An Emotional Rollercoaster

Today we’re taking your readers on an emotional ride!

The prompt

Write a story designed to elicit specific emotions in the reader

Tip

  • In looking back at your stories this month, have you noticed that you are better at eliciting certain emotions than others? Perhaps you’re good at scaring people. Perhaps you’re good at writing tearjerkers. Perhaps you good at making people laugh. Or making people feel the beauty of the situation or your words.

  • Even if you’re not sure what you’re best at, pick an emotion today that you would like to make your readers feel. This is your chance to go all “Stephen King”, or “50 Shades Of Gray”.

  • In order to elicit emotions in readers you’re going to have to make them care about your character. Then you have to put that character in peril.

  • Peril doesn’t necessarily mean dangling them off a cliff. Just remember to focus on what they really, really want…and then take it away from them.

  • The more you can keep the reader inside the heart of your character the stronger their reaction will be.

Leave a comment to let us know which emotion you went for today. And remember, if you’re enjoying these prompts, why not share them?

Change Your Point Of View

Today were looking at point of you again, but in a slightly different way

The prompt

Pick a point of view you don’t usually use and write a story in it

Tips

*Look back at the stories you’ve written this month or in the past. Do you have a favorite point of view? Do you always default to first person or third person? Write a story today in a different POV.

  • If you flip back and forth between different perspectives frequently, just decide which to use today based on what you’ve written so far this month. What have you done most of? Choose that.

  • Each point of view brings with it restrictions and possibilities. If you frequently right in the same point of view you may be limiting yourself

  • To demonstrate the power of POV, you may want to repeat the exercise we tried earlier in the month of taking a story that you’ve previously written and writing it from another point of view. This time however I want you to keep the same character as the protagonist. Simply change the “I said “to “he/she/it/they said”.

  • Try to focus on the opportunities that this new perspective offers. If you’re shifting from third person omniscient to a limited/first person perspective, **really dig into the facts really dig into the characters thoughts and emotions. In these more limited perspective there’s no excuse for “Telling Not Showing”. Everything can be written as if we’re riding along on their shoulder, experiencing everything with them.

  • If you’re moving from a limited perspective to a third person omniscient, celebrate the fight that you cannot see things from different peoples’ perspectives. The most effective, least confusing way to do this is to have seen breaks between each head hop in the short story. (You probably don’t want to do it more than a couple of times but it can be quite fun to have most of the story told one person’s perspective then have a line break and give another character’s perspective as the conclusion of the story revealing a lot about the truth of the situation that, perhaps, the first character didn’t know.)

  • If you hate moving away from your favorite point of view that’s fine. You don’t ever have to do it again. Sometimes creative failures are essential to teach you what to avoid in future.

Leave a comment telling us what you discovered in your writing today. Perhaps you are very versatile with point of view or perhaps this was ridiculously hard. What did you learn? And remember, if you’re enjoying these prompts,share them.

Focus On Genre

Since we talked since we touched on the genre yesterday when talking about the tone of your story, today we’re going to take a deeper look at genre and the expectations readers have, based on that genre

The Prompt

Write a story focusing on genre expectations

Tips

  • Pick a genre that you know well. (It’s all very well to say that you’ll write a noir mystery, because the noir style is so easy to copy. But if you don’t really know noir you’re just making life harder for yourself.) If you spend most of your day reading Regency romance, then by all means write a Regency romance today. (I’m looking at you, fellas.)
  • Grab a book in your chosen genre and take a look at the first page. How does the author let the reader know — immediately — that they are reading a particular genre?  Look at the choice of words. Look at the names of the characters. Look at the length of the sentences. Each genre has specific norms and you need to be using these norms if you want to please a lot of readers. (If you’re making experimental art, you may be able to skip these things. But, even if you are writing for your own pleasure, you’ll be dissatisfied if you feel like you’re missing the mark. Looking at reader expectations in your genre is one way to narrow your focus and hit that mark.)
  • Make a list of the features you notice on the front page of the book you chose.
  • Now that you have a list of norms (and a cheatsheet) for your genre, grab a Story Spark and start writing in the style of the genre you’ve chosen. Don’t be afraid to go over the top and write almost a parody. It can be a useful lesson in what makes this genre tick.

Leave a comment telling us what genre you are writing in today. Was this exercise hard or easy for you? Did you know what genre to pick? And remember, if you’re enjoying these prompts, please share them!

Finding Your Voice

Silence all the critics in your head telling you you should be writing some other way…

You been writing for three weeks you have a good body of work under your belt. Now is the time to pause, see what you learned, and start focusing on your strengths.

The prompt

Write a story in the voice that came most easily to you this month.

Tips

  • Take a look back at the stories you’ve written this month. Which story came easiest?
  • Let’s try to replicate that today.
  • Take something from that story—the character, or the universe, or something about the styling which was written.
  • Give your character a new setting, or a new problem. Or introduce a new character in the same universe.
  • Do whatever it takes to re-create the voice of that story. Silence all the critics in your head telling you you shouldn’t be writing this way. Don’t let them say you should be writing some other style, or in some other genre, or more seriously, or less seriously. Today is all about writing what you are best at, the voice that only you can write.

Leave a comment to let us know what you discovered about your writing and your voice this month, and what you wrote today. And remember, if you’re enjoying these prompts please share them.

A Classic Story-Starter

Today I’m giving you a classic “story-starter” prompt. I really don’t do this much, do I?!

The Prompt

Begin your story with the line: “Huh!” He said. “I never would have thought that would fit in there…”

Tips

  • You can go pretty much anywhere with this one.
  • That’s all I’ve got.

Leave a comment to tell us where YOU went, with this prompt. I’m dying to know!

Write A FanFic Story

More ways for you to steal ideas, as we continue Rescue Week here at StoryADay

The Prompt

Write a Fan Fiction Story

  • While you can’t legally use somebody else’s world and characters to write a story and publish it, nothing is stopping you from writing stories for your own pleasure inspired by someone else’s universes.
  • There is no limits to what you can do here. Pick a story or character you feel doesn’t get enough air time in your favorite show.
  • Change the ending to the series that you love.
  • Write the untold story of what came before we first meet character.
  • Tell whatever story is going to give you the most pleasure.
  • There are lots of places online where people share fanfic (sometimes with the creators’ blessings, sometimes not so much), so you could go and read something and get some idea. However, this is a rabbit hole I’m not sure you want to go down during the StoryADay challenge. Not to mention the fact that some of it gets quite saucy!
  • Use all of the tricks you’ve learned about storytelling to play with characters you already love you. Spend some time with them using your talents and your skills along with the knowledge you have amassed by watching/reading about them.
  • Think about how you can provide shortcuts and clues that let readers who don’t necessarily know the character catch up. Don’t waste time on backstory unless that’s the story you’re telling. Don’t forget to add in emotion and conflict.
  • It can be easy to get carried away writing about your favorite characters. Don’t forget to builds to a climax resolve the crisis to finish the story.

Leave a comment letting us know what you wrote about today and how it’s going. And don’t forget, if you like these prompts, share them!