The Prompt

You made it! You’re hear at the end of the month, still showing up, still writing. Whether you wrote one story or thirty-one, congratulations. This is a pretty good day.

Today I want you to write a story about someone’s best day ever.
You are, of course, free to use that title ironically (and write about the opposite).

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Julie Duffy

Julie Duffy is a writer and the host of StoryADay. She coaches other writers and creatives on how to keep the momentum going. She also hosts a year-round writing community. If you need a place to keep you on track going forward, join us in the StoryADay Superstars:

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Join the discussion: what will you do with today’s prompt OR how did it go? How much did you write this month? What’s your ‘epic win’? Post here!

Remember: Please don’t post your story in the comments here (and I talk more about why not, here). Best practice: Leave us a comment about how it went, or share your favorite line from your story.

The Prompt

Today I want you to mine your memory for a conversation that you will never forget…and give it to (at least) two different characters.

Tell as much of that story as you can in dialogue, without much narrative explanation.

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Julie Duffy

Julie Duffy is a writer and the host of StoryADay. Those who know her will attest: she is rarely short of something to say. Read more at julieduffy.com

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

Remember: Please don’t post your story in the comments here (and I talk more about why not, here). Best practice: Leave us a comment about how it went, or share your favorite line from your story.

 

The Prompt

Today you’re going to write a story inspired by a song.

Pick a song you have some emotional connection to. Pull up the lyrics or look at the album art, and think about what kind of story you could tell around it.

• You could tell the story of the song;
• you could take a character like the ‘narrator’ of the song;
• you could take a single phrase from the song and build a story around it;
• you could write an ‘answer’ song, in which you use some of the aspects of the original song, its images, language, or characters, and tell us what happened next, or take the opportunity to argue with the premise of the song.

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Julie Duffy

Julie Duffy is a writer and the host of StoryADay and nothing makes her happier than the opportunity to sing and participate in any kind of music.

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

Remember: Please don’t post your story in the comments here (and I talk more about why not, here). Best practice: Leave us a comment about how it went, or share your favorite line from your story.

 

The Prompt

Today I want you to write a story in 40 minutes. To help with that, we’re going to take away some of the invention you would otherwise have to do, by writing fan-fiction.

Choose a story, character or world invented by someone else, take a couple of their characters and mix things up. You might want to take an incident or ending that you hated and change it.

Remember that when you’re writing fan fiction it’s not the kind of thing that can be published without the original rightsholder’s permission (at least, not commercially), but there’s a long and proud tradition of artists copying other artists’ work to figure out what makes them…er, work. If visual artists can do it in their sketchbooks, then we can definitely do it in our practice.

Fan fic is common in sci-fi and fantasy worlds, and in the ‘fandoms’ of TV shows and movies, but there’s nothing to stop you writing a fan fic based on something by the obscure literary fiction writer that only you seem to love…Whatever you can summon up some unreasonable enthusiasm for is fair game.

To help you with the timing, I recommend

• brainstorming for five minutes,
• taking 5 more minutes to write your opening,
• then spending the meat of your time complicating things for your characters,
• leaving five minutes at the end to pull it all together in some kind of ending (even if the rest of the story is not exactly ‘finished’ Trust me, it’ll help, when you come back to it, or stumble across this little oddity on your hard-drive in two years and wonder what you were trying to achieve with it…)

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Fan Fic In Forty

Julie Duffy is a writer and the host of StoryADay. Her first recurring characters, at age 11, in no way ripped off the friendship in “My Best Fiend” by Sheila Levelle (thanks, Sheila!)

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

Remember: Please don’t post your story in the comments here (and I talk more about why not, here). Best practice: Leave us a comment about how it went, or share your favorite line from your story.