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 Prompt

Write a story just for you

A Story and Some Tips

When I was working for the first company to help authors publish using digital print on-demand tech, I talked to a LOT of authors,

Best-sellers like Piers Anthony who had grown disillusioned with traditional publishing;
Mid list authors who had been dropped by their publishers and wanted to republish out-of-print books or finish out that series their fans wanted;
Unpublished authors who hadn’t been able to place their novels with traditional publishers not because of the writing quality but because the publishers couldn’t see a large enough market for it.

Publishing is a business, and it’s hard to get picked, and it’s hard to stay lucky.

And if you want to ‘be published’ traditionally, you must convince someone that there is a large enough audience waiting for it.

But what if that’s not what you’re writing? Should you just stop?

The Woman Who ‘Invented’ a Genre

[Write On Wednesday] Get Some Extra Help

StoryADay September is just around the corner!

Perhaps you’re not sure you can make it through a month of short story writing; or perhaps you’d just like a little extra help.

This week’s Write On Wednesday writing prompt is a chance for you to warm up AND to get a taste of what you’d experience as a StoryADay Superstar.

[Write on Wednesday] How We Remember Ourselves

I’ve been thinking a lot recently about how we build characters (both in real life and in fiction). So much of what we ‘know’ is based in the stories we tell about ourselves. That’s what this week’s prompt is all about.

Man's reflection on body of water. Photo from Randy Jacob on Unsplash

The Prompt

Write a story in which a character tells the same story at three different times in their life.

Tips

[Write on Wednesday] Tell a Story Backwards

This week I’m encouraging you to flip the order of your story to help you think differently about the storytelling process.

Man walking on green grass. Photo by Isaac Mehegan on Unsplash

The Prompt

Start your story with the character walking away from a situation (figuratively-speaking) and then go back and explain how he/she got there.

Tips

[Write on Wednesday] Solve Plot Problems By Starting With Desire

One of the fastest ways to find your way to the plot of a short story is to come up with a character who wants something and see how they pursue that desire.

A track athlete was participating in a tournament. Photo by Serghei Trofimov from Unsplash

The Prompt

Think of a character who wants something really, really badly. Put an obstacle in your way and let them react to it

Tips

[Write on Wednesday] Write Your Own Prompts

With StoryADay May just around the corner, I’m taking an opportunity to do something different today: prompting you to create some back-up writing prompts of your own, for days when the official StoryADay prompt leaves you cold (it happens. I’m not offended!)

The Prompt

Write several lines that might work as writing prompts for stories during StoryADay in case there are days when the official prompt doesn’t speak to you.

Tips

[Write on Wednesday] Not The First

On this day in 1972 John Young and Charles Duke were the 9th and 10th humans to land on the moon. They weren’t the first crew to touch down, nor were they the last (that was the mission after theirs). What they did was still mind-blowingly complex, but didn’t garner nearly as much attention.

The Prompt

Write about a character (or duo) who is doing something new and difficult, but they’re not the first to achieve it. What does that do to their attitude to the task, to their relationship with each other, to their relationship with the people around them?

Tips

[Write on Wednesday] A Writer’s Tale

This month’s prompts are all designed to help you warm up for StoryADay May. This week, an opportunity to think about what it means to be a writer.

The Prompt

Write A Story About A Writer

Tips

[Write On Wednesday] Flash

As we come into April I’ll be sharing prompts designed to help you warm up for the 12th Annual StoryADay May (can you believe it?!). This week: what can you capture in a flash?

Photo of a young woman looking back over her left shoulder, smiling slightly, caught in camera flash, at twilight, by Gift Habeshaw on Unsplash

The Prompt

Write a Flash Fiction story in 500 words, inspired by a vivid moment like the one in the photo, above.

Tips

[Write On Wednesday] Sight

I saved this prompt for last because it tends to be the one that we modern writers, raised on TV and movies, reach for first and are most reluctant to demote.

My hope is that, after four weeks of writing in the other senses, you’re a little disappointed to be invited to concentrate on what your characters can see this week. My hope is that you’ll be open to using sight in more creative ways than you might have been last month.

Child looking at the Empire State building through tower viewer Photo by Maarten van den Heuvel on Unsplash

The Prompt

Your character is searching for something…and time is running out.

Tips

[Write on Wednesday] – Touch

Touch is a sense that some writers naturally use often and others, hardly ever. I mean obviously if you’re writing a romance, there’s going to be some touching, but there are other ways to use this sense that will pull readers into your story. Let’s give it a try.

Woman touching white textile Photo by Claudia Soraya on Unsplash

The Prompt

Your main character has been deprived of a wide range of touch for some reason (a medical crisis? A custodial sentence? Some otherworldly reason…) and re-enters a life where they can touch and be touched. They have anticipated this day for so long. Does it go the way they expect?

Tips

[Write On Wednesday] – Taste

This month is all about encouraging you to engage with the setting of your story by using your senses. Last week I asked you to use sounds in your descriptions; the week before that we explored the close association between smell, memory, and emotion.

This week your story is going to explore taste.

Girl holding ice cream Photo by Mieke Campbell on Unsplash

The Prompt

At a key point in your story, your main character is given momentous news, over dinner.

Tips

[Write On Wednesday] Sound

Last week’s prompt encouraged you to describe everything in terms of smell. It was tough, wasn’t it? But I’ll bet you discovered some things about your go-to style of description and how you could branch out a little.

This week is, I think, a little easier, focusing as it does on sound. It’s a sense that we often see represented on the page, but I’m going to encourage you to move beyond cliches like ‘rolling thunder’ and ‘the squeal of tires on asphalt’.

Man plays the trumpet Photo by Chris Bair on Unsplash

The Prompt

Your protagonist is hiding from someone. The stakes are high. They must not be discovered.

Tips

[Writing on Wednesday] Smell

One of the most common (and most overlooked) pieces of writing advice is to use the five senses.

This month I’m going to use the five weekly writing prompts to encourage you to get more sensory detail into your writing by focusing on one sense per week.

dog smelling the air Photo by Jeff Nissen on Unsplash

The Prompt

Write a story in which a non-assertive character is stuck in a situation with other people who know less than they do and keep proposing the wrong solution to a problem. Make as many of your descriptions and metaphors smell-based as possible.

Tips

[Writing Prompt] – A Little Planning

I know, people feel really strongly about whether or not to outline, but today—whether you’re a planer or not– I’m going to encourage you to think of your writing session as a road trip.

Road trips are fun, but usually we have a destination in mind. When, in the middle, with whoever is in the backseat complaining, and the last of the sandwiches eaten, it helps to know the answer to the question “are we nearly there yet?”

Traditional, western narrative stories have a structure, and here is a model for that.

Using the framework to brainstorm your story will help you both get to the end and, just when you’re getting sick of the story, figure out if you are indeed ‘nearly there yet’.

Give it a try.

The Prompt

Download the Short Story Framework and brainstorm a story

Tips

Start writing as soon as you feel inspired
When you get stuck come back to the framework and brainstorm the next ‘leg’ of the journey
Watch this video lesson: on how to use this framework and write a story in 40 minute

If you share you story somewhere (and here’s why you might not want to) post a link here so we can come and read it.

Leave a comment to let us know what you wrote about today, and how it went!

[Writing Prompt] A Rose By Any Other Name

In keeping with this month’s theme of Achieving Wins and Celebrating, limit yourself to 1000 words for this story and just get it done.

The Prompt

Write a story that starts at the end. The story must include a flower.

Tips

I’ve given you the restriction of including a flower, because when we have too much freedom it is paralyzing. I bet as soon as I said ‘flower’ your mind starting turning over how it could get a flower into a story.
Starting at the end is a fun way to tell a story. It’s a fun for the reader, as they try to unpick the puzzle of how your character ended up *here*. It’s good for the writer because we aren’t tempted to write a story-with-no-point. We know it’s going somewhere and we have to figure out how to get there!
All our stories should be about something, should hvae a point, should make the reader say ‘ah, yes, I must keep reading to find out why…”. Often, in the process of writing our ideas, we forget this, or get lost in the details. Telling a story in reverse (or at least starting at the end and jumping back in time) is a great exercise to cure us of this.
Brainstorm some ways your story could start that would intrigue a reader. Is your character standing on the roof of a building looking over the edge? Are they running? Are the police leading them away? Are they laughing gleefully as someone plunges a knife through their heart? (Yes, more Star Trek references! Bonus points if you can identify the episode.)

If you share you story somewhere (and here’s why you might not want to) post a link here so we can come and read it.

Leave a comment to let us know what you wrote about today, and how it went!

[Writing Prompt] Lower The Bar

Following on in last week’s vein of celebrating wins (and making wins easy to achieve), this week’s prompt is to write an odd little story.

It’s hard to imagine how to make this challenge work well, so just get it finished! (You might surprise yourself)

Then celebrate.

Girl leapfrogging friend
Photo by Tiago Thadeau on Unplash

The Prompt

Write a story in a cypher: where the first word of each sentence is the REAL message

Tips

It helps to write out the message you’re hiding in the story first.
Then, simply write a story and find a way to start each new sentence with the next word of your hidden message.
You can choose to hide the message in the second or third word of each sentence if you find that easier, or the last word (though I think that would be hard to pull off, unless you like dangling participles)
You can see my tips on a previous iteration of this prompt here
As an alternative to this you might try Grant Faulkner’s prompt from last year’s StoryADay challenge

When you have finished do something to celebrate. It can be as simple as grinning for five seconds, or doing a little dance (I like a victory dance, myself). The important thing is to take a moment to revel in the good feelings you get from meeting your goals.

If you share you story somewhere (and here’s why you might not want to) post a link here so we can come and read it.

Leave a comment to let us know what you wrote about today, and how it went!

[Writing Prompt] – An Achievable Goal

This month’s theme at StoryADay is “Triumph!”

Mindset is incredibly important in the life of the writer, and that means we need to celebrate every little win.

The fastest way to do that, is to make it easy to get to the win. So, today’s prompt is to write and finish a story in 100 words and I know you can do it.

person celebrating in the stands of a soccer stadium

The Prompt

Write 100 words about a character who is famous or infamous for one moment in their life.

Tips

You can read some 100 word stories here to get inspired.

You’ll have to work hard to pack an emotional punch into 100 words, but I know you can do it!

You can read the tips I’ve posted previously for 100 word stories here, here, or here

If you share you story somewhere (and here’s why you might not want to) post a link here so we can come and read it.

Leave a comment to let us know what you wrote about today, and how it went!

[Write On Wednesday] Weird Little Customs

Culture infuses everything about our world, so ‘world-building’ is an important part of our writing. Today’s prompt encourages you to build a story around a cultural oddity.

Image: gangster in a police lineup — Man dressed as a 1920s ganster in police line up

The Prompt

Think about a cultural norm in the world of your story and explore its ramifications for your characters.

Tips

Write On Wednesday – The Missing Package

The Prompt: Write the story of an inanimate object.

This prompt was inspired by a conversation with a StoryADay Superstar who had been waiting for a package to arrive for weeks. We speculated about what it had been up to on its travels, and now it’s your turn.

The Prompt

Write the story of an inanimate object

Tips

Continue reading “Write On Wednesday – The Missing Package”

[Write On Wednesday] Nostalgia Foods

The Prompt: Write a story with a pivotal scene where your a character tastes a food they haven’t tasted since childhood.

The Prompt

Write a story with a pivotal scene where your a character tastes a food they haven’t tasted since childhood.

Tips

Continue reading “[Write On Wednesday] Nostalgia Foods”

[Write On Wednesday] Mirror Moment

This time last year I wrote about middles with the aim of helping you master your mindset.

This year I’m thinking more about the actual writing: how to write the middle of a story.

The inspiration for this prompt is unashamedly borrowed from James Scott Bell’s immensely readable ebook Write Your Novel From The Middle. It’s well worth the few dollars to pick up a copy of this book.

Even if you don’t have your copy yet, you can use Bell’s revelation that the middle of a story often involves a moment of introspection, to strengthen your short story writing today.

The Prompt

Write a literal or figurative Mirror Moment into the middle of your story.

Tips

[Write On Wednesday] Nose To Nose

All the prompts this month are designed to stand alone or support your novel habit! Use them to spark standalone stories or to unstick your work-in-progress.

Just because it’s short doesn’t mean a story can’t be complex.

The Prompt

Write a story in which the protagonist and antagonist are two sides of the same coin.

Tips

[Write On Wednesday] Test Your Premise

This month’s writing prompts all acknowledge the fact that November belongs to novelists. Whether you write longer fiction or you don’t you can use this month’s prompts to nudge you forward in your writing practice.

bottle on a beach short story spark from StoryADay
Photo by Vova Drozdey on Unsplash

The Prompt

Take an idea you have thought “I could write a novel about that” and test it as a short story

Tips

[Write On Wednesday] More Roommates Than Expected

The Prompt

Two characters (or more if you wish) are spending their first night in a new home (or apartment, hotel, dorm…you decide).

And the first character says, “You know, they say this place is haunted…”

This week’s prompt comes from writer and artist Marta Petrine-Bacon, a self-professed fan of all things October-ish. You can find her novel, her art and her beautiful handmade notebooks (with appropriately spooky art) in her Etsy Shop WhereWordsAreStudio

If you share you story somewhere (and here’s why you might not want to) post a link here so we can come and read it.

Leave a comment to let us know what you wrote about today, and how it went!

Day 27 – Matty Dalrymple Stares At Clouds

The Prompt

Wake With Clouds

The Author

Matty Dalrymple writes, podcasts, speaks, and consults on the writing craft and the publishing voyage as The Indy Author™, and is a member of the Alliance of Independent Authors. You can connect with The Indy Author™ via Facebook and Twitter.

Matty is also the author of the Lizzy Ballard Thrillers Rock Paper Scissors, Snakes and Ladders, and The Iron Ring; the Ann Kinnear Suspense Novels The Sense of Death and The Sense of Reckoning; and the Ann Kinnear Suspense Shorts, including Close These Eyes and Write in Water, and the new writing handbook, Taking the Short Tack:
Creating Income and Connecting with Readers Using Short Fiction which she co-authored with Mark Leslie Lefebvre.

Read A Book, Support An Indie

This year’s StoryADay May official bookseller is Reads & Company, a privately-owned indie bookseller in Pennsylvania. Any purchase from the site this month supports Reads & Co.

Matty Dalrymple, The SEnse of Death

BUY NOW

Leave a comment and let us know how you used the prompt, and how you’re celebrating!

[Writing Prompt] Party of Many or Party of One

I’m bringing you two very different writing prompts from the archives this week.

party balloons — Photo by Sagar Patil on Unsplash

Read through them both and see which one calls to you more strongly. Both offer different ways to cope with our current, rather contracted social circles, either by imagining a party or by focusing on delighting one person.

The Prompts

[Writing Prompt] 40 Minute Story

A video lesson on how to write a short story in 40 minutes or thereabouts.

The Prompt

Set a timer for 40 minutes and to write a story in that time.

DOWNLOAD THE STORY SPARKS CATCHER HERE

Tips

[Write On Wednesday] Take A Second Look

June is rewrite and re-examine month at StoryADay. So today’s prompt reflects that.

Now that you’ve had a chance to recover from the frenzy of writing in May, here’s a prompt that help you to take a second look at one of those stories and improve it. Perhaps there is one you liked, but you know isn’t quite working yet.

It’s one from the archives, and I think you’ll like it.

Write On Wednesday – 40 Minute Story

Today, in preparation for StoryADay May I’m sharing one of the peptalks I recorded for the Superstars Group last year.

(Superstars is a year-long mastermind group and community, but during the challenge they also get enhanced content, just like this. Find out more about Superstars here.

This lesson is particularly useful going into StoryADay May, as some days you’ll need to get your story written quickly. I don’t give you a topic, but I do give you a method for getting your story written. Combine it with the Short Story Framework!

The Prompt

Write A Story In 40 Minutes

Audio Only Version:

TIPS

Use the short story formula from yesterday to help you brainstorm.
Set a timer!
Spend 5 minutes, for brainstorming
Spend 5 minutes writing an opening.
Spend the next 20 minutes complicating your character’s lives. Look at every individual action your characters takes, and imagine what’s the next domino that would fall because of the action they took or the thing that they said.
At some point during this 20 minutes your writing will begin to flow and you’ll start to understand what this story wants to be.
At the end of that 20 minutes, begin to 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.
You’ve been working on this story for 30 minutes! You have 10 minutes left.
Now think about how you want the story to end. 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!

If you would like to access content like this throughout the StoryADay challenge AND get 12 months of writing support, consider joining the StoryADay Superstars

Leave a comment to let us know what you wrote about today, and how it went!

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…to the archives

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A Story and Some Tips

The Woman Who ‘Invented’ a Genre

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The Author

Read A Book, Support An Indie

Matty Dalrymple, The SEnse of Death

The Prompts

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Tips

The Prompt

Audio Only Version:

TIPS

The StoryADay

I, WRITER Course