Why You Should Include Holidays In Your Stories

September.

That was when I saw the first ‘holiday’ themed products in my supermarket (and yes, I mean the twinkling-lights, snow-covered, jolly fat-man type holiday),

And I know I’ll start seeing Valentine’s displays soon.

As a consumer it drives me a little crazy.

As a writer, it’s a great reminder.

  • Holidays are part of the fabric of our lives
  • It pays to plan ahead if you’re creating something with a date-related theme!

Why Include Holidays?

Join the Holiday Stories Workshop, Nov 20, 2023

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

When it comes to end-of-year holidays my personal bias is towards Christmas & New Year, but there are so many other holidays to celebrate. Which will you choose?

The great things about including a holiday in a story are:

  • They are evergreen: you can recycle them every year! (Think about how rich Maria Carey has become from that one song…)
  • They are universal: no matter what culture we come from we all have those days where people come together, eat too much, face family members and friends they don’t really want to see, see people they haven’t seen for years, have fights, make up, fall in love, and get nostalgic.
  • It’s an instant character-motivation-creator: around a holiday you always have some people who are sad, some people are excited, and some people who are a little too into it…
  • If you are writing in a secondary or fantasy world, including this universal human experience in your story enriches the culture you’re creating. It feels real when your characters’ lives are complicated by ritual events they may have strong feelings about (even if it’s just to be frustrated at the interruption to their quest!)

Instant Drama

One of the best ways to get to know people is to see how they act under stress.

One of the best ways to stress your characters and find out who they are, is to throw them into the mix with people they wouldn’t necessarily choose to be with.

Can you think of a better way to do that, than to send them a holiday party? 😉

What holiday will you include in your next story? Is it real or fictional? What is your favorite holiday? Leave a comment!

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!

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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…

or

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:

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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!

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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!

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Day 22- If You Were Not You by Julie Duffy

Today’s prompt has us looking at character

The Prompt

Dig out your Short Story Framework again, and this time let’s plan a story that features a character who might be you, but very much isn’t. Let them react in ways you never would, never could, to whatever obstacles you throw at them.

  • When trying to get inside the head of this person, it can be useful to think of someone you actually know who is very different from you. Think of someone who does things that you would never do, that you despise, or that you secretly admire. Start with their external actions (what do they do when someone cuts them off in traffic that is so different from what you do, for example.) Backtracked from there to try to figure out what is going on in their head and their heart in that moment.
  • Put this character in a situation where there is conflict or stress and where their reactions are going to be really different from how you would react. Write the reactions, and as you’re doing so, unpack the story behind this person.
  • Don’t worry about trying to have a clever plot in this story. It can be something as simple as: this person gets cut off in traffic and how they react. The point of this exercise is to investigate the psyche of somebody very different from you. There’s a danger in always writing characters that are too sympathetic or similar to yourself.
  • Writing about somebody you dislike or someone unlike you can be very difficult. To make them more sympathetic, give them something there really, really good at. They might be charismatic. They might be really good engineering. But everyone has some areas where they are competent even if they are incompetent in every other sphere that matters to you!
  • This is not an exercise in writing a villain. This is an exercise in writing someone very different from yourself. It could be someone you admire.

Julie Duffy

Julie is the creator of StoryADay May. She created the challenge in 2010 when she realized she was spending so much time daydreaming about ways she could have lived different lives that she might as well write some of them down as stories!

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

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Day 14- The Whole is Greater than the Sum of its Parts by Neha Mediratta

We’re diving into structure and character today with this prompt from Neha Mediratta

The Prompt

Write a short story about an accident from the PoV of three different characters:

  1. involved in the accident (e.g. as a passenger or driver of a cart or cycle/bike or car/plane or spaceship),
  2. witnessing the accident ( e.g. as agent who tried to avoid or confront the accident as it happens),
  3. trying to put pieces of what really happened when investigating (e.g. could be a public figure like a police officer or a person just coming to terms personally with this incident).

The playing rules here are to

a) develop our practice muscles to inhabit different perspectives.
b) dig deeply into a small but decisive moment.
c) convey a final impression of the whole (i.e. The End) with the help of three different characters in the compact space of a short story.

And most of all, have fun writing!

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 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!

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Day 13- Disappointment & Delight by Meghan Louise Wagner

Let’s get emotional with today’s prompt from Meghan Louise Wagner

The Prompt

Imagine a character who is older (interpret that as you like!) who returns to a place they visited once when they were younger.

There should be some emotional importance to the place, but this prompt works best if it’s a place the character only went to one or two times (not anywhere they’re super familiar with).

Start the story with the character returning to the place. When they arrive and see the place in its present state, have them either be:

a) greatly disappointed or

b) greatly delighted.

Then weave in memories of the place (or memories associated with the place) from when they were young.

Try to jump back and forth between them in the present and the past. By the end of the story, try to show a change in how the character views the place, either in the past or present. (for ex: if it started with them being delighted, have the story end with them being disappointed–or vice versa.)

Meghan Louise Wagner

Meghan Louise Wagner lives in Northeast Ohio. Her work has recently appeared in such places as Nashville Review, Cutleaf, Story, AGNI, Okay Donkey, and The Best American Short Stories 2022. More about her can be found at: meghanlouisewagner.com

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

13

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Day 11- Food Fight by Marta Pelrine-Bacon

Food is more than nourishment .in today’s writing prompt from Marta Pelrine-Bacon

The Prompt

Food!

People have strong feelings about certain foods.

Have your characters battle over food. There are so many ways we fight about food.

Or have a character who refuses to love their traditional food and suffers the consequences.

Marta Pelrine-Bacon

Marta is an author and artist making stuff up as she goes along.

More from Marta

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11

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Day 6- Unnamed by K. B. Carle

K. B. Carle invites you to leave your character unnamed

The Prompt

When writing or brainstorming the beginnings of a story, one complication that paralyzes the writer is what to name their character?

Some have a placeholder name such as “John Doe,” waiting for the character to reveal their name once the story is complete and will add this new name while editing.

Others, like myself, go to Google for unique, unusual, or rare names. But what if we made the decision not to name our characters at all?

For this prompt, resist the urge to name your main character. Instead, consider characters such as

  • Cathy Ulrich’s, “The Astronaut’s Wife,” who is simply known by her wife’s job title and role in their marriage.
  • Hema Nataraju’s “middle-aged commuter,” or
  • Eric Scot Tryon’s “Wife #2.”

How do names identify our characters? Are they defined by their job title, feelings, or their role in the world around them?

DO NOT be afraid to experiment and, as always, have fun! Afterall, someone dared to create villains such as Polkadot Man and Condiment King.

Examples:

After the Thrill by Amy Lyons

Compound by Noa Covo

You Were Only Waiting for This Moment to Arrive by Kathy Fish

Rumors from the Castle by Cathy Ulrich

K. B. Carle

K.B. Carle lives and writes outside of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Her flash has been published in a variety of places including Lost Balloon, Five South Lit., The Rumpus, JMWW, and elsewhere. K.B.’s stories have been nominated for The Pushcart Prize, and her story, “Soba,” was included in the 2020 Best of the Net anthology. Her story, “A Lethal Woman,” will be included in the 2022 Best Small Fictions anthology. She can be found online at kbcarle.com or on Twitter @kbcarle.

Listen to her episodes of the StoryADay podcast: episode 279 and episode 280

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

6

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Day 3- Character Pulls Focus by Tommy Dean

Tommy Dean leads your character through a story

The Prompt

Start a story with a character in the middle of a conversation, where everyone knows something the main character doesn’t know.

Allow the main character to ignore the people around him. Use the setting to reveal something about the main character.

Let the main character gives us snippets of who the characters are around them.

Eventually, let one of the other characters get through to the main character!

Let the main character know seeing the room around them differently.

How does this added context force the main character to act/react?

How do they better understand the other characters in light of this revelation?

Tommy Dean

Tommy Dean is the author of two flash fiction chapbooks Special Like the People on TV (Redbird Chapbooks, 2014) and Covenants (ELJ Editions, 2021), and a full flash collection, Hollows (Alternating Current Press, 2022). He lives in Indiana, where he currently is the Editor at Fractured Lit and Uncharted Magazine. A recipient of the 2019 Lascaux Prize in Short Fiction, his writing can be found in Best Microfiction 2019, 2020, 2023, Best Small Fiction 2019 and 2022, Monkeybicycle, Moon City Press, and numerous other litmags.

His interviews have been previously published in New Flash Fiction Review, The Rumpus, CRAFT Literary, and The Town Crier (The Puritan).

He has taught writing workshops for the Gotham Writers Workshop, the Barrelhouse Conversations and Connections conference, and The Writers Workshop.

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

3

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Day 2- A Pocket Sized Prompt by Mary Robinette Kowal

A question from Mary Robinette Kowal, to prompt today’s story

The Prompt

The thing that I want you to think about is is just the answer to a question :

What’s in your character’s pocket?

  • So is there a thing that they carry with them all the time?
  • Is there something that they have put in their pocket specifically just in that moment?
  • Do they not carry anything in their pocket? How can they get away with that?

What’s in their pocket?

Mary Robinette Kowal

Mary Robinette Kowal is the author of The Spare Man, Ghost Talkers, The Glamourist Histories series, and the Lady Astronaut Universe. She is part of the award-winning podcast Writing Excuses and a four-time Hugo Award winner. Her short fiction appears in Uncanny, Tor.com, and Asimov’s. Mary Robinette, a professional puppeteer, lives in Nashville. Visit at maryrobinettekowal.com or visit her Patreon

Catch Mary Robinette Kowal on the StoryADay podcast here:
Part 1| Part 2

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2

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Characters Are People, Too

Writing a character sketch can be a great idea…as long as that’s not the way we introduce the character in the final story…

or: How I Met Their Father (and what it tells you about introducing characters)

After our first proper date, the boy who had taken me to the theater sat across from me in a smoky pub in Edinburgh and told me stories from his life. 

We had somehow managed to claim the coveted armchairs near the fire (because pubs in Scotland have such things). As we talked, one or other of us would lean forward to pick up our pint glasses from the low table in front of us. Gradually, we started to do it in unison.

 It would have been noisy and it must have grown dark while we talked, but I don’t remember any of that, because I was laughing, and listening, and piecing together a person from the stories he was telling me.

He told me about his boss at the university, the stupid games they played in the lab to pass the time while experiments ran, the (very) daft things he’d done after too many pints, and – and this is where I remember thinking ‘you should careful with this one’s heart’ – the story of an ex-girlfriend or two.

It wasn’t until much, much later that I learned about his hometown, the granny he loved, the games he invented alone in his room on rainy Saturday afternoons.

I learned about him backwards. 

It’s how we meet most people, if you think about it. 

And yet we tend to make a fuss when stories are deliberately written that way, as if the author is somehow breaking the rules. 

How To Introduce Characters

When we make character sketches and biographies, it makes sense for us to start at the beginning (where were they born? Where did they grow up? What formative experiences did they have?)

But if we try to do that when we introduce them to readers it feel like an info-dump…because that’s not how we get to know people in real life.

It feels stilted. Awkward. Weird.

So don’t be afraid to introduce characters in the moment and gradually peel back the layers gradually, and only when it becomes important for us to know why they are the way they are.

How do you think about character development vs introducing characters on the page? Leave a comment:

Day 26- Like a Wrecking Ball by Brenda Rech

Choose a character to observe this scenario

The Prompt

A wrecking ball is parked in front of a 100-year old building. You are an architect, the wrecking ball operator, or a homeless person? What are your best memories and deepest regrets?

Brenda Rech

Brenda is happily married with two beautiful daughters, three dogs, two cats and a bird named Amy Farrah Fowler. Her flower gardens are forever at the beginner’s stages as she would rather hike with her husband and dogs or explore her writing. Her favorite breakfast is crispy bacon and strawberry jam on white toast. She is currently working on her first novel and has a monthly newsletter ‘Thru the Window’

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

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Day 25- Found In Translation by Carey Marie Shannon

Write a story in which two characters talk different languages

The Prompt

Communication can be one of the greatest challenges of the human race with roughly 7000 spoken languages in the world. Have you ever been in a country where you did not speak the language but needed to find a location or service? Have you ever helped a non-native speaker of the language in your country purchase an item or find the right train? Perhaps the communication resulted in gestures, pointing at an item or drawing pictures to convey a message. Write a story where two characters speak a different language and must communicate for the most part without words. It can be in first person from the point of view of one of the characters. If it helps, draw from your own personal experience(s).

Carey Marie Shannon

Carey Shannon loves to use her writing to make humorous connections between items that may appear completely unrelated. A feat that is easy for a serious Elvis fan and frequent blood donor.
Carey Shannon loves to write about humorous connections between items and subjects in life that may appear to be completely unrelated. A feat that is easy for an Elvis super fan and frequent blood donor. She has been a member of the Story A Day community since 2020 and now hopes to provide some inspiration quirkiness to other writers.

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

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Day 14- What If? by Leslie Stack

In today’s writing prompt will you grant your character the power to change the past?

The Prompt

“If only I could go back and do it over again, I would…

” How many times have we said that to ourselves?

In JK Rowling’s “The Prisoner of Azkaban,” Hermione Granger had a time turner necklace where she could turn back time to allow her to attend more classes, but more importantly, save two lives.

Whether it’s changing one seemingly small decision or a whole lifetime of decisions, there is usually one thing that we would change if we could.

Something that would make a difference in just one life or many more.

What is your character’s one thing?

Leslie Stack

Leslie Stack is a writer, musician, camper, and teacher who loves being on the water or in a museum. You can usually find her doing research behind dark glasses on a park bench. She lives in a house in Pennsylvania with her husband where the books are plotting a takeover.

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Day 13- Channel your Inner Dr Dolittle by Carey Shannon

Write a story in whcih a character talks to an animal

The Prompt

Dr. Dolittle author Hugh Lofting showed the magic of communicating with animals through his series of children’s books.

The relationship between animals and humans can range from affection to terror.

As pets, animals can sometimes be our greatest confidantes and comforters.

In the wilds of a forest or jungle, they can be our greatest enemy.

Write a story where a person speaks to an animal as if they were another person.

  • Does the animal respond with grunts, growls or by scratching the ground?
  • How does the person interpret the nonverbal responses of the animal?
  • Some ideas include a person confiding a secret to their cat or someone crying to their dog after a bad day at work.
  • A person could also plead with a bear or tiger for their life.
  • There is always the hunter and the hunted.
  • A human could also help an animal in distress or vice versa.

Mystical animals like dragons and unicorns are welcome.

Carey Shannon

Carey Shannon loves to use her writing to make humorous connections between items that may appear completely unrelated. A feat that is easy for a serious Elvis fan and frequent blood donor.
Carey Shannon loves to write about humorous connections between items and subjects in life that may appear to be completely unrelated. A feat that is easy for an Elvis super fan and frequent blood donor. She has been a member of the Story A Day community since 2020 and now hopes to provide some inspiration quirkiness to other writers.

Here’s your next Bingo Piece. Download the pic, print it out and paste it onto your bingo sheet. Then share a picture of it on social media with #storyadaybingo

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Day 11- Play with Perspective & Time by Neha Mediratta

One of the joys of writing is to create characters that can ‘see’ what has come in the way of what they want.

The Prompt

“I twisted my ankle and hobbled about for a decade. After years of doctor’s visits, therapy sessions, medications, this and that, I came to believe that I’d been cursed and would likely limp to my grave. Until I met you, I didn’t know curses could turn into blessings.”

Use this line anywhere in a short story of about 1500 words.

Might help to brainstorm a few things like: Who would say this? To whom? a mentor? a child? a magician? a stranger on a train? a turtle? a millionaire who’s about to be murdered or a pauper who’s about to get rich?

Reflect on a time when something happened that you thought was the worst thing ever, only to find out later that it was not so bad. In fact, as time went by, it seemed the best thing to have happened.

One of the joys of writing is to create characters that can ‘see’ what has come in the way of what they want. Oftentimes, it is an aspect of themselves, not merely the forces around, that throws them into chaos, pulling them away from the very thing they desire.

As a writer, you have the power to enable readers to map this type of ‘seeing’. Readers walk away from your work not only entertained, but subtly equipped with a new way of looking at their own lives.

StoryADay Bingo Day 11
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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: https://www.amazon.com/Neha-Mediratta/e/B08CJSLD2H

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

Day 30 – Looking Back & Looking Forward

The Prompt

Write a story about someone who has just completed a huge challenge. What have they learned? What did they sacrifice? Was it worth it?

Challenge Plus

Go deeper with enhanced content, videos, & training from StoryADay’s Julie Duffy

The Author

Julie Duffy has hosted 12 StoryADay Mays and almost as many StoryADay Septembers. That’s quite a lot.

Read A Book, Support An Indie

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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.

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

Day 14 – Caroline Kim Conjures Ghosts

Caroline Kim Writing Prompt

The Prompt

Your character is doing something innocuous and habitual like washing dishes or driving in a car or picking up dry cleaning or taking a walk in the neighborhood when a ghost/spirit appears to them. Whether it is human, animal, or other, what is it saying and why has it appeared to the character at this moment?

(This is good for dredging up something from the character’s subconscious and also for throwing your character off track with something unexpected.)

Challenge Plus

Upgrade now to get enhanced content and community all month!

The Author

CAROLINE KIM was born in Busan, South Korea but moved to America at an early age. She has lived on the East Coast, Midwest, and Texas but now makes her home in Northern California with her family.

Her poetry and fiction have appeared or are forthcoming in TriQuarterly, The Rumpus, Pleiades, Porter House Review, MANOA, The Michigan Quarterly Review, Spinning Jenny, Meridian, Faultline, Pidgeonholes, Cosmonaut’s Avenue, Ms. Aligned 3, and elsewhere. Her collection of short stories, The Prince of Mournful Thoughts and Other Stories, won the 2020 Drue Heinz Literature Prize and was longlisted for the 2021 PEN/Robert W. Bingham Prize for Debut Short Story Collection.

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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.

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Day 13 – Monique Cuillerier Shifts Your Perspective

Monique Cuillerier Writing prompt

The Prompt

Write a story from the perspective of a character that is not a human or other animal.

The character could be something from nature, like a rock or a puddle or a tree, or it could be something built (for example, a lamp or a shoe or a fountain pen).

To consider:

How does your character think? And what do they think about it?

What is most important to them?

What happens to them and how are they able, or not able, to react?

How do they feel about this?

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The Author

Monique Cuillerier is a science fiction writer living in Ottawa. When not writing, she likes to run, knit, garden, and get angry on Twitter (@MoniqueAC). Her most recent story was published by Diabolical Plots this month. Past work can be found at NotWhereILive.ca

Read A Book, Support An Indie

Reads & Company Logo

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.

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

Day 6 – Julie Duffy wants you to Interview Your Character

The Prompt

writing prompt from Julie Duffy

Write an interview with a character who invented something that changed the world…years after the change took place.

The Author

Julie Duffy is a writer and the founder and host of StoryADay.

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Read A Book, Support An Indie

Reads & Company Logo

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.

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

Day 5 – Marta Pelrine-Bacon Makes Your Character Lose Something

The Prompt

writing prompt from Marta Pelrine-Bacon

A character has lost an object that is of great value to someone they love.

The Author

Marta Pelrine-Bacon is an artist and a writer. You can buy her art in her Etsy shop: https://www.etsy.com/shop/WordsAreArtStudio

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Read A Book, Support An Indie

Reads & Company Logo

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.

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

Day 1 – Fran Wilde Crosses A Bridge

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The Prompt

There is a point, in the distance, that your character very badly wants to reach. What is it?

What is the point from which they’ve started out, what are they willing to do to get to that point in the distance? What will they sacrifice?

The bridge is the point between those two places. The bridge is where what they must do to get there, what they’re willing to sacrifice, and the consequences of those decisions coexist.

Write their story, on the bridge.

Are we ready? Today is Day 1 of StoryADay  2021!

Today’s prompt is  from Fran Wilde. Fran is a wonderful short story writer among other things, and she writes weird little stories, but weird little stories that win awards…so let’s pay attention to what she’s asked us to do. 

Fran has asked us to write a story where your character is on a bridge. 

It’s a wonderful metaphor for where characters are in short stories. A short story can be just that moment on the bridge where they can see what they want and they know where they’ve been. 

But they have to do something.

 They have to do something they probably don’t want to do to get to the next step, to get where they want to go. 

Your character wants something and it’s over there. Something is stopping them from getting there. If they’re the three Billy goats gruff, it’s a troll. If it’s a fantasy story, maybe there are rogues on the bridge. If it’s an adventure novel, maybe the bridge is rickety. If it’s a family drama, maybe their spouse is trying to tell them not to go any further….

So many possibilities, but all of them will keep you focused on the fact that, in a short story, a character has a choice to make and they have an action to take. And all the story needs to be is about that. 

You don’t need to do much setup.

You don’t need to really tie it up with a bow. 

You just need to tell us what happens and why it matters. 

So good luck with Day One!

This is a fairly meaty prompt, but on Day One you’ve got lots of energy. You’ve planned for this. You haven’t used up all of your good ideas yet. (That actually is never going to happen)

Go out there and get your teeth into this prompt.

I’ll see you back here tomorrow, but before that,  stop by and let me know what you wrote, how it went and just leave a quick comment for us when you’re done today.

Good for you for showing up. I’m very proud of you. 

Keep writing.

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The Author

Two-time Nebula winner Fran Wilde writes science fiction and fantasy for adults and kids, with seven books, so far, that embrace worlds unique (Updraft, The Gemworld) and portal (Riverland, The Ship of Stolen Words), plus numerous short stories appearing in Asimov’s, Tor.com, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Shimmer, Nature, Uncanny, and multiple Year’s Best anthologies.

Her work has won the Eugie Foster and Compton Crook awards, been named an NPR Favorite, and has been a finalist for six Nebulas, three Hugos, a World Fantasy Award, three Locii, and the Lodestar. Fran directs the Genre Fiction MFA concentration at Western Colorado University and writes nonfiction for NPR, The Washington Post, and The New York Times.

Check out her latest work at https://www.franwilde.net/

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[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

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[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

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[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.

Photo by NASA on Unsplash

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

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[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.

Photo by Thought Catalog from Unsplash

The Prompt

Write A Story About A Writer

Tips

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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

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[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

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[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.

Zao Fox Village, Shiroishi-shi, Japan

The Prompt

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

Tips

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188 – Angela Ackerman & Great Character Writing

In Part 2 of my interview with Angela Ackerman, co-author of The Emotion Thesaurus and host of Writers Helping Writers, we talk about how to use details to write great characters, immerse readers in your story, and even figure out your plot.

Links:

Writers Helping Writers: http://stada.me/whw

One Stop For Writers: http://stada.me/osfw

Ready to write today, not “some day”?