I’m bringing you two very different writing prompts from the archives this week.
Read through them both and see which one calls to you more strongly. Both offer different ways to cope with our current, rather contracted social circles, either by imagining a party or by focusing on delighting one person.
On this day in 1886 Karl Benz patented the “Benz Paten-Motorwagen” in Karlsruhe, German. It was the world’s first automobile with a burning motor.
Write A Story That Centers Around A Car
This week is the anniversary of the birth of Scotland’s national poet, Robert Burns. While I’m cooking up some haggis and pouring a whisky in his immortal memory, I have a writing prompt for you that celebrates not just Robert Burns, but all poets.
Write a story inspired by a poem
On Wednesdays, I provide a writing prompt aimed at sparking a short story, with tips and advice included. Want them in your inbox? Subscribe now!
Write a story in which your characters go to a party
Today’s post comes to us from gifted memoirist Jane Paffenbarger Butler. You can read more about Jane, below, but in the meantime, enjoy mining your memories for Story Sparks! – Julie
When I was a child, my mother and sisters and I spent hours making our clothes at home. The memory of those long quiet days together is etched in my mind because we did it over and over. That makes it a perfect resource for my writing because it is etched in my mind. But even one-time events can be seared onto our brains and serve equally as sources of inspiration.
Because we have kept a memory, stored it for some reason, it holds a significance that may be useful. When I try, I can remember many details and images about that repeating scene of sewing. Recording a memory, in writing, however disjointed or unclear or insufficient, means we capture whatever clarity there is to be observed. The overriding feeling of the sewing room was one of having to focus on the details, such as being sure of our measurements, even in our pinning, and whether the machine was threaded correctly and if we were following every direction. There was little conversation and there was little sound besides that of our movements.
However fuzzy, our memories are infused with feelings that give them an emotional power that can make our writng richer.
I may want to write specifically about sewing, the memories of the creaking old house, the stale state of the space we shared, the silence so thick I heard the buzz of a fly trapped at the window pane trying to escape. But I may prefer to let this description inform whatever other writing I do. These recalled images and ideas are newly acquired and because of their source resonate with authenticity.
Unlock Memories to Inform Your Writing
Missed out on StoryADay May? Don’t worry, the next challenge is just around the corner. Sign up now.
I’ll send you a prompt like this, every day during the next challenge.
This week we all watched in horror as Notre Dame burned. It was a great loss for human cultural heritage and a personal wrench for many.
And it made me wonder about other stories we might tell.
Write a story from the perspective of a non-human character
Last week we wrote about connections. This week, an interconnected theme: support. We need it in our writing lives, and our characters are looking for it, in our stories.
Write A Story About A Character Who Needs Support
This prompt was inspired by Jennifer Wortman’s Theories of the Point of View Shifts in AC/DC’s “You Shook Me All Night Long”
Write A Story Based on A Favorite Song
This prompt was inspired by Amy Silverberg’s story Suburbia! which you can find in The Best American Short Stories 2018
Write a story with some magical realism in it
Since everyone in my orbit is talking about it anyway, let’s write about the weather!
Write a story in an environment where the weather is so extreme that it shapes everything: actions, metaphors, hopes & dreams…
If you’re writing for publication, it’s important to be aware of lead-times, (i.e. the time between when an editor says ‘yes’ to your story and the date the publication goes live). They can be long, so if you’re writing a seasonal story, you need to be submitting months in advance. That’s why today’s prompt is for October’s National Adopt A Shelter Dog month. Write your doggie story today and start pitching it now!
Write a story featuring a dog
Have you ever been part of a Writers’ Group? There’s good (Solidarity! Feedback! Deadlines!) and bad (Jealousy! Bitchiness! Blowhards!). This week I invite you to write the story of a writers’ group.
Imagine a writer’s group. Write a story about one of their meetings (or a series of meetings
Go!
Photo credit: Ondřej Lipár
Today’s post is part of series of posts encouraging you to write stories for minor holidays.
Writing and submitting a story for Valentine’s Day or Mother’s Day or Christmas, means you’re up against a lot of competition in an editor’s inbox. Everyone writes for those holidays. But editors still love a timely, topical story. Why not take advantage of the myriad of minor holidays, to give your story an edge?
“Minor holidays”, in my mind, can also mean one-off anniversaries. I’m not saying there won’t be competition for these ones, but if you write your story far enough in advance you could ride the crest of the wave.
Write a story for one of 2019’s big anniversaries: the 500th anniversary of Leonardo Da Vinci’s death; the 200th anniversary of Queen Victoria’s birth; the 75th anniversary of the D-Day landings; the 50th anniversary of the first manned moon landing. Continue reading “[Write On Wednesday] Big Anniversaries”
Today’s post is part of series of posts encouraging you to write stories for minor holidays.
Writing and submitting a story for Valentine’s Day or Mother’s Day or Christmas, means you’re up against a lot of competition in an editor’s inbox. Everyone writes for those holidays. But editors still love a timely, topical story. Why not take advantage of the myriad of minor holidays, to give your story an edge?
(Listen to the podcast where I tell you why I think this is important)
Write A Story Centered Around A Solstice
Continue reading “[Write On Wednesday] Writing For The Solstice”
Welcome to your first post-May prompt of 2018!
We’ll meet every week to write a story. Feel free to share in the comments, or just tell us what you wrote about (if you’re saving your story for publication).
Write about an artist (not a writer) struggling with a personal and a professional challenge on the same day
What did you write about today? Leave a comment!
This month at StoryADay we’re all about Flash Fiction!
Flash fiction is loosely defined as being between 250 and 1200 words long, but it is so much more than that.
The best description of Flash Fiction I’ve ever seen goes like this: Continue reading “[Write On Wednesday] Make It Flash”
This month at StoryADay, I’m focusing on Flash Fiction. Be sure to check in regularly and follow me on Twitter.
A novel invites the reader to explore an entire house, down to snooping in the closets; a short story requires that the reader stand outside of an open window to observe what’s going on in a single room; and a short short requires the reader to kneel outside of a locked room and peer in through the keyhole.
Bruce Holland Rogers
(2013-02-25). The Rose Metal Press Field Guide to Writing Flash Fiction
Let’s take Bruce at his word.
Imagine you’re looking through a big, old-fashioned keyhole, into a room. Write a story of fewer than 1000 words, about what you can see
Leave a comment below, letting us know how you got on with this prompt, or what ideas it sparked for you.
A few days ago, I commented on a Twitter post about a hot-button issue. I don’t normally do that, but I thought I was making a neutral, expanding-the-argument kind of comment.
You can tell where this is going can’t you?
Yeah.
Someone read my comment and assumed I was saying something I wasn’t; pigeon-holed me as someone from the completely different end of the ideological spectrum; and proceeded to make snarky, personal comments every time I tried to defuse the situation.
I had that hot-and-sweaty, blood-pounding-in-my-face, pit-in-my-stomach sensation we all remember so well from the injustices of being a misunderstood 12-year-old. I wasted hours constructing careful answers and psyching myself up to open up my Twitter feed, wondering if I would find an olive branch or a minefield.
It wasn’t fun.
It sucked all the creativity out of my day.
It was such a waste of time.
And the irony of it was, I had, that very morning, reposted Austin Kleon’s advice not to pick fights with strangers on social media!
Find an issue that you COULD have a fight with someone about on social media and instead, write a story.
I promise you that, if you write a story instead of picking a fight with a stranger on social media, you’ll have a better day than I did last week 😉
I’m currently fascinated by a short story experiment being run by Penguin Random House.
They’re running a series called “The Season of Stories“. You subscribe, and they send you a story every week.
But that’s not the interesting part.
The interesting part is that they serialize the story.
Every day, Monday-Thursday, you receive part of a story.
It’s how short stories were read in publications back at the start of the golden age of short story writing, and it’s something we’ve moved away from. Instead of making them bite-sized treats, we sell short stories by weight, packaged into collections. Then we try to sell them to readers who have been trained on novels.
(No wonder short story collections don’t sell well!)
With a novel, you, the reader, carve out some time to plunge yourself into a story world, allow yourself to be pulled along by cliffhangers, spend time getting to know the characters.
Short stories aren’t like that.
Readers, in general, don’t know what to do with a short story collection, but anyone can open their email and read a quarter of a story. Especially one that has been well-crafted.
Today I want you to practice crafting a story that will keep bringing a reader back for more.
Stories naturally break into four parts: inciting incident, rising action, midpoint shift, then climax/conclusion/resolution. Each part must end with a kicker that leaves the reader wanting more (yes, even the end).
Write a story that can be read in four parts. Focus on creating mini-cliffhangers at each quarter point.
Now, go and write your story.
Come back and tell me how it went!
Choose a place that you know well, which you have strong feelings about. Describe that place, first when you are in a happy mood. (10 minutes) Then describe the place when you are in a sad mood. (10 minutes)
What difference did you note?
What is described in a particular setting often depends upon the point of view of the story. Describe a real park you have visited, first in the first person point of view through the eyes of a young man or young woman in love (15 minutes), and then through the eyes of an old widow or widower (15 minutes).
What differences in setting did you notice, even though it was the same park?
The purpose of these exercises is to realize that setting is never neutral. Setting descriptions are subjective. So your setting should always evoke a mood. Think of your setting as another character. The setting should help us feel the mood of the scene you are describing. If there is conflict in the scene, then the setting should be described harshly, in a way that evokes the harshness of the moment. If the scene is a warm scene, with love, then the setting should reveal that warmth.
Josh Barkan is the author of MEXICO. Josh Barkan has won the Lightship International Short Story Prize and been a finalist for the Grace Paley Prize for Short Fiction, the Paterson Fiction Prize, and the Juniper Prize for Fiction. He is the recipient of a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts, and his writing has appeared in Esquire. He earned his MFA from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop and has taught writing at Harvard, Boston University, and New York University. With his wife, a painter from Mexico, he divides his time between Mexico City and Roanoke, Virginia. For writing advice from Barkan and other top-notch short story writers, download Signature’s Compact Guide to Short Story Writing.
In James Blish’s Surface Tension (which I reviewed recently), the author took the idea of space travel and did something a bit different with it: instead of humans arriving on a new planet and terraforming it to suit themselves, they genetically-engineer versions of humanity that would thrive on the planet.
Now that’s what I call ‘subverting reader expectations’. But it’s still a satisfying story that sticks to the rules of an off-planet adventure story (lots of ‘wonder’ and new environments, inter-personal conflict, conflict with the environment, bad guys, a struggle to unite the ‘good’ forces and to survive. Even a little romance.)
Write a story that subverts reader expectations but still works in genre Continue reading “[Writing Prompt] Turn A Trope Upside Down”
Today’s writing prompt is ripped straight from my 6th Grader’s homework folder, but that doesn’t make it any less relevant.
I’m steeped in (as well as 6th Grade homework) Lisa Cron’s fabulous latest book Story Genius, in which she makes the compelling point that you cannot begin to tell your character’s story until you know about their past.
It’s a delightfully obvious (and surprisingly overlooked) observation that ought to be front and center in every writing class. So here we go.
Interview a character from one of your stories. Find out as much as you can about their past and what formed the character they possess on Page One of their story.
Continue reading “[Writing Prompt] Interrogate A Character”It’s Write On Wednesday Day! (That’s really clumsy. I’m going to have to never do that again!)
The Nov/Dec/Jan holiday season is fast approaching. I know you don’t want to think about it, but if you’re interested in putting out a short story for the holidays, this is actually kind of last minute.
Publications have long lead times for date-specific stories, so if your holiday stories aren’t already written, now’s the time. Magazines and online pubs LOVE themed stories (Christmas stories; New Year issues; Thanksgiving horror stories!).
Or perhaps you’d like to create a story for friends and family to say thanks for all their support (or: na-na-na-na-na-na-you-see-I-wasnt-lying-around-watching-daytime-TV-all-year).
Write a story tied to a Nov/Dec/Jan holiday
Have fun with this. Amuse yourself. Remember, nobody ever has to see this story, so you can be as cruel or as kind as you like!
Following this month’s theme of Refilling The Well, I’ve thrown some pretty unusual writing prompts at you, including Don’t Write Anything and Rip Off Another Writer.
In that vein, I’m bowing down to Julia Cameron today, and borrowing her concept of Artist’s Dates, popularized in her book The Artist’s Way.
Seek out something beautiful/inspiring today.
Go!
In honor of Groundhog Day, today’s prompt encourages you to tell a story over and over and over again…
In honor of Groundhog Day, and one of the best films ever made about an obscure holiday, today’s prompt encourages you to milk one simple plot for all it’s worth.
Write A Very Short Story About An Incident In Your Character’s Day, Then Make Them Relive That Incident
Write A Story That Contains More Than One Timeline
Go!
After scaring you all with my writing prompt headline last week, I’m going much more positive this week.
(Re)Committed
Write a story about a character who is determined to achieve something difficult.
Go!
It’s the perfect time to write a Christmas/New Year/Winter story!
Don’t believe me? Take a lesson from the wily Dutch.
Everybody knows that the time to plant spring bulbs is in the autumn and yet every spring I receive multiple catalogues from dutch tulip and daffodil distributors. Six months after (or before) I should (have) plant(ed) their products. What lunacy is this?
The bulb marketers know that in spring I’m experiencing floral beauty and regretting not having planted more bulbs last year. It’s all fresh. I can see where I could put this Red Matador and that Orange Empress to fill a scraggy gap in my flower beds. I am full of good intentions about next year.
And, in January, is that not how you feel? As you pack away the holiday decorations, are you not full of regret over the things not done? The gifts unsought? The cards unsent? Is the memory of your brother-in-law’s annual jokes about your dessert not fresh in your memory?
Indeed. So now is the perfect time to write a story set in the season we have just endured enjoyed.
Write A December/Jan Holiday Story[1. No, I’m not conducting a War on Christmas. I, myself, celebrate Christmas. I just feel it’s polite to acknowledge the other 68% of humanity. It has less punch than “write a Christmas story”, I grant you. But if that’s the price for doing unto others, then I’m willing to pay it here in my blog…]
Go!
There. Now you have a story ready to post on your blog/submit to a seasonal publication in early autumn/send out with your Christmas cards next Black Friday (you are going to send Christmas cards next year, aren’t you? Unlike this year? I know, I know, it’ll be our little secret…)
Now, excuse me while I check my mailbox for the Breck’s Bulb Catalogue…
(Do you send out a holiday story in seasonal cards to your friends? Make a note now on your calendar to do this next year!)
My Facebook feed and RSS reader are full of posts from angst-ridden parents who already—three days in—hate their stupid Elf On The Shelf[1. A craze that took off a couple of years ago and is like the Tooth Fairy crossed with an advent calendar, and a nightmare for parents].
People seem to be held hostage to this thing at the same time that they are plagued[2. thanks to Pinterest postings from uber-mommies] by a sense of inadequacy and overwhelm.
Imagine a character who is trapped in a situation beyond their control for a finite amount of time. Write their story.
Go!
Write A Story In Which A Character Is Homesick
Character is king, in stories, but how can you make your character more realistic? Share an emotion that all of us have experienced. Examine it in the context of what your plot is doing to the character. This is an especially useful skill to work on if your stories tend to be set in fantastic, futuristic or historical settings. We can’t easily identify with Frodo fighting off goblins, but we can feel his pain as he longs for the Shire (and shed a tear when he and Sam face the reality that they probably won’t make it home again).
Write A Story In Which A Character Is Homesick
Go!
The Write On Wednesday story prompts are designed to prompt quickly-written stories that you can share in the comments. It’s a warm-up exercise, to loosen up your creativity muscles. Come back every Wednesday to see a new prompt.
This week’s prompt was inspired by yesterday’s Tuesday Reading Room story, The Sellout by Mike Cooper. In that story, the author uses traditional hard-boiled detective tropes, but his detective is investigating… accounting fraud.
Write a story where you use a familiar style of writing (Romance, space opera, Western, literary fiction, YA paranormal, political thriller, whatever you’re most familiar with) but use it to treat a subject that is outwith the normal subject matter for that genre.
(Think: Pride & Prejudice and Zombies, or Tom Clancy trying to write a bodice-ripper, FF. Scott Fitzgerald on a space station…)
What will you write?
The Rules:
- You should use the prompt in your story (however tenuous the connection).
- You must write the story in one 24 hr period – the faster the better.
- Post the story in the comments — if you’re brave enough.
- Find something nice to say about someone else’s story and leave a comment. Everybody needs a little support!
Share this challenge on Twitter or Facebook
Some tweets/updates you might use:
Don’t miss my short story: [style] meets [subject] #WriteOnWed #storyaday http://wp.me/p1PnSG-qb
This week’s #WriteOnWed short story prompt is a style switch! #storyaday http://wp.me/p1PnSG-qb
Come and write with us! #WriteOnWed #storyaday http://wp.me/p1PnSG-qb
See my story – and write your own, today: Style Switch at #WriteOnWed #storyaday http://wp.me/p1PnSG-qb
A 6-part journey through the short story.
Starts July 28, 2023
![[Write On Wednesday] – Style Switch](https://storyaday.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/Sanguine-book-parody_11.jpg)
