was so helpful as a concept when I first tried it out, that I hesitated to embrace the heresy that I might be able to warm up in less time. But I decided to try it and see what happened.

I started on a morning when I had a 25-minute block of time to work on my fiction.I didn’t want to spend the whole 25 minutes warming up, so I set a timer for 8 minutes (I love a deadline, don’t you?) and got to work.

I wrote quickly and continuously until my timer went off and discovered that, after all these years of leisurely morning page rambles, I could do a quick sprint—a High Intensity Interval Training session, you might say — and get the same benefits.
I went on to ~~outline~~ ‘snowflake‘ the next section of the story I’ve been stuck on for ages, which was a my ‘real work’ for the day. (Important note: sometimes ‘writing’ doesn’t look like ‘creating a draft’).
Because I wrote in a very conscious way, it didn’t matter that the interval was short. It was all about the intensity, and that was what got me in the right frame of mind for fiction.

Some things that worked particularly well for me:

Set a timer for no more than 1/3 of the time available.
Write as fast as possible (by hand works really well for me because it slows me down, but your mileage may vary. I wrote as fast as I could so I wasn’t staring into space, but slowly enough that I got to choose my words.
Write about one thing that I noticed or loved, or enjoyed over the past 24 hours (In this case I was reading the book “The Living Mountain“* by Nan Shepherd before bed last night, and wrote about some of what I’d loved about it.)
Try to write with as much sensory detail or emotion as I can
Keep a separate sheet of paper available with “To Do” written at the top of it. As I write, things pop into my head, demanding my attention (“You should make that appointment/fill in your ballot/go to the post office/answer that email! And you should panic about it too!!” screams my brain at regular intervals as I try to write about Nan’s ability to capture the exact colors of autumn on the mountain….) I write them on my ‘to do’ list to worry about later and get back to my commute.
(After all, if I was driving to work, it these things would have to wait, right?)
Stop as soon as the timer goes off.
Take a breath and notice the change in emotions, breathing, feelings about possibility…

EXPERT ADD-ON: Don’t Forget the Evening Commute

Something that has really helped me shorten my ‘morning commute’ has been taking some time at the end of the day — or the end of the writing session—to do a similar process:

Do a little journaling to capture what needs to come out of your brain from today.
Capture the same ‘to do’ list brain-calming measures. This is not the same as putting things into whatever task management system you may have. It’s just a list to capture random thoughts while you are writing. What you do with it after your writing time is up to you!
This means that, when you sit down the next day, a lot of the ‘But What About That Appointment You Need To Make” things your brain uses to try to distract you is already on a ‘to do’ list for today and can simply be waved away. This makes your commute even more efficient!

If you’re struggling to get your head in the game when you sit down to write, you may want to look about how you’re spending your ‘commute’ from one reality to the next.

Get the Creative Commute Lesson & Workbook now

Are You Trying To Be Good or Get Better

Struggling with procrastination? Maybe you’re trying to ‘be good’ when you should be focused on something else…

PSST! Want to take part in the StoryADay September challenge, and go through all the 2023 prompts again? Sign up here and I’ll send you email reminders each day in September 2023.

I LIKE TO LISTEN to the radio while I eat lunch, which means I stumble across all kinds of random facts and stories. Today’s random story was about slumping British tennis player Cameron Norrie. He did really well earlier this year, but has been losing everything since June.

The reporter’s theory was that, after his early success, Norrie put too much pressure on himself to be perfect–in matches and on the practice court.

That’s the part that made me pay attention.

Sports psychologist Kevin Willis told me he encourages athletes to ask themselves: today, am I trying to “be good” or “get better”?

I didn’t understand the distinction until he explained:

“Be good” is for match days, when you’re performing, showing what you can do, being judged against other people. (For us, the equivalent is when we’re polishing up a piece for publication. We want it to be good, because it’s going to be judged against all the other writing out there, and it’s going to have to compete for readers’ attention with all the other things life throws at them. We need those pieces to be good.)
“Get better” is for practice days…this is where you need to let go of trying to be perfect, and instead allow yourself to experiment: try new things, fail, learn from the failure and try something else. This is where the only person you’re competing against is yourself: can you be better (or worse) than you were yesterday? And what can you learn from that?

For most athletes–and most writers–there are a lot more days when we are striving to ‘get better’ than days when we absolutely must ‘be good’.

In fact, trying to ‘be good’ when you ought to be in practice mode stifles your ability to try new things, to play in the dirt, to have fun and learn new things.

That’s what Cameron Norrie fell victim to, and is probably why his game is off.

The StoryADay Challenge is ALL about trying to get better, by doing lots of writing-that-doesn’t-need-to-be-good.

It’s all about getting comfortable with writing even when it’s not perfect (it can’t be. Not if you’re trying to write a story a day!)

It’s about training ourselves to allow that first draft to be, well, first draft-y and extremely imperfect.

I’m running the StoryADay challenge again this September, with all the prompts from May arriving in your inbox if you sing up here:

I hope you’ll join us.

Keep writing,

Julie

P. S. If you’ve tried the challenge before and failed, good for you! You learned something. If you’re interested in trying the challenge again, but this time “doing it properly” download this guide to failproofing your StoryADay Challenge

SWAGr for June 2023

It’s that time again: time to make your commitments to your writing for the coming month. Join us!

Welcome to the Serious Writers’ Accountability Group!

CONGRATULATIONS! Whether you wrote stories during StoryADay May or focused on living the life that will feed later stories, congrats!

(I did a bit of both!)

Special June Edition of SWAGr

Because we’re coming out of a month of intense writing, I HIGHLY recommend you download and fill out the StoryADay Post-Challenge Workbook.

Capture your ‘lessons learned’
Document what worked for you (and what didn’t. No judgement, just data!)
Plan for the future so you don’t lose momentum OR burn out

Listen to two podcast episodes that walk you through the debrief process

Part 1 – listen now

Part 2 – listen now

Then:

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!

Download your SWAGr Tracking Sheet now, to keep track of your commitments this month

****

Examples of Goals Set By SWAGr-ers in previous months

Finish first draft of story and write 3 articles for my school paper. – Courtney
Write on seven days this month – Clare
Extend my reading and to read with a ‘writers eye’- Wendy
write 10,000 words – Mary Lou

So, what will you accomplish this month? Leave your comment below

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

Day 31 – Wish Fulfillment by Julie Duffy

You did it! Now let’s see if your character has THEIR wish granted…

The Prompt

Grant your character’s deepest wish, today

You’ve done it!

You started this month with the desire to write more, write better, and build your writing practice.

With commitment (and probably some imperfect execution) you’ve arrived here, at Day 31 of StoryADay. That’s a huge accomplishment.

As you write your story today, think about how it feels to get what you wanted.

Of course, reality never quite matches up with how we imagined the perfect outcome (for example, I imagined that this year I wouldn’t crave Sundays ‘off’ from my own challenge. This did not turn out to be true…)

For your character, feel free to use the old fairy-tale caution to be careful what you wish for.

For yourself, however, I’d remind you that achievements begin with two things: a vision of how things could be; and a decision to work towards that better future. You used both to write, this month.

CELEBRATE!

Whether you wrote three stories or 31, you Imagined yourself as a writer, you Wrote, you Refined your practice, you Improved your craft, you Triumphed and, if you’re still reading this, I’m pretty sure you Engaged with the community.

You’re living the I, WRITER life.

If you’d like to keep Repeating this successful pattern, take the next steps with the self-paced I, WRITER Course, available now – a program of writing life and craft workshops that reinforces everything you’ve worked to build here.

Build your writing practice
Develop your craft
Start when you’re ready, go at your own pace

To celebrate the end of StoryADay May, if you join I, WRITER before my birthday on June 13, 2023, I’ll send you an invitation to join one of our Superstars Critique Weeks (valid until March 2024), at no cost (a $147 value).

join I, WRITER

Tomorrow, I’ll be back in your email inboxes one final time, related to StoryADay May 2023, to send you a self-assessment form, so you can capture what went well and what you will do differently as a result of everything you’ve learned on this journey.

This is one of the most valuable documents you’ll create for yourself and I recommend repeating the practice after every project, in future.

For now, sit back and bask in the your successes as a StoryADay 2023 Winner!

Julie Duffy

In 2010 Julie was a frustrated writer, who decided that writing a StoryADay in May would be a great way to kickstart her writing practice. 13 years later, it seems she was right. The rest of the writing world quickly caught on and now May is known as Short Story Month! Julie is the author of writing handbooks, articles, podcasts, workshops and courses, as well as a short story writer, and ‘Book Boss’.

Join the discussion: what will you do with today’s prompt OR how did it go? Need support? Post here!

Here’s your final Game Piece (you’re amazing!). Save the image and share on social media with #storyaday

Prefer paper crafts? Here’s the cut & paste version

Day 30 – Tell It Backwards by Julie Duffy

Starting at the end is a fun way to tell a story…

The Prompt

Start your story with the character walking away from a situation (figuratively-speaking) and then explain how they got there.

Things to Consider

Think of TV shows that start with a dramatic scene then jump back to eight hours earlier and show how the characters ended up there – in this case you can tell the rest of the story in chronological order from beginning to the moment we entered the story (Looks at the camera: this is where you came in…)
Another option is to step back through the day moment by moment, unpacking every event and the event before it, in reverse order. This can be very powerful if you take the readers on an emotional rollercoaster
Or you can do some blend of the two.
The great thing about this is that you know where you’re going, all the way through the story because you know the outcome. You know what you have to set up to make the ‘ending’ work. Even if you never use this story form again, it’s a great exercise that you can use to rough out the end of a novel or longer story, any time you get stuck!

Possible opening line templates:

As [character name] [active verb][setting], they [verbed] a [noun]. [Image]. [Transition]
e.g. As Joanne fled the crowded pub, she lobbed what remained of her lemonade over her shoulder. With one last look over her shoulder she saw it arc through the air–globules caught in the security lights like fireworks–and spray across the faces of her three meathead pursuers, momentarily slowing them down. She put on a burst of speed. How had it come to this?

[Vivid details about something disastrous]. And to think, just [time period] earlier, everything had been going so well…

A [profession] in a [setting] doesn’t usually end up with [unexpected result], [conjunction]

Winners’ Swag

We’re so close! It’s not too soon to order your Winner’s Swag:

Julie Duffy

Join the discussion: what will you do with today’s prompt OR how did it go? Need support? Post here!

Here’s your final Game Piece (you’re amazing!). Save the image and share on social media with #storyaday

Prefer paper crafts? Here’s the cut & paste version

Day 29 – Crowd Scene by Julie Duffy

Can you fit a crowd into a short story?

The Prompt

Write A Story Featuring an Assembly or Crowd Scene

Normally I caution against having too many people in a short story, but today I want you to practice filling the scene with a crowd…but still focusing on your main characters.

There’s lots of potential for noise, color, and action in this one!

Think about the way fish school or birds flock. Can you use that in the story somehow?
Is your character happy to be lost in the crowd (running from pursuers) or would they rather be found?
How does the outer action of being in the crowd compliment or contrast with what’s going on inside your character?
Where will the reader enter the story, and how will we know it is finished? (for example, if the story starts as your character enters the crowd, perhaps it ends when they find their way out? This is a technique I learned from Mary Robinette Kowal’s MICE Quotient class. She’s running another one next month. * #recommended.)

Julie Duffy

Join the discussion: what will you do with today’s prompt OR how did it go? Need support? Post here!

Here’s your final Game Piece (you’re amazing!). Save the image and share on social media with #storyaday

Prefer paper crafts? Here’s the cut & paste version

(*this is an affiliate link, meaning I may be rewarded if you use my link to sign up. But I would recommend this class either way.)

Day 28- The Body Talking by Neha Mediratta

We communicate with more than words…let’s explore that today

The Prompt

Write a short story describing your character’s inner reactions/emotions/thoughts to outside events entirely through body description.

Use this ending for your short story. “After he signed the papers, he stood up slower than usual. He almost limped away from the desk and into the corridor.

No, that’s not it.

His head hung to the left a bit, his whole torso’s weight shifted to the right leg for longer than the left one, as if was lugging around a log of wood attached to his left calf. His left knee didn’t bend. His arms, usually swinging, hung limp.”

Steve Maxwell, a fitness instructor, says: “People’s bodies are exactly what their thoughts are.”

Including the body’s reactions to outside situations is a great way to develop depth in characters. It creates a more immediate connection with readers (since they can absorb a lot of implicit information through such descriptions) and makes your writing more effective with just a few details!

How can we show defeat (like in the ending shared above) or anger or love or excitement/fear through body reactions of characters?

Enjoy!

Neha Mediratta

Neha is a generalist currently obsessed with stretching, mind-body-world connection and the spirit’s dwelling place. She writes fiction, non-fiction, takes on editing assignments she enjoys and works with people she admires. She lives by a lake in an overcrowded coastal city with her family and some wildlife. Check out her writing here

Join the discussion: what will you do with today’s prompt OR how did it go? Need support? Post here!

Here’s your next Game Piece. save the image and share on social media with #storyaday

Prefer paper crafts? Here’s the cut & paste version

Day 27- Last Will by Michele. E. Reisinger

Today’s prompt from Brenda Rech gives you a chance to stretch your imagination

The Prompt

A lawyer I know once told me there are only two kinds of people in this world: Those who think the pre-deceased should decide how to disperse their life’s work and those who think themselves entitled to it.

Write a story told as a LAST WILL AND TESTAMENT.

You can be silly or serious, realistic or really weird.

Which of the two kinds of people is your protagonist?

Which is their beneficiary? Is there a third kind of person?

What message may your protagonist be trying to send, and do the beneficiaries agree?

Consider your time period and genre, as well as the bequests. Are they sentimental, practical, or fantastical?

The gold pocket watch in 1886 could be a family heirloom, but in 6881 a portal between universes. What if the watch were BOTH those things, regardless of space and time?

Play around with the topic.

Maybe instead of writing the document, you write the story of the passed-down object or one of the beneficiaries.

Maybe you write about the ugly vase or the empty booze bottle, around whose necks cryptic notes are strung.

Maybe you focus on the relative who expected everything and received nothing. Or the lawyer, maybe, duped by the pre-deceased into unscrupulous behavior.

Whatever you decide, your story needn’t be macabre or gloomy. It can be, of course, but it can also be playful.

It can be joyous.

Michele E. Reisinger

Michele is a writer and StoryADay Superstar living in Bucks County, PA, with her family and never enough books. Her short fiction has appeared in Across the Margin, Stories That Need to be Told, Sunspot Literary Journal, Dreamers Creative Writing, and others. Find her online at mereisinger.com.

Join the discussion: what will you do with today’s prompt OR how did it go? Need support? Post here!

Here’s your next Game Piece. save the image and share on social media with #storyaday

Prefer paper crafts? Here’s the cut & paste version

Cookie	Duration	Description
cookielawinfo-checkbox-analytics	11 months	This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Analytics".
cookielawinfo-checkbox-functional	11 months	The cookie is set by GDPR cookie consent to record the user consent for the cookies in the category "Functional".
cookielawinfo-checkbox-necessary	11 months	This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookies is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Necessary".
cookielawinfo-checkbox-others	11 months	This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Other.
cookielawinfo-checkbox-performance	11 months	This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Performance".
viewed_cookie_policy	11 months	The cookie is set by the GDPR Cookie Consent plugin and is used to store whether or not user has consented to the use of cookies. It does not store any personal data.

The Prompt

Things To Consider

Further Reading:

Upgrade now to the Online Challenge Handbook

The Prompt

Things To Consider

Further Reading

Upgrade now to the Online Challenge Handbook

The Prompt

Things To Consider

Physical and Social Power

Power Dynamics for Writing

Further Reading on character:

Upgrade now to the Online Challenge Handbook

The Prompt

Things To Consider

Upgrade now to the Online Challenge Handbook

The Prompt

Things To Consider

Upgrade now to the Online Challenge Handbook

The Prompt

Things To Consider

On Keeping The Story Short

Upgrade now to the Online Challenge Handbook

The Prompt

Things To Consider

Upgrade now to the Online Challenge Handbook

The Prompt

Things To Consider

Upgrade now to the Online Challenge Handbook

The Prompt

Things To Consider

Other things to think about:

Upgrade now to the Online Challenge Handbook

The Prompt

Things To Consider

Upgrade now to the Online Challenge Handbook

We Were Warned

Writers Have A Head Start

Your Turn

Make it work, long-term

The Question To Ask, Every Time Your Approach Your Desk

How To Make Progress, Long-Term

The I, WRITER Course

Bonuses

Don’t Wait Any Longer

Today’s Task

A Living Document

What’s Next?

STEP 1

Step 2:

My Example

The Decision Filter

Write Your Manifesto Now

Find The Common Threads

Your Turn

Two Examples

STEP 1 OF YOUR MANIFESTO

TASK

WRITE YOUR LIST

…to the archives

Holiday Story Traditions

Abrupt Transitions – Good for Drama, Bad for Real Life

But What If Your Commute Takes Too Long?

My Recent Experiment

Some things that worked particularly well for me:

EXPERT ADD-ON: Don’t Forget the Evening Commute

Get the Creative Commute Lesson & Workbook now

Special June Edition of SWAGr

The Prompt

CELEBRATE!

Julie Duffy

The Prompt

Things to Consider

Winners’ Swag

Julie Duffy

The Prompt

Julie Duffy

The Prompt

Neha Mediratta