[Write On Wednesday] Flexing Your Writing Muscles

We are one month away from StoryADay May, people! This is not a drill.

Actually, yes, it kind of is.

This is THE PERFECT TIME TO WARM UP your writing (take it from someone who didn’t, the very first year I ran this thing. I thought it would be smart to save all my ideas until May. Um, wrong!)

Photo by Eugene Chystiakov on Unsplash

One of the easiest ways to get into the flow of writing is to minimize the amount of stuff you have to invent. So today I have two prompts for you, from the archives, which help you take that ‘write what you know’ thing and have a little more fun with it than if you were simply journaling.

The Prompt

Read through these two prompts from the archives and decide which one is most interesting to you.

When Your Character Is Like You

When Your Character Is Not Like You.

Tips

Pull out your Short Story Framework and brainstorm that story. Then: write!

Try to get to the end of the story today. Bonus points: write to the other prompt tomorrow!

Remember, if the story is getting away from you, to limit it only to the essential characters, settings and details. Just enough to paint a picture for yourself.

Also: don’t worry if this story is not ‘good’. It’s only a draft.

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!

Ready For More?

Take The 3-Day Challenge

When Your Character Is Like You

Today I’m limiting your character choices.

The Prompt

Write a story featuring a character very like you

Tips

  • Think about the things that make you you: Gender, family roles, occupation, age, body type, religion, hobbies, outlook, genetic heritage. Are you curious, or cautious? Musical or tone deaf? Extroverted or introverted? Content or endlessly searching?
  • Put this character, who is both you and not you, into a situation that you might run across in your everyday life. Or put them into a situation you would like to find yourself in. For example, I am always dreaming up new business ideas. I don’t have the time or ability to pursue any of them, but I love to daydream about the businesses I could run if I had a thousand lifetimes. Take something that you care about — something that you daydream about anyway — and put your character into that situation
  • Now, you have to make something happen, so think about the ways that the situation could go spectacularly wrong. This can be funny, like Fawlty Towers, or serious like the TV show 24. It depends on your preferences and what you feel confident writing.
  • Again, you’re not writing a feature film or novel. We don’t have much space here. So don’t spend much time setting up the situation. You can start by having the character talk directly to the reader. Or you can plunge directly into the action. Or start with something cheesy like “it all started to go wrong when…”. Do whatever you need to do to get you into the story. It can all be fixed in the rewrite. (Or ignored for the rest of your life, this is a story just for you.)
  • Now that your character’s in trouble, how do they react? Do they react the same way you would? Do they react the way you wish you would if you weren’t so polite? Are they cooler than you? More skilled? More James Bond like? What are the consequences either way?
  • This is a really fun exercise. It captures all the best things about writing: What if…? The ability to live multiple lives in one life, is the gift of being a writer. It’s the ability to be better than you are, or worse than you are, without any of the consequences. Let loose with this exercise. Have some fun (and yes that does include doing terrible things to people if that’s how your story comes out. Don’t worry that you’re a psychopath. You have my permission to be bad.)

Go!

Leave a comment to know what you let your alter ego get up to, today!