[Write On Wednesday] Your Character’s Damage

This month I’m giving you prompts that work in different ways to support your long-form fiction/novel writing. Today’s prompt digs deep into your protagonist’s past.

Nightmare

Photo credit: GôDiNô

The Prompt

Write the story of the childhood event that scarred your character

Tips

  • If you haven’t already, get hold of a copy of Lisa Cron’s Story Genius and read all about character misbeliefs. Re-read it, if you own a copy!
  • Every character has to have a flaw. Maybe you decided that yours was commitment-phobic, or that she was overly-honest, or that she couldn’t hold down a job. There are lots of ways that could be fun in a novel, but a deeper question is: Why?
  • What happened to your main character at an earlier point in their life, that caused them to begin acting this way?
  • Once you know that, the subtle ways she reacts will change. She won’t just be commitment-phobic, she’ll get unreasonably angry when anyone promises to take her on vacation, because when she was nine her dad promised to take her on vacation but instead blew the money taking his new girlfriend to Vegas, and your main character never had a real relationship with him again after that.
  • In Story Genius Lisa Cron asserts that harmful adult behaviors originate in behaviors that were actually protective, at some point. So, by not trusting her Dad again, your main character protected herself from getting hurt by him. But that pattern of behavior stopped serving her at some point (probably right around the time your novel starts) and she has to learn to overcome it. Knowing what caused her to begin acting that way is extremely useful.
  • Digging into your character’s past gives you news ways to show their flaws in your novel.

Go!

Photo credit: GôDiNô

What did you write about? Leave a comment!

[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?

“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.

The Prompt

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”

[Write On Wednesday] Writing For The Solstice

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)

The Prompt

Write A Story Centered Around A Solstice

Tips

Continue reading “[Write On Wednesday] Writing For The Solstice”

[Write on Wednesday] National Handwriting Day

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?

The Prompt

Write a story for National Handwriting Day on January 23

Tips

Continue reading “[Write on Wednesday] National Handwriting Day”

[Write on Wednesday] Revisit An Older Story

One of the only ways to get better as a writer is to learn to revise our stories. This month, at StoryADay we’re focusing on revision. Keep reading for a free lesson on how to achieve the right revision mindset, and for news about this year’s StoryFest!

The Prompt

Take a story you have written before and rework it, today

Tips

  • Listen to this audio lesson (or read the transcript) that helps you shed any negativity you might feel about revision.
  • Do not correct your grammar and typos first! Instead, look at the structure of the story. Does it make sense? Is anything missing? Is there any conflict in your story?
  • Then look at your main character. Are they consistent? Do they develop over the story?
  • Read through this guest post from DIYMFA.com’s Gabriela Pereira, about how to approach this layered method of revision. Pick one layer to work on first. Don’t get overwhelmed.
  • If this very structural method of revision doesn’t work for you, still bear in mind the general principle that the big story questions come first, spelling corrections come last!
  • Now is the time to think about your audience. Who will want to read your story? (Hint: don’t say ‘everybody’.) If you’re writing romance, you’re probably writing for women ages 25-39. Are your settings, situations, characters and language appropriate to that audience? If you’re writing an adventure story for 13 year old boys, is your protagonist slightly older than them and does he have strongly defined personality traits and friends with complimentary traits? Is the situation he faces exciting and just slightly outside his capabilities (but not too much? If you’re writing for flash fiction fans, is your story a little Rubik’s cube of a thing, but much, much prettier?
  • What length should a story like this be? Check out Duotrope.com for listings of publications seeking stories (they list story lengths and sub-genres). It’s all very well to write something unique, but it’s much harder to get published if nobody can fit you into a sub-genre. And since we’re talking about revision, this month, I’m encouraging you to think about audience and market more than I do when we’re just working on creativity!

STORYFEST IS COMING, June 23-24, 2018

If you took part in StoryADay May this year, our annual story showcase is scheduled for the weekend of June 23-24. (See previous versions of StoryFest here)

To take part, make sure you’re on the mailing list (sign up below) and watch your inbox for information about how to submit your favorite story and recommend one by another StoryADay writer. (No, there’s no ‘judging’ or selection process, you simply nominate one of the stories you wrote during StoryADay May this year.)

[Write On Wednesday] The Artist’s Way

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).

The Prompt

Write about an artist (not a writer) struggling with a personal and a professional challenge on the same day

Tips

  • Use the lessons you’ve learned in your writing, but transfer them to another art form (e.g. a pianist is struggling to practice; a digital animator is on deadline and the power goes out…)
  • Allow their professional and personal struggles to inform each other (Do they struggle with putting their own needs last, in their personal life? How does this impact their work? Is their work a refuge from their personal life? How does this affect their relationships? Is the powercut threatening the safety of their loved ones, as well as their deadline?)

What did you write about today? Leave a comment!

 

Day 30 – Change Your Point Of View

Welcome back to the penultimate day of your month of extreme short story writing.

After setting you free yesterday, I’m putting a few more limits on you again today.

The Prompt

Take a story that you wrote earlier this month, and tell it from a different point of view

The point of this prompt is to show you that sometimes a story benefits from being told in a different way. Noir stories work in first person because that’s what we’re used to. Something set in a Victorian era works well in Third Person Omniscient because that’s how Dickens wrote–it’s what we’re used to.

Use this prompt as an excuse to play with a story and make it richer, through voice.

Day 29 – The Story You’ve Been Waiting To Write

Here we are, the final three days of this extreme month of writing.

It’s so impressive that you’re still here, that you’re still writing, that you’re still coming back to this.

I know you have stories you want to tell, that the world needs to hear.

Your experiences, your outlook, your way of expressing yourself, are unique in the history of the world and I’m so glad you’ve come this far, and you’re still writing.

And I know you’re going to continue to write, because you’ve come this far.

Today I’m giving you a prompt that might seem a little lazy from me, but there’s a reason.

The Prompt

Write the story that you’ve been hungering to write.

I’ve been very proscriptive this month, telling you what you write, and you’ve been writing for four weeks. You’ve got stories in your head that are nipping at your brain, whispering “tell me!”, so today I’m setting you free.

Tell one of those stories.

Leave a comment to let us know what you wrote today

Day 24 – Disappearing Act

This week’s theme is, in part, to encourage you to try out stories that use each of the types of story threads from the MICE quotient.

The Prompt

Tell a story that features a disappearance

This could be an Intrigue/Idea story. At it heart it has a question, or a mystery or a big idea.

It could be the disappearance of a person, a cultural phenomenon, or of the bees, or of Arctic Ice. Or it could be something more nebulous. Your story could be serious or slapstick. What will you come up with?

What did you make disappear? What kind of story did you write? What tone did your story take on, today? Leave a comment and let us know!

Day 21 – News Flash

The Prompt

Write A Story As A News Report

This could be a TV report with a panel of pundits yelling at each other, a reporter on the street, the voice of a producer in your anchor’s ear…

Or, this could be a traditional newspaper report.

Remember to tell a story, though! Then tell us all about it in the comments.

Day 20 – I’m Gonna Sit Right Down

The Prompt

Write A Story In The Form Of A Series of Letters

Tips

  • You could do social media updates, conference call, letters, records.
  • In this story remember that each party in the story has an agenda, conflicts.
    You could tell three different sides of a story
  • Your format will affect the type of language that the characters use: in letters things might be more formal, in texts it’ll be more brief.

Remember to leave a comment to let us know how you got on!

Day 19 – Direct To Camera

May is far from over! Don’t give up now. And if you’ve just discovered StoryADay May, it’s not too late to jump in. Here’s today’s prompt, and you can find a new episode of the podcast here: Is It Time To Quit? (spoiler: no!)

The Prompt

Tell A Story ‘Direct To Camera’

This is probably going to be in first person.

Write as if you’re writing to your best friend, or talking directly to a police officer, or relaying this to a room of strangers.

if all else fails, stand in front of your phone and tell the story. Tell a real story or a fairy story. See what this does to your writing.

Leave a comment and tell us how it went today!

Day 18 – It’s A Bit One-Sided

The Prompt

Write a story today in which the reader only hears one side of the conversation

This could be a telephone conversation, a text conversation, a series of social media updates, a series of letters, whatever.

Examples

Bob Newhart telephone does this in telephone calls

Watch Neil Gaiman read his story Orange here or read it here

Day 16 – We Need To Talk

Extra! Extra! A fabulous new collection of 100 word stories has just hit the shelves. It’s called Nothing Short Of 100 and it comes from Grant Faulkner (also the head honcho at NaNoWriMo), Lynn Mundell and Beret Olson, all of 100WordStory.org

To see four excellent examples of a 100 word story, hop on over to the publisher’s site now. Or pick up the book from Amazon or request it from your local indie bookstore.

 Today we continue our look at short stories as not-mini-novels and play with them in ways you can only play with short stories!

The Prompt

Write a story completely in dialogue

It’s probably best to keep this to two characters because it’s harder to have more than two characters, without attribution.

I want you to keep it straight in our heads, who’s talking, simply by the way they talk.

A guy who works on Wall St should sound different from a farmer from a rural area.

Don’t forget to leave a comment and tell us what you wrote today!

Day 15 – The List

Welcome to Week 3! You’re still here! I’m very impressed…

This week we’ll be looking at some of the fun ways short stories can be written that are nothing like mini-novels.

The Prompt

Write A Story In The Form Of A List

Ideas for your list story:

  • Shopping List
  • 10 Things I Hate/Love About You
  • To Do List
  • List of books the character has/wants to read, with commentary (also movies)
  • A list of deceased childhood pets
  • A list of your character’s fears

Suggested reading

  • In the video I credited this story to Lydia Davis, but of course it is Jennifer Egan: To Do.
  • You can also look at McSweeney’s list articles, which are a little more snarky commentary than character stories.

 

This is a great refresher after a week of deep narrative work.

Go and have some fun!

 

Day 12 – You May Be A Swan

Today’s story structure is a little more balanced, and is illustrated by the Ugly Duckling story.

The Prompt

Use the Ugly Duckling Story To Write A Balanced Story With The Life-Changing Moment In The Middle

Unlike in Cinderella, the Ugly Duckling’s life-changing moment comes in the middle, and then the author spends the second half of the story revisiting situations like the ones that led him to the crisis point. Where he met cruel children at the start, he meets nice children after his transformation. Where he met mean animals at the start he meets kind animals after his transformation. Where his family was horrible to him at the beginning, he gets to reconcile with his mother at the end.

This means we get to see what kind of character the Ugly Duckling has even after his transformation. This structure is a good one to use when your character’s struggle is mostly internal.

To make life easier for yourself, unfold the story in the opposite order to the way you built it. Nest the encounters, like this:

[mother] [animals] [children] [CRISIS] [children] [animals] [mother]

Day 10 – Let’s Make These Stories Flash

Yeah, yeah we’re writing super-short stories this month (well, some of us are!), but do they flash?

The Prompt

Write a story in under 1000 words focusing on creating one billiant image in your reader’s mind.

Tips

  • The image you leave in their mind doesn’t have to be visual. It could be an idea.
  • Really focus on making everything lean and making every word count. Make sure your story is about one thing, one moment.
  • Aim to change your reader’s mind about something, whether it’s a person, an experience or a condition of life.

[Writing Prompt] Day 9 – Character Desires Are Key

Knowing what a character wants, tells us what’s at stake in the story. Conflict between the character’s desire and their circumstances will keep your reader hooked.

The Prompt

Establish, within the first couple of sentences, your character’s desire. Put them in a situation that conflicts with that desire. Tell us how it works out.

Tips

It’s important for a reader to know what your character wants.

Once they know what your character wants, is afraid of, would never do, or desperately wants to do, the reader knows WHY they’re reading this story. That will keep them reading.

Keep it simple. In a short story, you can only examine one of your character’s desire.

Day 8 – All About Conflict

Without conflict or friction in your story, nothing  interesting will happen. Today we focus on making sure two opposing forces run into each other in your story.

The Prompt

Put your character in a mundane, everyday situation. Then introduce a strong element of conflict.

Tips

Continue reading “Day 8 – All About Conflict”

Day 7 – Playing With Character with Playwright Jen Silverman

Today’s guest prompt comes from Jen Silverman.

Jen Silverman is a New York–based writer and playwright, a two-time MacDowell Fellow, and the recipient of a New York Foundation for the Arts grant and the Yale Drama Series prize. She was awarded the 2016–17 Playwrights of New York fellowship at The Lark and is a member of New Dramatists. She completed a BA in comparative literature at Brown University and an MFA in playwriting at the Iowa Playwrights Workshop, and was a fellow at the Playwrights Program at Juilliard.

Signature Short Story Guide

For more advice for burgeoning short story writers, Download Signature’s Compact Guide to Writing Short Stories!

The Prompt

My approach to story-telling has always been character-driven. I’m fascinated by characters who are driven by overwhelming desires, who risk big, who long to transform.

Much of my professional writing has been for the theatre, as a playwright, and so when I teach writing, I focused on unlocking new understandings of characters, and accessing their individual voices.

This prompt is about exploring the “engine” of your main character. What drives them? Who are they when the stakes are high and their back is to the wall? Pick one of the following 4 scenarios and explore: how would they deal with this situation?

  1. Backed into a corner, your character tells a lie to protect him/her self.
  2. Your character has been plotting blood-chilling revenge on someone. Now both are sitting down to dinner together.
  3. Your character goes to a psychic, who tells them something frightening that changes how they see their future.
  4. Your character is obsessed with something. They think they will do anything to obtain it. The person they love most in the world stands in their way.

Tips

  • Ask yourself about your protagonist’s initial instincts? Are they a runner? A fighter? A lover? Fearful or forward? Visceral or heady?
  • The story you’re working on doesn’t have to contain stakes this high, for this prompt to be useful. Maybe you’re writing a quiet naturalistic story about a relationship dissolving.
  • The work you did to unearth your protagonist’s emotional range can still come into play, with the dial turned down to 5 instead of up to 10.

For more advice for burgeoning short story writers, Download Signature’s Compact Guide to Writing Short Stories!

Day 6 – Steal From Yourself

Steal from yourself!

The Prompt

Retell a story you’ve told before, in a new way

This exercise opens up opportunities in future, when you have a piece that isn’t quite working. You can cast your mind back to today and remember that yeah, there’s more one way to tell this story, too.

Let us know how you got on today, in the comments below!

Day 5 – Steal From The Best

Steal, borrow, it’s all good…

The Prompt

Have some fun today: Steal something from a favorite published universe

Remember, you can’t sell a derivative work without permission, or a license, but that’s not the point today. Today is all about having fun in a world you know well, or with characters you already love.

 

Leave a comment to let us know which world you played in today! 

 

Never miss out on news from StoryADay:

Day 4 – Tell A Story In 40 Minutes

Sometimes limits can be good…

The Prompt

Set A Timer For 40 Minutes, Write A Story

Spend 10 minutes brainstorming and starting the story, 20 minutes complicating your character’s life, and the final 10 minutes reviewing what you’ve written, making notes and writing an ending.

Leave a comment, to tell us how you got on today.

Day 2 – Quick Story Formula

Yesterday’s awesome prompt was written by one of the authors who contributed to the Signature’s 2018 Compact Guide To Writing Short Stories. I can’t recommend it enough.

Signature Short Story Guide

For Day 2, here’s a sneak peak of what you’d be seeing all month if  you were a StoryADay Superstar. Join us! 

(For the rest of the month, the prompts here will be text-only and not as detailed)

Superstars get videos like this, a private forum, guided meditations and a weekly video hangout. Join us?

The Prompt

Use this story formula to to create an interesting character, give them a desire, kick off some intriguing action and plan the kind of resolution you want.

Once you have that skeleton, you can start filling in colorful details…and soon your creative brain will be demanding you start to write!

A _______ (adjective) ________(noun), who _________(verb) ___________(subject), then _________(related verb) __________(resolution)

TIPS

Continue reading “Day 2 – Quick Story Formula”

[Write On Wednesday] Making Good From Bad

First lines.

They can be the inspiration of something great. Or they can be the omen of bad things to come.

We all know that clichés are one of the things to avoid as a writer. Lines like “It was a dark and stormy night” sounds like a pretty good mood setter to a beginner writer…well, maybe not even to them.

But suppose you use a bad first line on purpose? Suppose the entire point is to take that bad first line and write a story around it that is…not as tacky? Or makes the reader forgive the first line or make it totally acceptable? Continue reading “[Write On Wednesday] Making Good From Bad”

Write on Wednesday – Quick Story Formula

This is an awesome way to quickly launch (and finish) a new story, any time you have time to write but are short on inspiration. Try it!

 

Use this story formula to to create an interesting character, give them a desire, kick off some intriguing action and plan the kind of resolution you want. Continue reading “Write on Wednesday – Quick Story Formula”

[Write on Wed] Story Sparks for May 2018

We’re less than a month away from StoryADay May 2018.

Yes, I’m going to be providing you with optional writing prompts. The best stories, however, come from ideas that you care about.

You can use my prompts, but it is going to be the sparks of ideas that you collect, that ignite your stories.

That’s why, before every challenge, I encourage you to gather Story Sparks, fragments of maybe-story-ideas.

The Prompt

Gather three Story Sparks a day for the next week.

Tips

  • Read this post on Story Sparks, with some ideas to get you started.
  • Read the “Secrets To Your Success” article from the StoryADay Essentials series, which defines a Story Spark and how you can use them to ‘win’ StoryADay.
  • If you’re already on the mailing list, dig out the Creativity Bundle you received when you subscribed, and use the Story Sparks Catchers I created for you. If you aren’t on the mailing list, sign up to get your Story Sparks Bundle now!

The StoryADay Productivity Bundle sign up button

If you collect three Story Sparks a day now, you will

  • Gather 21 interesting nuggets for inclusion in stories, this week alone
  • Start looking at the world like a writer does: it’s all material
  • Train your brain to start thinking creatively
  • Be bursting with ideas when you sit down to write!

Go!