[Writing Prompt] Secondary Characters

It is day 13 of StoryADay September and you have almost made it to the halfway point. How’s it going? What challenges are you encountering? What are you learning about your writing habits? Leave a comment, or get in on the discussion in the forums.

Short stories can feature just one main character. You can totally get away with it. But not all the time.

The Prompt

Play With Your Secondary Characters

What is a secondary character? It’s any character who doesn’t matter to the story if you take out the protagonist.

Everything the secondary characters do in this short story should relate to the protagonist in some way:

  • The villain forces the main character to pursue a course of action
  • The best friend helps the main character figure out what she should do
  • The sweet character storms off, showing up how much of a jerk the main character is being.

As you write your story today make sure to include secondary characters and pay attention to everything they do. if they start to wander off-script, into areas that do not directly relate to your protagonist, stop them! (Promise them their own story tomorrow, if you have to!)

Go!

And when you have written your story,  comment on this post and let the congrats come flying in.

[Writing Prompt] Hidden Depths

Now that we’ve played around with perspective for a few days, let’s turn our attention to character.

Of course you want your hero to be heroic and your bad guys to be evil, but don’t forget that one dimensional characters are unrealistic and unsympathetic.

So what’s the solution? 

The Prompt

Give Your Character a Flaw

The key to giving your character an interesting flaw is to let the readers see the potential for failure early on. 

If your heroine is a devoted mother and that is going to be the thrust of the story, let the readers see her having a moment of resentment, of longing for her former freedom. Raise the stakes by giving her chances to regret that feeling later, when her children are in peril. It’s not who she really is, but it was a very human impulse. Your readers will empathize both with the impulse and the regret. 

If your hero is a wise-cracker, hint that there is a serious reason underneath. 

The same goes for the evil witch in the office, who makes your main character’s life a misery. If she is all bad, the reader will get bored with her. If she has a hint of a redeeming feature (even if it is that she is hilarious), the readers will have more patience for her necessary appearances in the story.

Just don’t go overboard with this. It’s a short story. A quick hint early on is all you should need to put on the page. 

Go!

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

[Writing Prompt] – Time

Write a story that hinges in some way on time: the passage of, warping of, misperception of, freezing of, measurement of, gadgets for tracking, etc.

Hooray! Day 5 and you’re still coming back for more. Hope the writing is going well, but if not, keep plugging away at it. It’ll come. Why not read and comment on someone else’s work to inspire you?

Since this is a time-limited writing challenge I thought it was about time we wrote, well, about time.

The Prompt

Write a story that hinges in some way on time: the passage of, warping of, misperception of, freezing of, measurement of, gadgets for tracking, etc.

If you need a little inspirations on the workings of time and our obsessions with it, try this collection from the British Museum.

Go!

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

[Write on Wednesday] – Mnemosyne Remembered

Hollywood is all about the ‘reboot’ these days: taking familiar characters from fairy tales and comics and even TV series, and telling their stories again, in a new way.

It seemed only appropriate to ask you to write a story that features Mnemosyne, Greek titan, mother of the nine muses, and the figure responsible for the telling of all the tales (and committing them to memory) before writing was invented.

Mnemosyne by Dante Gabriel Rossetti

“Of the female Titanes they say that Mnemosyne discovered the uses of the power of reason, and that she gave a designation to every object about us by means of the names which we use to express whatever we would and to hold conversation one with another; though there are those who attribute these discoveries to Hermes. And to this goddess is also attributed the power to call things to memory and to remembrance (mneme) which men possess, and it is this power which gave her the name she received.”

-Diodorus Siculus, Library of History 5. 67. 3 (trans. Oldfather) (Greek historian C1st B.C.) source

 

The story also goes that Mnemosyne was the daughter of Gaia (Earth) and Ouranos (Sky). It also says that Zeus spent nine consecutive nights with her and nine months later the nine muses were born. Later still, she watched over a pool in the underworld that was named for her. When people arrived in the underworld they would first drink from the waters of the Lethe (Forgetfulness) to forget all that had come before and then drink from the waters of Mnemosyne (Memory) so that he could remember what was to come.

The Prompt

Write a story in which one of your character shares some traits or life experiences with Mnemosyne.

Tips

  • Perhaps she IS Mnemosyne in a modern, futuristic or fantasy setting
  • Perhaps she only has one of Mnemosyne’s gifts: maybe she works for companies as a ‘namer’ of new products. What power does that give her? What does it cost her?
  • Perhaps she has a fast and furious romance with epic consequences.
  • Perhaps your Mnemosyne works as an counsellor for new immigrants to Mars, or elderly people, newly-arrived at a nursing home.

Optional Extras:

Share this challenge on Twitter or Facebook

Some tweets/updates you might use:

Don’t miss my short story: Mnemosyne, Remembered  #WriteOnWed #storyaday http://wp.me/p1PnSG-Dc

This week’s #WriteOnWed short story prompt is all about the mother of the muses #storyaday http://wp.me/p1PnSG-Dc

Come and write with us! #WriteOnWed #storyaday http://wp.me/p1PnSG-Dc

See my story – and write your own, today: Mnemosyne Remembered #WriteOnWed #storyaday http://wp.me/p1PnSG-Dc

 

[Write On Wednesday] Subtle Signs

Over at Wikipedia, today’s Picture of the Day is At Breakfast by the Danish artist L. A. Ring.

Apart from being quite beautiful, the picture is a study in subtlety. According to the accompanying text, the artist is supposed to have surrounded his model (his wife) with subtle signs of his affection for her.

The Prompt

Write a story in which the objects surrounding your characters reflect how they feel about each other.

Tips

  • Your characters don’t have to love each other. They might be enemies with jagged, broken window in the background of your scene.
  • Don’t overload your story with details like this, but pay attention to the surroundings and include one or two clues.
  • Or, alternatively, you can go crazy with this. Be silly. It’s just an exercise!

The Rules:

1. You should use the prompt in your story (however obliquely you use the ‘want’, it should be there in the character and all their reactions).

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 short story: Subtle Signs  #WriteOnWed #storyaday http://wp.me/p1PnSG-CW

This week’s #WriteOnWed short story prompt is all about subtle signs in the background #storyaday http://wp.me/p1PnSG-CW

Come and write with us! #WriteOnWed #storyaday http://wp.me/p1PnSG-CW

See my story – and write your own, today: Subtle Signs #WriteOnWed #storyaday http://wp.me/p1PnSG-CW

[Write On Wednesday] – What A Girl Wants

I used to get hung up on The Big Idea: having something to say; writing a story that was somehow meaningful.

It wasn’t until I tried to write a story a day for the first time, back in 2010, that I realized: the idea doesn’t come first.

The idea (the theme) often doesn’t come until the end of the story when you suddenly realize what it is your characters have been yapping on about for the past few pages.

The character — what the character wants, what the character doesn’t have, and why — are where the story happens.

The Prompt

danglies
"Danglies" by Keera Russell
  • Today, come up with a character (could be based on someone you know).
  • Think of one thing the character really wants and doesn’t have. (It doesn’t have to be a life-changing thing. It could be a pair of diamond earrings.)
  • Make this ‘want’ the central motif of the story.  I think you can learn a lot about a person by how they deal with what they don’t have.
  • Tell the story of a moment, a day, an incident in the life of this character.

The Rules:

1. You should use the prompt in your story (however obliquely you use the ‘want’, it should be there in the character and all their reactions).

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 short story: What A Girl Wants  #WriteOnWed #storyaday http://wp.me/p1PnSG-zy

This week’s #WriteOnWed short story prompt is all about what your character wants #storyaday http://wp.me/p1PnSG-zy

Come and write with us! #WriteOnWed #storyaday http://wp.me/p1PnSG-zy

See my story – and write your own, today: What Your Character Wants #WriteOnWed #storyaday http://wp.me/p1PnSG-zy