Mini Episode: Sonnet writing prompt

Today’s mini episode is a writing prompt that challenges you to write a story in the form of a prose sonnet (don’t worry, I explain what I mean and give you a few different styles to choose from).

It’s a challenge, but it’s a good one!

Read more: http://stada.me/sonnet

Another new episode of Write Every Day, Not “Some Day”

[Write On Wednesday] A Prose Sonnet

Today’s prompt continues the month’s theme of looking at different short story forms you can try out.

This one’s a challenge, but really fun.

Right-click to download the audio only

The Prompt

Write a story in 14 sentences

Tips

  • You can simply write 14 sentences.
  • You could use the Petrarchan form of sonnet where the first 8 lines/sentences propose an argument or an idea and the second 8 answer or refute it.
  • You could use the Shakespearean form, with three groups of 4 linked sentences, followed by two lines/sentences that provide illumination, a revelation, a twist or an explanation.
  • You could write a sonnet series, with each group of 14 lines fulfilling a different function in your story.
  • Writing this way is hard but it frees you. Instead of worrying about writing well, you’re concentrating on the form. Sometimes that tricks your brain into writing really well; sometimes it’s just a triumph to have written at all.

Leave a comment telling us how it went!

[Write on Wednesday] Lists As Stories

This month I’m pushing us to write short stories in odd forms, lists, conversations, letters, all kinds of things.

Short stories can be told in narrative form, like mini-novels, but they don’t have to be. Part of the fun of being a short story writer is the ability to twist people’s brains, surprise them, make the familiar unfamiliar. You can do that with your images, but you can also do it with a story’s form.

The Prompt

Write A Story In The Form Of A List

Continue reading “[Write on Wednesday] Lists As Stories”

[Write On Wednesday] Openings & Endings for Flash Fiction

Maria
People’s memories of events are shaped by their experiences in the last few minutes. Stories are no different. You could write the best story in the world but if the opening isn’t good, no one will read it; and worse, if the ending is bad, they will remember the let-down, not the beautiful writing and ideas in the body of the tale.

We’re going to work on avoiding that problem, today! Continue reading “[Write On Wednesday] Openings & Endings for Flash Fiction”

[Write on Wednesday] Terrific Titles

Flash fiction writers often miss a fabulous opportunity by leaving a quick, ‘working’ title on their story.

That’s like selling a product by telling people how hard you worked on it, instead of selling them on what the it will Do For Them.

Here’s the thing:

  • Title are not usually part of the required word count, so you can go as long as you like!
  • Titles are the sizzle that sells the reader on the steak of your story.
  • Titles can add a whole new layer of meaning to the story, when the reader is finished.

    The Prompt

    Write a 300–500 word story,

    Then, spend an equal amount of time writing a title that is at least 3% as long as the story (that is, 9 words long for a 300 word story, 15 words for a 500 word story)

Tips

  • It is completely acceptable, for today, to use a flash story you’ve written in the past and just re-title it. (And yes, it can be a longer story, just remember I want you to make the title proportional to the story length, so this could get kind of crazy. Good crazy…)
  • If you’re stuck for ideas, write a story based on a Story Spark you’ve gathered, a character you’ve already created, or an issue that makes gets you excited (for good or ill).
  • Read through the story and pick out the theme.
  • Play with puns, double-meanings, and common proverbs.
  • Remember that your aim is to catch the eye of a potential reader and pull them in, intrigue them enough that they’ll want to read your story.
  • Write a title that is at least 3% as long as the story (word count divided by 100, multiplied by 3) 300 words=9 words, 400 words=12 words, 500 words=15 words, 1000 words= 30 word title! (For the rules-lawyers: you may round up or down as you feel appropriate. This is just an exercise!)
  • Try to make it have a deeper meaning, after the reader has read the story (or to add something to their understanding)
  • Bonus points: Post your title in the comments and see if we’d be intrigued to read it.
  • Extra bonus points: post on someone else’s title to say whether or not you’d read it.

Examples of Long Titles

Clearly Lettered in A Mostly Steady Hand by Fran Wilde, nominated for a Nebular Award for Short Story in 2018. Isn’t that an intriguing title. Why does ‘clearly lettered’ matter and why is the hand only ‘mostly steady’?

Sorry Dan, But It’s No Longer Necessary For A Human To Serve As CEO Of This Company by Eric Cofer

Further reading on Good Titling

Naming the Baby by Bruce Holland Rogers (Flash Fiction Online)

Choosing The Right Name For Your Story by Jason Floyd (Writing World)

 

Leave a comment, telling us your title. Bonus points: leave a comment on someone else’s title, saying whether you’d read on!

[Write On Wednesday] Specific to Universal

The best stories move from the specific to the universal (or vice versa).

Flash fiction is a wonderful venue for practicing the short-story skill of moving from the specific to the universal.

Stories relate a specific event happening to a specific individual and how it affects them. The best stories also contain ideas that apply to the wider world: to you, to me, to society.

The Prompt

Continue reading “[Write On Wednesday] Specific to Universal”

[Write On Wednesday] Make It Flash

This month at StoryADay we’re all about Flash Fiction!

Flash Fiction image

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”

[Write on Wednesday] Through The Keyhole

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.

The Prompt

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

Tips

  • Think of this as a way of reducing the events of whatever is going on in the room to the moment.
  • Use powerful imagery and strong verbs to narrate the story and make it ‘flash’.
  • In a story this short you probably only have room for one or two characters.
  • A story this short can only focus on one moment/event.
  • Use dialogue to convey information. Hint at backstory with tone and word choice.
  • When you have finished your first draft (and therefore know what the story is about) go back and work on your opening lines

Leave a comment below, letting us know how you got on with this prompt, or what ideas it sparked for you.

[Writing Prompt] Don’t Fight With Strangers On Social Media

Fighting creativityA 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!

The Prompt

Find an issue that you COULD have a fight with someone about on social media and instead, write a story.

Tips

  • Make it something you really, really care about.
  • Have a protagonist and an antagonist who feel strongly about either side of the argument.
  • Give the antagonist a legitimate reason to feel that way — don’t make them a cardboard cut-out/cartoon villain.  (This might be hard, but will result in a better story, and a better you!)
  • You don’t have to be sympathetic to the opposing point of view, but you do have to grant some humanity to the person who holds that view. Grace them with some nuance. It’ll make for a better story, and it’ll intrigue the reader.
  • It will make your story and its outcome surprising and  memorable.
  • Consider leaving the story slightly unresolved. Life usually is. Maybe there is a moment when one (or both) characters have a glimmer of understanding (or of seeing the other person as a real human), or maybe they miss that moment entirely.
  • When working with two sides of an issue, you can show how the ‘good’ character could easily become the ‘bad’ character if only they…{insert the line your character will not cross here] and vice versa.
  • Because this is a short story, focus on one angle of an issue, one comment, one moment in the character’s lives.
  • Maybe let the exchange play out on a simulated social media exchange.
  • Maybe have the characters in another time and place, debating face to face, or through some completely different medium.

 

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 😉

 

[Write On Wednesday] The One Thing They’d Notice

Today’s prompt was inspired by an exercise in Donald Maass’s latest book The Emotional Craft of Fiction. You can find the whole exercise on p.22 of that book.

The Prompt

Write a story featuring two characters in the same location. Pick a detail that only your protagonist would notice and weave it into the story. 

Tips

Continue reading “[Write On Wednesday] The One Thing They’d Notice”

084 – Write About A Writer – the last prompt of StoryADay May 2017

in today’s prompt, you get a chance to write about a writer. This is not something I suggest often, but I think you’ve earned it.

Also: news about StoryFest 2017 (https://storyaday.org/storyfest-2017)

 

Find more about this prompt: https://storyaday.org/20170531-writer/

Another new episode of Write Every Day, Not “Some Day”

WritersBloxx – A Box Of Story Prompts Disguised As A Game

An Interview with Gary Zenker

WritersBloxx box contents
WritersBloxx on Kickstarter

One of the best things about plugging into the writing community — online and off—is that you find yourself surrounded by people with creative and innovative ideas that spark your creativity as well as their own.

One such person is Gary Zenker who is, among other things, a writer and a game designer.

Gary’s new storytelling game, WritersBloxx is the perfect tool for StoryADay writers, who already enjoy writing prompts and want to be more productive. Continue reading “WritersBloxx – A Box Of Story Prompts Disguised As A Game”

Settings – A Writing Prompt from Josh Barkan

Writing exercise: (20 minutes)

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?

Writing exercise: (30 minutes)

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?

 

Tips:

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.

 

About Josh Barkan

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.

 

Hansel & Gretel – A Writing Prompt for May 30, 2017

Today I wrap up the story structure series with a bang.

The Prompt

Write a Hansel & Gretel Structured Story

Tips

  • The Life-Changing Moment in this story structure, comes at the start.
  • The Life-Changing Moment may have happened ‘off-stage’ before the story starts (imagine the story of Hansel and Gretel where the kids are already alone in the woods. That would work, right?)
  • Remember to focus on what your character would never, ever choose to do, and how the circumstances are forcing them to face that (for example, Hansel and Gretel would never disobey/mistrust the adults in their life, but life is giving them a pretty clear directive to do just that).
  • This story starts with a big moment, and then throw complications at your character. Once you’ve told us enough about the character for us to figure out how they’re going to survive, you can end the story.
  • If you’d like to read more about this story structure, check out this post.

Don’t forget to post in the community or leave a comment to tell us how you got on today.

The Ugly Duckling – a writing prompt for May 29

Today we continue looking at story structure: this time, with what I call the Ugly Duckling Structure.

The Prompt

Watch the video and write an Ugly Duckling story

Tips

The ‘life-changing moment’ comes in the middle of this story

Balance out every challenge from before that moment, with a similar, but different moment afterwards. Show us how the character (or their circumstances) have changed now.

This story might have to be longer than a Cinderella-type story. Sketch it out, if you don’t have time to do it justice today.

Read this post, which talks more about the Ugly Duckling structure.

Don’t forget to leave a comment or post in the community and tell us how you’re getting on. What have you learned this month, so far?

Non-Traditional Love Story – a writing prompt for May 27, 2017

The Prompt

Write A Non-Traditional Love Story

Tips

  • You could use non-traditional partners for your love story (it doesn’t have to be romantic love; and if it is, it doesn’t have to be between straight, white people).
  • The way you tell the story could be non-traditional (it could be told in a non-narrative form).
  • Here’s my review of The Sentry Branch Predictor Spec by John Chu (with links to the story).

Letters – a writing prompt for May 26, 2017

Today I throw you one of my favorite prompts, because I love reading these kinds of stories.

The Prompt

Write a story in the form of a series of letters

Tips

  • The ‘letters’ can be anything really: letters, journal entries, found documents, Tweets, Facebook updates…
  • The letters can come from only one person — in which case we hear only one side of the story.
  • The letters might come from various sources and in various time periods.
  • You might mix letters with documentary evidence (school report cards, obituaries clipped from a newspaper, a termination document from an employer).
  • Your writing might be in the form of a ‘gospel’ for a new religious or political cult.
  • This might grow to be a bigger project than you can handle in one day…

Prose Sonnet – A writing prompt for May 25, 2017

Today’s prompt sticks with this week’s theme of pushing the form of the short story away from the idea of it as a ‘mini novel’.

Short stories are incredibly versatile and short story readers are willing to work for their thrills. Let’s get to it:

The Prompt

Write a prose sonnet: a story 14 sentences long

Tips

  • Of course, our prose sonnets aren’t going to rhyme or be in any particular rhythm (although you can shoot for that if you like).
  • You can draw inspiration from traditional sonnet forms. For example, it could follow the structure of a Petrarchan sonnet which presents an argument or observation in the first 8 lines (sentences, in this case), then a  turn in the next line. Then you can spend the rest of the story ‘answering’ the question/observation/argument of the start.
  • You could model your story on a Shakespearean sonnet: three groups of four related sentences, and a final two-sentence ending that perhaps turns the story upside down OR reinforces its message.
  • You could go from the specific to the general and end with a universal truth, or set the story up the other way around.
  • One powerful image might be all you need in a story this length: a grandparent with their grandchild, feeding the ducks, for example. Placed at either end of your story (or in the middle), this image might allow you to illustrate a theme on relatable, specific and still universal levels.
  • You could also write a sonnet ‘sequence’, if your story demands more room. That would mean you write groups of ‘scenes’ in 14 sentences each until your story is finished.
  • For more on the form, read this.

 

The List – with a pep talk

The Prompt

Write a story in the form of a list

Tips

  • You could write
    • a ‘to do’ list,
    • a list of grievances addressed to your character’s boss/children/spouse;
    • a shopping list;
    • a McSweeney’s style list;
    • a list of steps you are advising someone to take,
    • any other type of list you like.
  • The title is hugely important. You might need to write it last. It should perhaps have a double meaning: it might mean one thing to the reader before they read the story and yet peel away a layer once the story is in their brains.
  • Don’t be afraid to let the reader work. Leave things out. Imply much, explain little.
  • Don’t feel the need to wrap this up neatly. Jennifer Egan doesn’t.
  • The twist in this kind of tale, comes because the form betrays the meaning: a list is a utilitarian, ephemeral thing. The more important/dramatic the issue your character takes on in the list, the more impact the story will have (this can be dramatic, funny, ridiculous, dark, or anything else!)

Go!

Sumptuous Settings – a writing prompt

Today I encourage you to make your prose as purple as you like, in a quest to find out how much description you really need.

The Prompt

Write a story (set in your novel’s world) that makes sensation a priority. Use all five senses.

Tips

  • Don’t be afraid to write ridiculously floral prose today. You can always dial it back, but it’s fun to find new ways of describing things.
  • Don’t worry too much about pacing or characterization. This is an exploration of your world and the sensations a character might experience, walking through it.
  • Get outside, if you have to. Listen to things. Smell the world. See what you can feel. Then come back inside and write.

Don’t forget to leave a comment or do your Victory Dance!

Societal World Building – a writing prompt

Today we look at a less tangible aspect of world-building: What makes your society the way it is?

21The Prompt

Write a story focusing on an aspect of society that matters to you/your story. How did society get to a place where this is important?

Tips

  • You’ll probably have to go back into history for this (or ‘history’, if your world is completely made up).
  • Think about issues like gender/race/economic/religious norms. How did they get where they are? What made the norms, normal?
  • Pick something that matters to you. Don’t try to explain everything, just the thing that makes your blood boil, or that gets you excited.

Don’t forget to leave a comment or do your Victory Dance!

Concrete World Building – a writing prompt

Today I invite you to do some world-building, either for a novel in progress or for a story world you’d like to spend more time in, focusing on concrete aspects of the world.

The Prompt

Write a story that focuses on the discovery/invention/ramifications of something that shapes your characters’ physical world.

Tips

  • Some questions you might ask: Why do we have roads? What invention led us to spend our evenings the way we do? What does your futuristic society have that might need explained? How did those things come about?
  • Write a story based on the transition point between a world with those things and the world that came before (think: Marty McFly in Back to the Future arriving at his younger-mom’s house the very day her father hooked up their first TV. Rolling the TV into their dining room that first time, probably affected their family dinners forever!)

Don’t forget to leave a comment or do your Victory Dance!

Secondary Meeting – a writing prompt

Today’s writing prompt invites you to look back into your characters’ past again.

 

The Prompt

Imagine the first (significant) meeting between your protagonist and a secondary character

Tips

  • Again, if you’re not a novelist, imagine this scenario for a short story you’ve written in the past, or for one you’re planning.
  • If your novel-in-progress’s protagonist has a best friend, that might be the perfect person to choose here. If they have a ‘frenemy’, this story could shed some light on that relationship. You can even do this with a villain, if they have a history that begins before the novel starts.
  • Show us this meeting. Set up some of the dynamics we’ll recognize between the two characters later.
  • If your work-in-progress doesn’t have a great candidate for this story, invent one. A friend in the protagonist’s past, that we never meet in the later work, could set her expectations for all future friends (good or bad). Examine that.
  • If you need help getting to the emotional heart of the matter, take a look at Donald Maass’s newest book, The Emotional Craft of Fiction.

Don’t forget to leave a comment letting us know how you got on, or come on in to the community and do your Victory Dance!

 

The Protagonist’s Journal – A writing prompt

Continuing our series of prompts to help novelists as well as short story writers, today I encourage you to move forward a little in your protagonist’s timeline, but still stay before the main story.

The Prompt

Write a story about the days leading up to the beginning of your novel, or your story’s big incident. Alternatively, write a journal of those days from your protagonist’s point of view.

Tips

  • Use this story to ‘brain dump’ all the stuff that your reader doesn’t want to wade through before they get to the jumping-off-point for your story.
  • You can use this knowledge to season the story later, with a light hand.
  • Remember, you can recycle these stories are freebies and giveaways to help you promote your novel and build your audience.

Don’t forget to leave a comment to let us know how you got on.

Turning Point – A writing prompt for novelists

This week I’m focusing on prompts that novelists can use. If you’re  novelist, I don’t want you to feel like you’re wasting your time here at StoryADay May. While short story writers can easily use these prompts, too, you novelists will find much in them that enriches your work-in-progress.

Let’s dive in:

The Prompt

Write a story that investigates a turning point in your protagonist’s past.

Tips

  • Every interesting character has an internal struggle fighting with (or complementing) the external struggle of the plot. It usually stems from a character flaw/defect/protection mechanism they’ve been building for years. Use this prompt to write a story that captures the beginning of that character development.
  • If you don’t have a novel or work in progress, investigate a character from an earlier story you’ve written (or one you hope to write).

Lisa Cron’s Story Genius (referenced in the video) can be found here or requested through your local indie bookstore.

Second Look – A writing prompt from Julie Duffy

Today I encourage you to take a second look at a story you’ve written before.

The Prompt

Take a story you’ve written before and write it again from a different point of view.

Tips

You can rewrite the events of the story, as viewed by someone else.

You could choose to use the original story as a jumping-off point, that simply informs your knowledge of this formerly-secondary character.

Feel free to write the story in a completely different form (if the first one was a series of letters, you could write this one in a more narrative form.

Nightmare – A writing prompt from Maria Hazen Lewis

Today’s prompt comes from another wonderful writer from my local network.

The Prompt

I had a nightmare last night. I woke up and started writing….

About Maria Hazen Lewis

Maria Hazen Lewis writes women’s fiction in Pennsylvania.

Misapprehension – A writing prompt from

Today’s prompt is about the (sometimes comedic) art of misapprehension.

The Prompt

Today’s prompt focuses on misapprehension – that is, interpreting something incorrectly. Too often, in fiction, every character communicates perfectly. That’s not the way it happens in real life.

Example: award-winning author Harlan Ellison once misheard a conversation at a party. He overheard a woman say, “”Jeffy is fine. He’s always fine.”” What Ellison actually heard was “”He’s always FIVE.”” That inspired the story “”Jefty Is Five,”” about a boy who never grows up.

Alternately, the misapprehension could be visual. True story: when I graduated college, I moved to a southern town – one of those places where anti-intellectualism seemed to be the prevailing attitude. I met lots of girls there, but I was looking for an intellectual girlfriend. One day, while sitting in dingy waiting room, I saw a pretty girl outside. To my amazement, she wore a tee-shirt with the letters “”SPQR”” on it. SPQR stood for – in Latin – “”The Senate and the People of Rome.”” What kind of woman wore a tee-shirt that referenced Ancient Rome? I had to meet her! I rushed outside, saw the girl…and discovered that her shirt didn’t say “”SPQR.”” It said “”SPORT.”” Stretched around her well-endowed chest, the final letter was hadn’t been visible from where I sat. (I was so disappointed, I didn’t even speak to her.)

So that’s your prompt: misapprehension, either verbal or visual.

About Tony Conaway

Born in Philadelphia, PA, Tony Conaway has written and ghostwritten everything from blogs to books. He has cowritten non-fiction books published by McGraw-Hill, Macmillan and Prentice Hall. His fiction has been published in eight anthologies and numerous publications, including Blue Lake Review, Danse Macabre, Rind Literary Magazine, qarrtsiluni, The Rusty Nail and Typehouse Literary Magazine.

His odder work includes co-writing the script for a planetarium production, and jokes performed by Jay Leno on The Tonight Show. He blogs at http://wayneaconaway.blogspot.com/ He was recently a guest on the Indy Writer Podcast, talking about writing short fiction.

Poetic Inspiration – A writing prompt from Elise Holland

 

Poetic Inspiration: Let a Favorite Poem Breathe Life into Your Short Story

Reading poetry is a great way to inject beauty and inspiration into our daily lives. Select a poem that resonates with you, and let it inspire you as you write your next short story!

In order to provide a specific prompt, I suggest Shakespeare’s Sonnet 25, which showcases a theme of the power of love. Beneath the poem, you will find suggestions for other poets (both classic and contemporary), as well as specific ideas for incorporating poetic tools such as theme, imagery and rhythm into your prose.

The Prompt

“Let those who are in favour with their stars
Of public honour and proud titles boast,
Whilst I, whom fortune of such triumph bars,
Unlookt for joy in that I honour most.
Great princes’ favourites their fair leaves spread
But as the marigold at the sun’s eye;
And in themselves their pride lies buried,
For at a frown they in their glorie die.
The painful warrior famoused for fight,
After a thousand victories once foil’d,
Is from the book of honour razed quite,
And all the rest forgot for which he toil’d:
Then happy I, that love and am beloved
Where I may not remove nor be removed.”
– William Shakespeare
Sonnet 25

Tips

There is a vast array in styles of poetry, and not every single poem will resonate with you. With a little persistence, you will find the unique voices and poignant words to inspire your prose and warm your soul.

 

  • Interested in classic poetry? Consider delving into this book, which serves as a lovely anthology, showcasing the work of thirteen classic poets.
  • Consider that various aspects of a poem can inspire your short fiction. Here, we will examine theme, imagery and rhythm.
  • When studying a poem, look closely at its theme.
    Did the poet wax melodic about love?
  • Did he or she speak ardently about a particular social issue or current event that resonates?
  • What aspect of this theme are you drawn to, and how might you incorporate it into your own work?
  • Evaluate the imagery in the poem you study.
    • In the above poem, Shakespeare says “Great princes’ favorites their fair leaves spread, But as the marigold at the sun’s eye; And in themselves their pride lies buried, For at a frown they in their glory die.” What he is referring to, is that happiness found in shallow pursuits (in this case, in the fickle favor of those in high places) is fragile, and is often found wanting.
    • Later in the above poem, Shakespeare says “Then happy I, that love and am beloved Where I may not remove nor be removed.” In this way, the poem states that it is in unwavering love (where I may not remove or be removed) that true happiness is sought and found.
    • What images speak to you? How might you incorporate versions of them into your next story?
  • When considering rhythm:
    • Consider sentence length variety. For instance, one very short, moving sentence can have significant impact after a longer, complex or compound sentence.
    • Are you drawn to rhyme? You might include a subtle use of rhyme in a paragraph you are trying to drive home, or make memorable.
  • Once you’ve written your story, think about submitting it to literary magazines and/or journals. We would love to review your work at 2 Elizabeths! (2Elizabeths.com)

About Elise Holland

Elise Holland is co-founder and editor of 2 Elizabeths, a short fiction and poetry publication. Her work has appeared in various publications, most recently in Darling. Through 2 Elizabeths, Elise strives to create value and visibility for writers, through writing contests, events, and more!