Inspiration – Page 33

[Writing Prompt] From Beyond The Grave

OK, this prompt is not as spooky as the title might lead you to believe.

Since we’ve started talking about ‘character’, let’s stay there for a while.

It can be hard to come up with a fascinating character for each new story. Yes, you can certainly use recurring characters, but what about when you get bored and need a change? You’ve raided your memories, you’ve looked at pictures for inspiration, but what to do on a day when you’re truly stuck?

The Prompt

Write A Story Based On An Obituary

Say what?!

Seriously, obituaries are like little potted character studies. Read them carefully and you’ll find stories there you never would have thought of: the little old lady in the nursing home who was actually a counter-espionage agent during WWII; the mother of four who loved to race go-karts; the business leader who quietly spent his retirement raising prize-winning orchids.

Characters, every one!

And if you feel strange ripping off someone else’s life story, try to see it as a celebration of their life instead. Change the names, change the details, but the story you write that was inspired by the obituary will remain a tribute to the unique human being you read about.

Where To Find Obituaries

Obituaries.com
Your local newspaper’s website

Tips

Reading about the great and good can be interesting, but paging down to the unsung, everyday people can be where you find the most unexpected and fruitful material.
Seize on that one detail about a person that makes them seem real to you.
What made them do the things they did?
What stories lie behind their passions?
What moment led them to that one fascinating detail in their obituary. Wind back the clock and show us the moment when it all started.
Try not to read more than five profiles before choosing one to write about. You could easily lose your whole day looking for the perfect character (or simply reading about people’s lives). Pick the first person who has a detail that makes you go “huh!”

[Writing Prompt] Character Is Important, in Fiction Writing

As I pointed out yesterday, story can be all about character.

Sometimes the idea of plot can trip us up (“How do I make it interesting? What should I make *happen*?”). But the truth is, write an interesting character, give them some need, put an obstacle in their way, and you need never worry about ‘plot’.

The Prompt

Think of a fascinating character from your life (past or present). Think about what they wanted on a particular day. Write that story.

Tips

Short stories are about a moment in time, when something changes in a character’s life. What one thing tips the balance for your character today?
The change doesn’t need to be life-shattering. Sometimes small changes in perspective have a huge impact on the rest of someone’s life.
For examples of what I’m talking about think of episodic TV. Not every episode deals with the overall arc of the season. Sometimes it’s just a fun story about a day in the life of one of the characters. Maybe Data is trying to learn to sneeze and discovers some truths about life as an android. Perhaps someone goes on a really bad date and discovers that what he really needs right now is to stop dating for a while and hang out with friends.

If you want to read more like this, let me send future articles straight to your inbox:

[Writing Prompt] A Picture’s Worth A Thousand Words

…but sometimes so are a thousand words!

The Prompt

Go to the Flickr Explore page and pick the first photo that catches your eye.

Stare at it for five minutes or so and write a story inspired by it.

Tips

Pick the most visually arresting picture, the one that interests you immediately.
It might not be obvious what the story is going to be.
This will probably make the story better.
Don’t waste any time writing backstory. Think hard then start when something is happening or about to.
Remember that stories are all about character. What does your character want? What is getting in her way?

Remember to post in The Victory Dance when you’ve finished your story today. You’ll get congratulations and inspire everyone else to finish their stories.

(You don’t have to post your story anywhere, just let us know you have written today)

[Writing Prompt] Let’s Get Started!

Welcome to StoryADay May 2013!!

Well done you, for deciding to take on this challenge. Check out the community and all the support you can find in there. But first, let’s get started!

The Prompt

Write A 100 Word Story (“Drabble”)

I’m starting the challenge with a Drabble because although a 100 word story will probably take longer than you expect, it’s still going to take a manageable amount of time.

Many people who sign up for StoryADay are looking for a creativity boost. Plunging into a 3,000 word story on the first day is a bit intimidating.

Tips

To make a drabble work,

Choose one or two characters
Take one single moment/action/choice and show us how it unfolds
Give us one or two vibrant details in as few words as possible
Show us (hint) how this moment/action/choice is more significant than the characters probably realize in the moment

[Writing Prompt] Game-ify

I love stealing inspiration from other sources.

The Prompt

Write A Story Based On A Character or Scenario From A Game

Tips

This could be a scenario from a video game or a board game (what if you WERE Mario — or met him on the road? What if you were Miss Scarlet. Were you framed?)
What if you really were living on a farm, trying to meet all its demands, like Farmville?
What if you were a character in a Sims-like game and gradually started to realize that was the case?
Think of any game you’ve ever played and use it as a jumping-off point for a story.
If you think you might publish the story, be sure not to step on anyone else’s copyright (you could use a different “colored” character from a mystery board game that was definitely not Clue/Cluedo)

[Writing Prompt] By The Numbers

This prompt was inspired by a link Dan Blank shared. Apparently there’s weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth in the artistic community about how the rise of data is crushing creativity.

The gist is: storytelling is changing. We’re not writing or consuming stories the same way. What does that mean for creativity?

Personally I think it’s awesome. Some of the best stories I’ve read in recent years eschewed the straight narrative (this happend, then that happened, crisis, climax, resolution, the end). One was written as answers to a police investigation, some have been written as lists, or tweets. A recent best-selling novel is written in second person, as a faux self-help book.

Of course, the straight narrative will always have its place, and it’s certainly a helpful structure on which to hang a story (more on that tomorrow), but it can help us stay out of a rut if we try new things. So:

The Prompt

Write a Story That Uses Numbers To Shape The Structure.

Tips

You might time-stamp each of the ‘scenes’ within the story
You might write snippets of things that happen in different houses in one street, using house numbers to break up the flow. Pull the whole thing together with one theme or by having one character who pops up in each different house for some reason.
You can use weight: the weight of a feather, the weight of a newborn, the weight your main character was at 15, then the weight she is at 30 and what that means. The weight a crane can lift.
Use multiple numbers in your story to tie together each scene (or break them apart).
Have fun!

[Reading Room] The Distance of The Moon by Italo Calvino

This wonderful sci-fi fairy tale will certainly feel familiar to anyone who saw one of the more recent Pixar shorts, La Luna (in fact the director freely credits Calvino with inspiring elements of the film).

It is funny, and wildly imaginative and, perhaps necessarily, told in a very prosaic, almost pedestrian way. You probably have to write in an almost documentary style when you are writing a story as fantastic as this: the premise being that, years and years ago, the moon was so close to the earth that you could climb up to it at certain times of the month.

It is a wonderful example of how to let your creativity fly free, and still end up with a story that talks about essential truths everyone can relate to.

Listen to it here

[Writing Prompt] Transport Yourself

This prompt is inspired by “Vanilla Bright Like Eminem” by Michel Faber, a story that captures a moment in time for one family as they travel on a train. (Read my review.)

The Prompt

Write A Story That Features A Mode of Transportation You Have Used So Often You Take It For Granted.

Tips

It might be a bus, plane, boat or your first car.
Include a detail or two that convinces us you’ve really been in that vehicle (the shape or location of the cigarette lighter. The ash tray in the arm of the seat. The inadequate luggage racks…)

[Writing Prompt] Open Source Story

This post is the second of two. Check out last week’s prompt or stay here to go straight to the part where you steal a story from someone else!

This prompt is part of a two-part prompt. Last week we wrote stories for other writers to steal from. This week we’re doing the stealing.

The Prompt

Look through the links from last week and find a story with a character, premise, setting or ‘what if’ that you think you can steal and build on. Write that story.

Tips

Don’t worry if the story is less than perfect. As long as it has one appealing feature (character, setting or premise), let the rest go. Just finish it and post it.
Think of this like the kernel of a piece of open source software (like WordPress, on which this site is built). Someone came up with the original nugget and you’re building on it
Post the story somewhere and provide a link to it. Post it in the comments here if you don’t have a blog of your own.
Feel free to take the story off in a completely different direct or into a different genre.

The Rules:

You must write the story in one 24 hr period – the faster the better.
Post the story (or a link) in the comments.
Leave a link to your story and say which story it’s based on
Find something nice to say about someone else’s story and leave a comment. Everybody needs a little support!

Optional Extras:

Share this challenge on Twitter or Facebook

Some tweets/updates you might use:

Don’t miss my short story: Steal A Story #WriteOnWed #storyaday https://storyaday.org/open-2

This week’s #WriteOnWed short story prompt is a Steal A Story! #storyaday https://storyaday.org/open-2

Come and write with us! #WriteOnWed #storyaday https://storyaday.org/open-2

See my story – and write your own, today: Steal A Story at #WriteOnWed #storyaday https://storyaday.org/open-2

If you would like to be the Guest Prompter, click here.

The Write On Wednesday story prompts are designed to prompt quickly-written stories that you can share in the comments. It’s a warm-up exercise, to loosen up your creativity muscles. Come back every Wednesday to see a new prompt or subscribe.

[Reading Room] Vanilla Bright Like Eminem by Michel Faber

In “Vanilla Bright Like Eminem” by Michel Faber, a father sits with his family on a train, traveling through Scotland. A passing mention of the inadequate overhead luggage racks drew me into a story that ended with me blinking furiously and which I know I’ll remember for a long, long time.

Faber didn’t describe the gorgeous scenery whisking past the window. He didn’t spend any time at all describing the train (only that their bags were on a seat because they were too big for the overhead rack), but just that detail made the setting seem real for me (I’ve traveled on a lot of Scottish trains).

This story also featured an interesting trick I haven’t come across too often: the flash forward. Rather than tell the story in flash back, the story just unfolds and then gives us a glimpse of the future. It’s more than a gimmick though. It really works.

You can listen to the story here”

[Writing Prompt] It Feels Like Somebody’s Watching You

iGalaxyS4 funny — Wow, it didn’t take long for Apple to respond to Samsung’s latest innovation…

With today’s announcement about the Galaxy 5 phone, I couldn’t resist posting a bonus writing prompt.

I’ve always been a huge fan of Douglas Adams’ writing. I remember laughing along when Marvin, the Paranoid Android, was plunged deeper into despair by a ‘door with personality’, which stopped to tell him how happy it was to open for him. In the early 1980s this seemed like the height of farce. Who would ever come up with something like that?!

Twenty years later I put some trash in a mall food court and the trashcan said, “Thank you”!!

Seventeen years ago I wrote a story in which something very much like Google Glass was the going out of fashion in favor of similarly equipped contact lenses or, better yet, retinal implants. Last year we started to move into the futuristic era I’d written about.

Yesterday, the latest Samsung phone was released and is equipped with technology that can tell when you take your eyes off the screen (apparently it’ll pause your video for you, and I’m sure someone will come up with an even more awesome application for that in due course).

The Prompt

Write A Good Old Fashioned Paranoid 1950s Futuristic Story About The Rise of Technology/Surveillance/Man vs. Machine

Tips

You don’t have to actually be paranoid. You are free to point out the positives.
Take one technology, extrapolate it and think about the implications for daily life (e.g. if we really all did have flying cars by now what would our physical world look like? Not like it does now, with as many roads as we have. See The Boston Big Dig for inspiration as to how a city could look without roads. This was an elevated highway when I lived there in the mid 90s)
Show the small, everyday ways technology affects one character, one family, one event.

If you like this prompt, would you do me a favor and share it? (by email, Twitter, Facebook or Pinterest!)

[Writing Prompt] Story For Stealing

This post is the first of two. Come back next week to steal a story from someone else!

This prompt is part of a two-part prompt. This week we’re writing a story that we won’t mind someone stealing. Next week we’re going to look at someone else’s story and steal their character, setting, premise or twist, and write our own story (a kind of derivative work).

The Prompt

Write a quick story with one strong feature: an appealing (or loathsome character), a great setting, a fabulous twist, an intriguing ‘what if’. Plan to allow someone else to steal from/be inspired by this story

Tips

Don’t worry if the story is less than perfect. As long as it has one appealing feature (character, setting or premise), let the rest go. Just finish it and post it.
Don’t try to write something you’re so proud of that you’ll be loathe to let it go.
Think of this like the kernel of a piece of open source software (like WordPress, on which this site is built). Someone came up with the original nugget, then let everyone else into the sandbox to play with it. Are you more mature than a four year old or will you get annoyed if someone else builds on top of your sandcastle?
Post the story somewhere and provide a link to it. Post it in the comments here if you don’t have a blog of your own.
Come back next week, read the links/stories and create a story based on someone else’s.

The Rules:

You must write the story in one 24 hr period – the faster the better.
Post the story (or a link) in the comments.
Leave a link to your story and say which story it’s based on
Find something nice to say about someone else’s story and leave a comment. Everybody needs a little support!

Optional Extras:

Share this challenge on Twitter or Facebook

Some tweets/updates you might use:

Don’t miss my short story: Open Source Story #WriteOnWed #storyaday https://storyaday.org/open-1

This week’s #WriteOnWed short story prompt is an Open Source Story! #storyaday https://storyaday.org/open-1

Come and write with us! #WriteOnWed #storyaday https://storyaday.org/open-1

See my story – and write your own, today: Open Source Story at #WriteOnWed #storyaday https://storyaday.org/open-1

If you would like to be the Guest Prompter, click here.

What Doesn’t Kill You…

I would not use the word ‘enjoy’ to describe what I did at yoga class this morning.

I didn’t even manage to love the relaxation part at the end this week (the promise of which is what keeps me coming back).

I wobbled my way down the stairs (really, who puts an exercise class up a flight and a half of stairs?!) and started to wonder if my three month fling with exercise had maybe run its course (ha!). I wondered if it had been worth dragging myself out of bed instead of rolling over, as I had so dearly wanted to.

And then, as I splashed through the puddles towards my car, turning my collar up against the driving rain, I started to notice something. My body felt good. It felt strong. The endorphins were doing their thing. The class had been a slog, but the rest of my day felt suddenly manageable. Shoulders back, head up, I grinned into the cloudy sky and jingled my keys in my pocket.

Warrior Pose

Why does it always take us so long to learn (and re-learn, and re-re-learn) that the things that are hard, the things that are scary, the things that we just-don’t-wanna-do-waaaaah turn out to be the things that make us stronger, braver and more able to live life with our heads held high and our shoulders back?

Sitting down to write can be scary. Pushing through the soggy middle of a story can be hard. It can hurt. It can bore us. We can want to do anything else in the world other than the hard thing.

And then we get to the end of a writing session, or the end of a story, and we can’t imagine anything (ANYTHING) that we would rather have been doing than writing.

So, as you sit down to write today, channel my yoga teacher who reminds us every week,

“This is your time.”

This is your time. Shoulders down, head up, keep breathing, and write.

What about you? Are you writing regularly? Do you find it easy to reach that point where your writing endorphins starts to flow? Or are you still struggling to get out of bed? What do you think would make the difference to you?

[Writing Prompt] A Way Into Second Person

It’s easy to raise objections to writing fiction in the second person point of view (“You do this, you do that and then you feel …”). The most obvious objection is that it reads like a “Choose Your Own Adventure” novel. It’s hard to pull off.

But this morning I was listening to an interview with a writer who found a fascinating way into the POV: his novel, “How To Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia”, is written as a self-help book. (It’s a great interview, full of all kinds of good stuff. Have a listen.)

The writer, Mohsin Hamid, sounds like such a nice guy that I hope he won’t mind us stealing his idea for this weeks’ writing exercise:

The Prompt

Write a second-person fiction tale as if it was a self-help book/article.

Tips

Think of all the ‘How To Write” articles you’ve read over the years. Have some fun with them

It doesn’t have to be ‘self help’, it can be aping any type of non-fiction that lends itself to second person.

You can often find this kind of writing at McSweeney’s. It isn’t always obvious that you might apply the label ‘fiction’, but it certainly is.

Read a sample of “How To Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia”

The Rules:

You should use the prompt in your story (however tenuous the connection).
You must write the story in one 24 hr period – the faster the better.
Post the story in the comments — if you’re brave enough.
Find something nice to say about someone else’s story and leave a comment. Everybody needs a little support!

Optional Extras:

Share this challenge on Twitter or Facebook

Some tweets/updates you might use:

Don’t miss my short story: Self Help Story #WriteOnWed #storyaday https://storyaday.org/wow-second

This week’s #WriteOnWed short story prompt is Self Help Story! #storyaday https://storyaday.org/wow-second

Come and write with us! #WriteOnWed #storyaday https://storyaday.org/wow-second

See my story – and write your own, today: Self Help Story at #WriteOnWed #storyaday https://storyaday.org/wow-second

If you would like to be the Guest Prompter, click here.

[Writing Prompt] My Robot Nurse

People have been writing about robots for a long time and fans of Science Fiction will instantly know what I’m talking about if I mention Isaac Asimov and his three laws of Robotics.

Twenty years ago I couldn’t have asked those of you who are not fans of Science Fiction to write a robot story unless you were writing about heavy industry.

Ten years ago, you could have written about the Mars rover or those funnily little circular robots that were starting to sweep our floors (and sweep for mines in the military).

Today you could write a story about your grandmother, being brought her medicine and being entertained by her own robot butler and only be on the edges of speculative fiction, according to this report from the BBC: Robot Designed To Care For The Elderly.

Reading this article gave me the strongest sense that I was living in an Asimov story (or very shortly might be)

The Prompt

Write a story featuring one of the everyday robotic technologies available to us today

Tips

You can make it, like early sci-fi, an exploration of humanity’s relationship with machines and what that means. Or you can simply use the robot as a primary or secondary character.

Perhaps your robots are sentient but it would be also interesting to see how living with highly-efficient, highly-programmed machines that are NOT sentient affects your characters’ actions.

Some of the robots available in day to day life today (or soon) include the Roomba(af), Lawnbot(af), Lego Mindstorms(af), robots for cleaning your pool(af), welding robots (my grandfather used to do this job!), Automated Guided Vehicles that carry goods around warehouses and hospitals[1. “(af)” denotes an affiliate link.].

The Rules:

You should use the prompt in your story (however tenuous the connection).
You must write the story in one 24 hr period – the faster the better.
Post the story in the comments — if you’re brave enough.
Find something nice to say about someone else’s story and leave a comment. Everybody needs a little support!

Optional Extras:

Share this challenge on Twitter or Facebook

Some tweets/updates you might use:

Don’t miss my short story: Everyday Robots #WriteOnWed #storyaday https://storyaday.org/wow-robot

This week’s #WriteOnWed short story prompt is Everyday Robot! #storyaday https://storyaday.org/wow-robot

Come and write with us! #WriteOnWed #storyaday https://storyaday.org/wow-robot

See my story – and write your own, today: Everyday Robots at #WriteOnWed #storyaday https://storyaday.org/wow-robot

If you would like to be the Guest Prompter, click here.

[Writing Prompt] A February Story

It’s February.

What does it mean to you? Shortest month? Leap year? Darkness and winter? Summer in the southern hemisphere?

Write A February Story

Tips

What might “February” mean to an old woman? A young man? A kid whose birthday is in Feb?

Might you write a story with a sentence for each day in February? A 28-sentence story? (or maybe 29)

What unexpected stories could you tell, with a theme of “February”?

The Rules:

You should use the prompt in your story (however tenuous the connection).
You must write the story in one 24 hr period – the faster the better.
Post the story in the comments — if you’re brave enough.
Find something nice to say about someone else’s story and leave a comment. Everybody needs a little support!

Optional Extras:

Share this challenge on Twitter or Facebook

Some tweets/updates you might use:

Don’t miss my short story: February #WriteOnWed #storyaday https://storyaday.org/wow-february

This week’s #WriteOnWed short story prompt is February! #storyaday https://storyaday.org/wow-february

Come and write with us! #WriteOnWed #storyaday https://storyaday.org/wow-february

See my story – and write your own, today: February at #WriteOnWed #storyaday https://storyaday.org/wow-february

If you would like to be the Guest Prompter, click here.

[Reading Room] Lamentations of the Father by Ian Frazier

This is a wonderful, funny piece, written in high biblical style, but in fact spoken by a modern, harried father.

It is a great example of how to write humor, subvert expectations and trade on the language in which your life has been (perhaps unknowingly) steeped.

If you can, get hold of the Selected Shorts version read by the late, lamented Isaiah Sheffer.

(The full title of the piece is: “Laws Concerning Food and Drink; Household Principles; Lamentations of the Father”)

Finding Your Ending

Just a quick tip, today, from my own writing experience.

Today I was writing a story for Five Minute Fridays[1. Yeah, I love a challenge. So what?!]. I wrote my first sentence and then a second.

As soon as I tried to write a third sentence I realized I had already written my last line. I had the essence of the story in those first two sentences. I had simply arrived at the end too soon.

So I put my cursor in between the two sentences and filled in the rest of the story.

Having the last line — the destination — already in place made it so much easier to stay on track in the middle.

Why not try this as an exercise?

Write “Once upon a time there was a _________”

Then write “And in the end_________”

Then go back and fill in the middle.

If you like what you wrote, leave a comment so we can come and have a look.

[Writing Prompt] Writing From A Scenario – Lorina’s Story

Today’s prompt is a whole scenario with a named character and a tricky situation. Your job is to decide who this character is and how they will ultimately react. I’m really curious to see how different people deal with this, so please do post either the story or a link to your version in the comments, if you’re OK with posting it online.

The Prompt

Lorina Dorsey is nice. Always has been. Which is probably why she’s 52, unmarried and still teaching 5th Grade at the same school after 29 years, she thinks, wryly. She sometimes wonders if people think her weak. If they only knew the strength it took to…but no.

As our story starts, Lorina, is returning to work after the shattering business of burying her widowed mother. Lorina has no siblings. Walking into the school where she has taught fifth grade for 29 years, she sees that the door to Dr Tatchell’s office is closed. She can, nevertheless, hear voices. Dr Tatchell is roaring at someone. It’ll be that nice young Mr Santiago, getting some ‘professional development’ from Tatchell, no doubt. Only the timid, like her, stayed here longer than a semester.

Rounding the corner, Lorina sees a heap of coats on the floor outside her room. She tuts. Nothing bothers her more than sloppiness. Reaching down to pluck the coats off the ground, she is startled to find Andrew Smeel, the smallest boy in her class, curled up underneath them, sobbing. With some coaxing he tells her that he’d been involved in a scuffle with the other boys yesterday and the substitute had sent them all to Dr. Tatchell. At this point, Andrew curls up in a ball and refuses to say any more.

Lorina is standing, looking down at an 11 year old boy, curled into a fetal position outside her door. She turns to see Mr. Santiago stumbling towards her, white-faced. Her mother is dead. All she has is this school. Her eyes bore into the door of the Principal’s office. She takes one step.

Write Lorina’s story.

Tips

Feel free to change the gender or ethnicity of the characters, as well as the period if it helps.
Start anywhere. Use the backstory explicitly or, better yet, simply use it to inform the choices you make for Lorina.
Ask yourself what Lorina wants, what she’s capable of, what you can show the readers to make them suspect she’s capable of anything.
Will you write this realistically, or take a flight of fancy?

The Rules:

You should use the prompt in your story (however tenuous the connection).
You must write the story in one 24 hr period – the faster the better.
Post the story in the comments — if you’re brave enough.
Find something nice to say about someone else’s story and leave a comment. Everybody needs a little support!

Optional Extras:

Share this challenge on Twitter or Facebook

Some tweets/updates you might use:

Don’t miss my short story: Lorina’s Story #WriteOnWed #storyaday https://storyaday.org/wow-lorina

This week’s #WriteOnWed short story prompt is a scenario! #storyaday https://storyaday.org/wow-lorina

Come and write with us! #WriteOnWed #storyaday https://storyaday.org/wow-lorina

See my story – and write your own, today: Lorina’s Story at #WriteOnWed #storyaday https://storyaday.org/wow-lorina

If you would like to be the Guest Prompter, click here.

[Reading Room] – Heart of a Champion by T. C. Boyle

“Heart of a Champion” takes the reader from the opening credits to the close of an old (fictional) Lassie serial.

It is fascinating tutorial for those of us who have absorbed most of our ‘short stories’ in the form of TV shows or webisodes or through other visual media. It demonstrates quite nimbly, how to move from a visual image to the written word. It’d be worth reading for that alone, even if it wasn’t beautifully written and laugh-out-loud funny, too.

Another great feature of this story is that it parodies a much-loved show but goes beyond simple goofing around with the predictability of the TV show. The author thinks hard about the question of ‘what if it didn’t have to end the way it always had to end?’. He comments, subtly on what the show said about the characters who sleep-walked their way through it and the society that it was created by and that it reflected.

If you are heavily influenced by movies or TV shows, read this story, then write a story that contains similarly cinematic images.

If you are attempting a parody, take a close look at what this story does to do more than simply turn into a ‘skit’ and instead become a whole, novel piece of art.

[Writing Prompt] Affectionate Spoofing

“What’s that girl? Timmy’s stuck in the old well?”

We all have TV shows that we love even though they are formulaic, populated by ‘character types’ rather than characters, and a real guilty pleasure. And we keep watching them, even if we don’t always admit our deep, abiding love for them to our more sophisticated friends.

So why do we watch? Because on some level they satisfy a need for escapism, heroism, humour, idealism. They may even have moments of brilliance that keep us coming back for more.

(For me, it’s Star Trek, Murder She Wrote and almost anything featuring Robin Hood or King Arthur).

We know the hero is (almost) always going to win. We know none of the major recurring characters are going to die. We know the bad guy will get what he deserves — even if it’s only the frowning disapproval of the hero.

THE PROMPT

Write An Affectionate Parody/Spoof of Your Favourite Formulaic Show

Tips

*If you need inspiration, track down a copy of “Heart of A Champion” by T. C. Boyle, a wonderful parody of the Lassie stories.
*Don’t be lazy. Don’t just reach for inappropriate romance or make the characters stupid. (Check out Jon Scalzi’s “Redshirts” as an example. It starts as a fairly unimaginative parody of the action scenes in “Star Trek” (you know, the ones where the no-name ensign in a red shirt goes on an away mission and gets eaten by pink slime to prove that the landing party faces some peril) but moves on to a more thoughtful and affectionate examination of science fiction tropes.

The Rules:

You should use the prompt in your story (however tenuous the connection).
You must write the story in one 24 hr period – the faster the better.
Post the story in the comments — if you’re brave enough.
Find something nice to say about someone else’s story and leave a comment. Everybody needs a little support!

Optional Extras:

Share this challenge on Twitter or Facebook

Some tweets/updates you might use:

Don’t miss my short story: Affectionate Spoofing #WriteOnWed #storyaday https://storyaday.org/wow-spoof

This week’s #WriteOnWed short story prompt is Affectionate Spoofing! #storyaday https://storyaday.org/wow-spoof

Come and write with us! #WriteOnWed #storyaday https://storyaday.org/wow-spoof

See my story – and write your own, today: Affectionate Spoof at #WriteOnWed #storyaday https://storyaday.org/wow-spoof

If you would like to be the Guest Prompter, click here.

[Write On Wednesday] Inner Thoughts

Prompt: Write a story in the present tense from a limited third person perspective

Wolf Hall: A Novel, by Hilary Mantel, is a strange, disorienting read. I couldn’t figure it out at first, but finally I realised what was keeping me off balance: the book is written in the present tense and from a limited perspective: that of Thomas Cromwell, advisor to King Henry VIII. Everything we learn comes either from Thomas’s direct experience or from things he has heard from other people. Sometime he is reminiscing, sometimes observing in the moment, but the present tense keeps the whole experience very immediate.

The Prompt

Write a story in the present tense, from a limited third person perspective

Tips

In Wolf Hall it is sometimes hard to follow what is going on, because of course, the main character’s thoughts don’t pause to explain. He thinks of one person, who reminds him of another, and the reader has to trust that — at some point — it will be explained who these people are. or what that place was, and it will all fit together like a jigsaw puzzle. Don’t be afraid to confuse the reader, especially on your first draft. Leave out more than you put in.

Here is an excerpt from the novel to help you see how the author tells the story from Thomas Cromwell’s perspective:

Monday morning the dukes are back. Their instructions are to turn out the occupants this very day, because the king wants to send in his own builders and furnishers and get the palace ready to hand over to the Lady Anne, who needs a London house of her own.

He’s [Cromwell] prepared to stand and ague the point: have I missed something? This palace belongs to the archdiocese of York. When was Lady Ann made an archbishop?

But the tide of men flooding in by the water stairs is sweeping them away. The two dukes have made themselves scarce, and there’s nobody to argue with. What a terrible sight, someone says: Master Cromwell balked of a fight. And now the cardinal’s ready to go, but where? Over his customary scarlet, he is wearing a traveling cloak that belongs to someone else; they are confiscating his wardrobe piece by piece, so he has to grab what he can. It is autumn, and though he is a big man he feels the cold.

See? It’s a bit confusing, not always knowing who ‘he’ is, but once the reader settles into the style, it becomes enjoyable, puzzling out what Thomas Cromwell is thinking, what he is observing and what he is admitting (to himself and others). Don’t be afraid give your readers this pleasure.

The Rules:

You should use the prompt in your story (however tenuous the connection).
You must write the story in one 24 hr period – the faster the better.
Post the story in the comments — if you’re brave enough.
Find something nice to say about someone else’s story and leave a comment. Everybody needs a little support!

Optional Extras:

Share this challenge on Twitter or Facebook

Some tweets/updates you might use:

Don’t miss my short story: Inner Thoughts #WriteOnWed #storyaday https://storyaday.org/wow-inner

This week’s #WriteOnWed short story prompt is Inner Thoughts! #storyaday https://storyaday.org/wow-inner

Come and write with us! #WriteOnWed #storyaday https://storyaday.org/wow-inner

See my story – and write your own, today: Inner Thoughts at #WriteOnWed #storyaday https://storyaday.org/wow-inner

If you would like to be the Guest Prompter, click here.

[Write On Wednesday] At The Gym

It’s that time of year again. Everyone’s made their New Year Resolutions and they’re all hitting the gym. I admit it. I’m one of them.

As I looked around my Zumba class last night I was struck by what a great setting it would be for a story. All those people from all different walks of life, all with their own stories and their own reasons for being there. And guess what? That’s your prompt today!

The Prompt

Write A Story Based Around A Set Of Characters From A Gym (Class)

Tips

You could write the story from one observer’s perspective, or hop from head to head, following each participant’s thoughts.
Remember the story must have a shape, so inject some tension (someone is worried about something; someone wants someone else to notice them, someone desperately wants no-one to notice them…)
If you don’t have much time, limit this to a single perspective and keep the word count short. Ask yourself what your character wants, before you put pen to paper, then run through the scene in your head. Don’t start writing until you know what happened in the hour before the class (or the first half of the class). Leave all that off the page, and just jump in when something interesting’s about to happen.

The Rules:

You should use the prompt in your story (however tenuous the connection).

You must write the story in one 24 hr period – the faster the better.

Post the story in the comments — if you’re brave enough.

Find something nice to say about someone else’s story and leave a comment. Everybody needs a little support!

Optional Extras:

Share this challenge on Twitter or Facebook

Some tweets/updates you might use:

Don’t miss my short story: TEXT #WriteOnWed #storyaday http://wp.me/LINK
This week’s #WriteOnWed short story prompt is TEXT! #storyaday http://wp.me/LINK
Come and write with us! #WriteOnWed #storyaday LINK
See my story – and write your own, today: TEXT at #WriteOnWed #storyaday LINK

If you would like to be the Guest Prompter, click here.

[Write on Wednesday] Seasonal Six Sentences

Last week I talked about the benefits of writing seasonal stories and yesterday I highlighted a seasonal story over at Six Sentences. Today I’m combining the two, for today’s prompt:

The Prompt

Write A January Story In Six Sentences

Tips

Your story should have something to do with “January”.
It might be set in the month, have something to do with the Roman god Janus (after whom the month was named), or feature a character named January.
Don’t forget that your experience of January is different from that of many others. (hint: even the weather is different in the other hemisphere.)

[Writing Prompt] Beginnings

The Prompt

Write A Story In Which Something Is Beginning

(I know it’s what you’re thinking about! It’s January 2, for goodness sake!)

The Prompt

Write A Story In Which Something Is Beginning

Tips

This can be a New Year story if you want, but it doesn’t have to be.
Your character can be beginning something, or the story can chart some THING beginning
Don’t concentrate so much on the beginning that you forget about the middle and the end (this story still needs them)

The Rules:

1. You should use the prompt in your story.

2. You must write the story in one 24 hr period – the faster the better.

3. Post the story in the comments — if you’re brave enough.

4. Find something nice to say about someone else’s story and leave a comment. Everybody needs a little support!

Optional Extras:

Share this challenge on Twitter or Facebook

Some tweets/updates you might use:

This week’s #WriteOnWed short story prompt is about beginnings #storyaday https://storyaday.org/wow-beginnings

Come and write with us! #WriteOnWed #storyaday https://storyaday.org/wow-beginnings

See my story – and write your own, today: beginnings! #WriteOnWed #storyaday https://storyaday.org/wow-beginnings

Don’t miss my “Beginnings” story #WriteOnWed #storyaday https://storyaday.org/wow-beginnings

[Tuesday Reading Room] After The Reign of Jimmy Carter by James Thrasher

For New Year over at Six Sentences they’ve posted a New Year themed story.

It doesn’t tackle a particularly novel topic (a New Year’s story about resolutions? Shock!), and it’s not very long (six sentences!) and yet it manages to say a lot and stay fresh.

It’s a great example of how restrictions in length, topic or form, can help transform your writing.

[Writing Prompt] Seasonal Stories

Every year at this time I stumble on holiday-themed stories wherever I look: Christmas mysteries, Hannukah radio anthologies, contests themed on New Year’s. Collection after collection after anthology on seasonal stories. And why? Because they make great perennial gifts that publishers and authors can wheel out every year at the same time.

Of course, with the lead-time involved in publishing, if you want to have a hope of submitting a story to a themed anthology, you need to have it ready 6 months to a year before the occasion. So this is the perfect time to write.

The Prompt

Write a Themed Story For The Season

Tips

Pick Christmas, Hannukah, Kwanzaa, Winter Solstice, New Year’s or any other seasonal trope (“The First Snowman of Winter”?), whatever means the most to you.
Write it now and put a reminder in your online calendar telling yourself in June to start revising and submitting the story!
If you’re a self-publisher, plan to give the story away or release it annually
If you’re impatient and can’t imagine waiting a year to do something with a seasonal story, start writing your summer beach story or your Halloween spooky story now. (You’re probably cutting it fine for Valentine’s…)
Use all the stories you’ve accumulated in real life THIS holiday season to fuel your story: the good, the bad and the monumentally irritating!

The Rules:

1. You should use the prompt in your story.

2. You must write the story in one 24 hr period – the faster the better.

3. Post the story in the comments — if you’re brave enough.

4. Find something nice to say about someone else’s story and leave a comment. Everybody needs a little support!

Optional Extras:

Share this challenge on Twitter or Facebook

Some tweets/updates you might use:

This week’s #WriteOnWed short story prompt is very seasonal #storyaday https://storyaday.org/wow-seasonal

Come and write with us! #WriteOnWed #storyaday https://storyaday.org/wow-seasonal

See my story – and write your own, today: seasonal stories! #WriteOnWed #storyaday https://storyaday.org/wow-seasonal

Don’t miss my seasonal story #WriteOnWed #storyaday https://storyaday.org/wow-seasonal

[Tuesday Reading Room] Durak By Anatoly Belilovsky

I found this story in Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine and I loved it.

It’s a sci-fi story set on Earth, on the RMS Titanic, to be precise. How can that be a sci-fi/fantasy story? Well, you’ll have to read it to find out.

The story takes place exclusively around a card table on the luxury liner. Four men are playing Bridge and talking in a wide-ranging conversation as people do: they talk about where they’re from, what they’re thinking about, each one interjecting something that a man of his time, class and geographical identity might know something about.

The whole piece is beautifully crafted. Each character has a distinct voice and a careful use of dialogue tags keeps us straight in case there was any confusion.

Since we were talking about openings in last week’s Writing Prompt, I thought I’d quote from the opening of this story. It is very clever and repays the reader for a second reading. It promises one thing, delivers something different and then comes back and plays with us again, so we’re not quite sure where the writer is going.

“Is dangerous, this ice,” said the Russian.

The great frozen mass approached slowly, the steward struggling to push the cart across the threshold of the card room.

“I agree,” said the New Yorker. He shuffled a deck of cards, rather listlessly. “Looks like it’s about to give our steward here a hernia.”

“I only wanted enough to put in my brandy,” said the Texan. “Why’d he bring the whole block?”

“White Star line is very prideful of her service,” said the steward.

“They don’t do anything small on the Titanic,” the New Yorker said. “Not in first class, anyway.”

And then the story moves away from the ice and the Titanic and follows the mens’ conversation as they range all over history, philosophy, linguistics and fantasy. It’s a great discussion in itself, which keeps you reading. (I like stories where I feel like I’m learning something, or remembering something I once knew. I like stories that make me feel clever, don’t you?)

As the discussion continues, it subtly, subtly becomes clear that they are closing in on one topic, that is going to be the point of this story. The author uses repetition and comic relief in a really skillful way, to set up the eventual conclusion.

At the end of this story I sat back and said “Ha!” out loud, in an empty room.

I love it when that happens.

Durak
by Anatoly Belilovsky
published in Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine No.54

[Writing Prompt] Write A Compelling Opening

Want to bore your readers and ensure they never get past your first paragraph? Write your opening as it were stage directions: describe a character or a room or the light or the hills…

YAWN!

It’s a familiar trap and we do it for a good reason — we’re trying to create an atmosphere or paint a picture in the reader’s head. The problem, from a reader’s perspective, is that we haven’t given them a reason to care about the pretty picture we’re painting.

One of the best pieces of advice I’ve seen to combat this problem is to start your scene as close to the action as possible (and by ‘action’ I mean ‘conflict’, and by ‘conflict’ I mean ‘the thing that’s going to torment/delight your character and therefore your reader, until the story is finished.)

How Quentin Tarantino Slapped Me in The Face

Reservoir Dogs is a deeply unpleasant, unsettling movie, but when I went to see it in the theaters I came out stunned, not just by the gore, but also by the masterful storytelling. And it started right from the opening.

The opening scene takes place in a diner. No, there’s no ‘action’ in the scene but the conversation sets up all the characters (including a discussion about tipping). The meal is over, we’re entering the scene at the last possible minute, right before the interesting stuff happens and the characters reveal themselves. We feel that the characters existed, knew things, had lives, before we started to observe them.

Immediately after the credits, we jump to the interior of a car where, clearly, something has gone wrong. Mr Orange has been shot and Mr White and he are racing away from somewhere. Granted, Reservoir Dogs ‘cheats’ a little because the rest of the movie is told in flashbacks, but for our purposes, this scene illustrates my point. This scene could have started with the crime going wrong. It could have started with Mr Orange injured and being dragged to the car. But it doesn’t. They’re in the car. He’s sure he’s dying. Mr White appears to be helping him (quite tenderly, for a foul-mouthed criminal…). Horrifying as the scene is, you are fascinated. It’s hard to resist finding out what is going on.

And all because we walk in to the story when the action has already started. This is something we, as writers, need to do in our stories.

The Prompt

Write a heist story, but start it as late in the action as you possibly can.

Tips

You don’t have to go all Reservoir Dogs. You can write a gentle, comedy ‘heist’ where no-one is really in peril (a little old lady trying to make off with a pie from one of those rotating cases in a diner, armed only with a crochet hook…)

Try not to use ‘flashbacks’. Instead, start the scene when it’s getting interesting (when the crook is confronted? When the pursuit is in full flight?)

Make sure your readers know, early on, what’s at stake, and gradually unfold the reasons for your main character’s actions as the story goes on.

You can make the criminal sympathetic by giving them a good reason for attempting robbery, or you can make someone else the hero.

Keep putting obstacles in your protagonist’s way.

The Rules:

1. You should use the prompt in your story.

2. You must write the story in one 24 hr period – the faster the better.

3. Post the story in the comments — if you’re brave enough.

4. Find something nice to say about someone else’s story and leave a comment. Everybody needs a little support!

Optional Extras:

Share this challenge on Twitter or Facebook

Some tweets/updates you might use:

This week’s #WriteOnWed short story prompt is about openings #storyaday https://storyaday.org/wow-openings

Come and write with us! #WriteOnWed #storyaday https://storyaday.org/wow-openings

See my story – and write your own, today: openings! #WriteOnWed #storyaday https://storyaday.org/wow-openings

Don’t miss my heist story #WriteOnWed #storyaday https://storyaday.org/wow-openings

[Writing Prompt] Wibbley-Wobbley, Timey-Wimey

I’m a sucker for a time-travel story. It might have something to do with growing up in the UK in the 1970s, where my generation was weaned on Doctor Who, but time travel in all its varieties works for me. Of course, there are lots of quibbles with time travel stories: can you really kill your own grandfather and cease to exist? If you step on a butterfly in prehistoric times will the future change (thank you, Mr. Bradbury)? And most perplexing, why do time travellers always seem to run into the important figures in history, rather than nobodies like you and I?

The Prompt

Write A Time Travel Story That Includes An Explanation Of Why Your Time Traveller Meets An Important Historical Figure

The Rules:

1. You should use the prompt in your story.

2. You must write the story in one 24 hr period – the faster the better.

3. Post the story in the comments — if you’re brave enough.

4. Find something nice to say about someone else’s story and leave a comment. Everybody needs a little support!

Optional Extras:

Share this challenge on Twitter or Facebook

Some tweets/updates you might use:

Don’t miss my time travel #WriteOnWed #storyaday https://storyaday.org/wow-wow-timeywimey

This week’s #WriteOnWed short story prompt is about time travel #storyaday https://storyaday.org/wow-timeywimey

Come and write with us! #WriteOnWed #storyaday https://storyaday.org/wow-timeywimey

See my story – and write your own, today: time travel!! #WriteOnWed #storyaday https://storyaday.org/wow-timeywimey

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