May 11 – Memories

Just because something happened in real life, doesn’t make it a good story. At a writers’ conference I heard agents sigh every time someone said they were writing a memoir. “Why not turn it into a fictional story?” one said, brightly, with barely disguised overtones of desperation.

Today we’re going to try to do that. Instead of trying to capture something exactly as you remember it happening, we’re going to give your experience to a character and mine the universal truths (or funnies, or horror) from it.

The Prompt

Write a story inspired by a memory from your own life

Tips

  • How many different homes have you lived in? What little things do you remember about each? Could they be the spark for a story (think of the connected attics in The Magician’s Nephew or the bricked-up adjoining door in Coraline’s house-turned-apartment-building. Was there anything quirky about a house you lived in? Could it spark a story?
  • Who was your crazy neighbor? What do you remember about that lady on your street who always shouted at you when your ball went into her front garden? What stories did you tell about her as kids?
  • What was that big trauma that happened in your town when you young? An unexpected death? A fire? You know, the thing you reminisced about for years afterwards (“Remember when we were 10 and there was that huge blackout?”). Think of the movie Stand By Me for the ways you could turn a big event in the lives of a group of kids, into a real story that has implications for your characters.
  • What do you remember from when you were five or younger? From 5-10 years old. 10-15? 16-20? 20-30? 30-40? What was life like for someone that age, at that time? What was important to you? Is there a moment when you realized things had changed? When you did something for the first time? The last time?
  • Who were the influential people in your life at each age? What were their stories? Were they they people you imagined? (You know how we were all freaked out the first time we saw a teacher outside school? Everyone is more than the sum of our interactions with them. Revisit someone from your past and give them a more rounded story than just your memories of them.)

GO!

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May 10 – Agony Aunt

You’re a writer, which probably means you’re at thinker, which probably means that a fair percentage of your friends come to you for advice on a regular basis. And you probably give this advice in a thoughtful, reasoned, I-don’t-want-to-hurt-your-feelings kind of way.

Not today.

The Prompt

Write a response from an advice columnist with an attitude

Tips

  • Pick a problem that friends having brought to you in reality (you can promise yourself you’ll never, ever publish this story, if that helps).
  • Or make something up. It can be about relationships, cars, gardening, careers, diet, family, or something weirder.
  • Think about your advice columnist. What kind of attitude will you give him/her? (Maybe your answer will depend on the kind of problem you picked. If it’s something that irritates the snot out of you, let your columnist be as angry or snarky as you never can be. If it’s something you feel great compassion for, allow your columnist to be more empathetic and mushy than you ever could be, in person.
  • If you need an example of a witty-but-caring response to a dating problem, read this answer from novelist Maureen Johnson.
  • If you want weirder examples, you probably already know where to find them…

GO!

Post a comment at the blog to let us know you’ve written today, or join the community and post in the Victory Dance Group.

Guest Prompt from Gregory Frost

Today’s prompt is a real treat: a writing exercise from author Gregory Frost. (Side note: his classes are the kind that writers only tell their best friends about … and then only after their own application has been accepted!)

Here he shares a prompt that seems to be about setting but turns out to be all about character. Flex those writing muscles, people!

The Prompt

Character through Setting

There’s a tale that John O’Hara once wrote a story in which all he did was describe the contents of a room, and by the end you knew that the occupant had committed suicide. No person appears in the story. It’s all done by inference.

For this exercise, select a character. Think about who they are and what you think you know. Then pick a setting. It can be a room, a landscape, the interior of a car…

Now describe the setting in in very specific detail: Use as many senses as you can, as are appropriate. The person you are telling us about is not present in this setting, but by the time you’re done, we should know the important aspects of him or her.

One more thing…

O’Hara also said that getting the details of a character exactly right is critical—especially the detail that is wrong.

So for this setting, add one element that does not belong there (one of these things is not like the other), and see what sort of story that wrong element suggests.

-gf

Gregory FrostAbout Gregory Frost

Gregory Frost is a fantasist, author of adult and young adult fiction (SHADOWBRIDGE, LORD TOPHET, FITCHER’S BRIDES, TAIN, etc.). He has been a finalist for the World Fantasy, Nebula, Hugo, Theodore Sturgeon, and James Tiptree Jr. Awards among others. He is Director of the Fiction Workshop at Swarthmore College.
For more:
Web: www.gregoryfrost.com
Twitter: @gregory_frost
Facebook: gregory.frost1

May 9 – Lists

A lists can be a whole story in itself, but lists can also provide a framework for a series of stories. Today, give some thought to list-making. It might help you later in the challenge when your idea engine is running on fumes. Pick your favorite idea today, and save the rest for later in the month

The Prompt

Use a list to generate a story idea or twelve.

Tips

  • Use established cultural lists, or your own.
  • Use an imagined list (“the lists my mother gave me when I left home”, or “Mr Renquist’s Classroom Rules”) to tell a character’s story.
  • Pick your favorite of the 7 Deadly Sins, 7 Gifts of the Holy Spirit, 9 Circles of Hell, 5 Pillars of Islam, 12 Labors of Hercules, 3 Rules of Robotics, 3 Laws of Motion, 6 Principles of the Scientific Method…
  • Write one story or think about how you might use each item in the list to generate a story. The series might feature different characters, the same protagonist, or might take a supporting character from the previous story and make him/her the protagonist of the next.
  • Make notes on this today, to help you later in the month.

GO!

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May 8 – Fairy Tale Redux

Congratulations! You’ve written for seven days straight! If you’re anything like me, things are both easier and harder now. The writing might be becoming a priority in your day: something of a habit that you’re making time for. Sitting down and starting might come easier with all this practice. After coming up with seven new stories in as many days, however, maybe you could use an easier day today. So you have my permission to steal a plot:

The Prompt

Re-tell a classic story in your own way

Tips

  • Folk tales and fairy stories are best for this, because you don’t run into any copyright issues, but if you aren’t planning on publishing this, then feel free to rewrite the end of The Sopranos or resurrect a character from a Joss Whedon show and give them a happier life.
  • Try placing the story in a different time from the original.
  • Change the main characters’ genders or ages or skin color or country of origin.
  • Change the ending.
  • Make it funny or ridiculous or poignant.
  • Use the structure of the original story and use your creative energy to imbue the characters with greater depth.
  • Tell the story of a side-character or reverse the characters’ roles (as in Gregory MacGuire’s Wicked) or tell the story of the servants who have to sweep up after the ball, or run all over the countryside trying to find out who the glass slipper belongs to…

GO!

Post a comment at the blog to let us know you’ve written today, or join the community and post in the Victory Dance Group.

May 6 – Ripped From The Headlines

The Prompt

Steal a story from another source, and use it as inspiration

Tips

Great places to look for stories like this include:

  • News sites. Subjective sites like TMZ and Unworthy give you more editorial and emotion to work with. Harder news sites like The New York Times or the BBC, or the front page of Wikipedia, will give you more facts and less interpretation. Depending on your personality, one or other approach might be more inspiring to you.
  • Obituaries and alumni magazines are great places to find character studies. Obits give you a person’s life, summed up and including the one or two personal details someone else thought were the most interesting. Alumni magazines offer an insight into character in a different way: what kind of person updates their alumni magazine on ‘what I’ve been up to’? What kinds of things do these people think are worthy of report. What does that say about them?

GO!

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