Your Villain As A Mirror

Today were going to do something similar to —- but different from —- yesterday’s prompt.

Today is the turn of the antagonist or the villain.

The Prompt

Write a story in which the antagonist or villain shows the reader what your protagonist could easily become if they gave in to their flaw

  • A villain and an antagonist are not necessarily the same things. A villain seeks to harm your main protagonist, whereas an antagonist might merely get in their way. Do you remember the TV series Rhoda? Rhoda’s mother was not a villain, but she certainly got the main character’s way.

  • This exercise probably works best with someone who’s at least a little villainous. Choose a protagonist you we can mostly admire (it could be the person from yesterday’s story). Think about who would be a good opposing force for this character.

  • Some of the best villainous pairings in literature are ones where the villain and the protagonists can be seen as being somewhat alike. Think of the BBC’s Sherlock climactic scene in “The Reichenbach Fall”. Morality and Sherlock are on the roof of St. Bart’s Hospital. Moriarty leans in and says, “You’re just like me Sherlock, except you’re on the side of the angels”. What character trait can you give your protagonist that, when pushed too far, would transform them into a villain?

  • Create a protagonist and a villain on either side of this coin and put them in a simple story where they oppose each other.

**Leave a comment letting us know what character traits you gave your villain.]

Your Flawed Protagonist

Today we’re moving on to another element of story: your protagonist

The Prompt

Write a story with the flawed protagonist

Tips

  • This is kind of a cheat because every protagonist should have a flaw, but today we’re going to focus on that.

  • Characters are interesting for many reasons. They can be interesting because we identify with them, because we don’t like them, because they’re better than us at something, because they have some special gift, many reasons. But they are not interesting if they are perfect.

  • Think about Luke Skywalker, the hero of the Star Wars original trilogy. He has a gift, but is really annoying at the beginning of the story. He’s whiny. He’s immature. He’s rash. He puts other people in danger, all because he’s bored. All of which means that he has an interesting character arc on which to travel.

  • In the Amelia Peabody mysteries Amelia is ahead of her time: a brilliant Egyptologist, she’s rich, she has a fabulous husband, she’s very confident… she’s also hysterically self delusional, and fails to admit any of her own faults, while pointing out those of everyone else, at all times. She is a fun character, not because of the stuff she’s good at, but because of the stuff she doesn’t even realize she’s bad at.

  • Who can you write about today? Write a list of their attractive qualities and then give them one big weakness. It doesn’t have to be a fatal, heroic flaw that’s going to cause their downfall, although it can be if that’s what you want to write. It could be something as simple as Hermione Granger, being a bit of a pain in the neck, even though she’s so clever. In the first Harry Potter book, that flaw isolates her from her friends at the very moment when she needs them.

  • Concoct a scenario for your character where they get to show off their good talents but where their flaw is going to cause them problems. Then, write your way out of it.

  • If you get stuck at any point simply start a new paragraph with the words “And because of that…” and continue writing. Do this at least three times, then resolve the situation and you’ll have a complete story.

  • Remember, use these tricks, and then clean them up in the rewrite. It’s not like you got anything else to do in the month of June, is it?

Leave a comment to tell us what flaw you chose for you protagonist. Got any tips on how to keep writing as we head in to the middle of the month? Share them here!

Paint A Vivid Setting

And now for something completely different!

The Prompt

Write a story in which the setting is key

Tips

  • Choose a setting for your story based on a real place that you know intimately. You can change details, of course, but this just makes it easier to summon up images in your mind. You can change it to be it futuristic, or historical, or on another planet, but base your buildings on building as you know, base the weather on whether you understand. Use your experiences to make this story shine.
  • Sometimes we worry too much about plot and forget the story is NOT just about the things that are happening. A reader wants to be sucked into the story. They want to be able to see and feel everything the characters are seeing and feeling. Having a strong setting, a strong sense of where they are in space and time, can really help with this.
  • In a short story we don’t have a lot of space. It’s important for every element of the story to serve multiple functions. Setting can provide atmosphere. It can echo or heightened emotions, and it can tell us a lot about the time, place, characters, and mood of your story.
  • Think about your grandmother’s house and how it was decorated and furnished. Didn’t that tell you a lot about who you were going to find living in that house? Think about the houses in Architecture Digest magazine. Who would you expect to find living in one of those houses?
  • Atmosphere, weather, climate, all of these things can enhance or echo your character’s situation and emotion. Storms speak of peril. Humidity makes things feel oppressive. If the trees are bare we know it’s winter.
  • Simple details like whether or not there are weeds growing up through the paving can tell is a lot about the neighborhood in which your character finds themselves.
  • Don’t worry about creating a complicated or original plot in this story. The exercise here is to practice using setting to enhance the simple story that you’re telling. Choose a character, give them a simple mission, and build the reader’s experience into a feast.
  • Use all five senses. “Cinematic writing” can be good, but it means you’re only using your eyes. Use sounds to hear things, use the feel of things, the smell of things, the taste of things — even if the person isn’t eating, the tang of something-in-the-air can tell us whether we are near the sea, or near a decomposing body, or whatever it is that your story needs. Using all five senses will make your reader unable to separate themselves from the story, which is what you want.

Leave a comment and share what kind of setting you used. How’s the challenge going? Got any tips for the rest of us? Share them now!

Write A Hansel & Gretel Structured Story

Today we’re looking at the third of my ‘Life Changing Moment’ writing prompts (find the first one here, the second one here)

The Prompt

tell a story using the Hansel & Gretel story structure

This story structure is very different from the last two. The life-changing moment happens BOOM right up front.

Two kids, alone in the woods, abandoned by their parents.

Wha-?!

This time, things start big and get bigger and bigger until they reach the crunch and something snaps.

Every time the characters take two steps forward they take three steps back. Each time you give the reader a little hope and then take it away:

  • They leave breadcrumbs, but animals eat them;
  • They find a candy house! But a witch lives in it;
  • At least they have somewhere to stay…But the witch wants to cook them and eat them.

In this case the characters’ deepest desire is safety. And tellingly the story ends when Gretel kicks the witch into the oven, rescues her brother, and they walk out of the house.

The storyteller doesn’t waste any time telling us what they do next: we don’t know if they’re going to go home. We don’t know if they’re going to be reconciled with her family or seek revenge. What we do know is that these kids are going to be okay. After all their failures after all their setbacks they summoned up their courage to overcome their circumstances. That’s when the story is over.

  • Again, choose a character. Gives them a desire or need, and then put obstacles in their way.
  • If you’re getting stuck for ideas at this point, take one of your previous stories (it could be the one from yesterday or the day before) and tell the story again with this new story structure.
  • Start with a bang. Do the worst thing you can think of to your character and let them dig themselves out of trouble. But don’t make it too easy. Let them try and fail, and try and fail, until you and they are running out of ideas.
  • When I say, “make life difficult for your characters”, you don’t have to write a depressing story. In my chocolate cake story from the other day I could start that story on the day the government outlaws chocolate cake. I can have a lot of fun getting my character try to find ways around the rules ways to obtain cake until finally she realizes what she has to do is get elected. Or I could start the story at her first stump speech and explain the reasons as she campaigns. There are many opportunities to use this story structure with different genres, tones, moods, problems, characters, etc.
  • Dig deep, as you think of complications to throw at your characters. Be outrageous, if you want to. Remember, this is StoryADay. This is a safe space. No one is going to grade your story. If it’s a good story, great, you can revise it and publish it and become rich and famous. If it’s a terrible story, you will still learn something from writing it.

Leave a comment to tell me which story structure you enjoyed writing the most.

The Ugly Duckling Story Structure

Continuing our look at story structure, today I have a structure based on the story of the ugly duckling.

The prompt

Write a story based on the Ugly Duckling structure

The story of the ugly duckling is one when you probably know fairly well: Continue reading “The Ugly Duckling Story Structure”

Cinderella Story Structure

Write a story with a Cinderella story structure: try, fail, try, fail, try, fail, life-changing moment.

We’re starting our week of Story Elements prompts with a deep dive into story structure.

Ready? Let’s dive in.

The Prompt

Write A Story With a “Cinderella Story Structure

The Life-Changing Moment

I come to believe that short stories revolve around one life changing moment.

It doesn’t have to be literally life-changing, but it has to change something for the characters (temporarily or permanently).

If you’re writing quiet internal literary fiction, the moment is going to be something small, like realizing you can’t go on in this relationship, or this job.

If the story is a big action thriller then the life-changing moment could be anything from the moment you decide you need to take action, to the moment when you win or lose.

A Cinderella Story Structure

Cinderella Story Structure

In the story of Cinderella our heroine wants to find happiness. She tries and fails and tries and fails. A lot.

  • She tries to find it by being nice to her sisters and stepmother, but they just treat her terribly.
  • She tries to find it by going to the ball, but she’s not allowed to go.
  • She tries to find it from her fairy godmother. This one almost works, but there are time limits and she fails. When the love-struck prince can’t find her, all is lost.

Eventually, the life-changing moment comes at the end of the story when the prince finds her and Cinderella gets to choose her happy ending.

(In most versions she says yes and marries the prince; in every version, this choice is the first time Cinders has had any power. This is when her life changes.

So, this is where the story ends because the character’s story arc is over: She has her chance to reach her goal, at long last.

How To Write A Cinderella Story

Write a story with a Cinderella story structure: try, fail, try, fail, try, fail, life-changing moment.

  • Let you character want something. In Cinderella’s case she wants happiness. Your character might want anything from fulfillment to a piece of chocolate cake!
  • Start the story with the character in a place where they don’t have the thing they want.
  • Let us see the character trying to achieve their goal once, twice, three times.
  • The first failure can be pretty small. (She drops a perfect piece of chocolate cake on the floor.) The second failure should be a little more discouraging. (She goes to the shop and discovers they’re out of cake.) The third failure should seem insurmountable.(The government bans chocolate cake!)
  • These failures have taught the character how much they want their goal and that the only way to achieve it is through using their unique talents. Now the climax is on. (In my story, for example, my witty and feisty heroine decides to run a political campaign and get elected to office in order to strike down this terrible anti-chocolate cake legislation. Your story could be more serious.)
  • The story ends when the character realizes what needs to be done and makes the decision to pursue it or to walk away. In a short story you don’t have to show was the rest of the events. The arc, the journey, for the character is over at the moment when they see the path to pursuing their goal.
  • Of course this is not the case in every story structure but in this story structure, the Cinderella story structure, the character’s journey — and the story — ends here.