Julie Duffy's Blog, page 165

[Writing Prompt] Title Recall

Today we’re stealing from the Beach Boys. Use their title to write an original story

The Prompt

Write A Story Titled “Good Vibrations”

Tips

You can write a Beach Boys-related story about surfing and California if you want.
Think about the ways you could use the words in the title — ways  that have nothing to do with the original song.
Write 10 different ideas for plays on the words ‘good’ and ‘vibrations’
Write a story about a person who was influenced by (or grew up listening to) the song
Set the story somewhere completely unexpected (like 10,000 years in the future, on an alien moon colony), or under the sea.

Go!

What did you do with this prompt? How are you holding yup 23 days into the challenge? What do you need to get you to Day 31? Comment or talk about it in the community.

[Writing Prompt] Will’s Words

Today we’re stealing from another master: William Shakespeare.

The Prompt

Write A Story That Incorporates This Quote (or its spirit)

“If you prick us do we not bleed? If you tickle us do we not laugh? If you poison us do we not die? And if you wrong us shall we not revenge?

Tips

If you don’t like this quote, here’s another to play with: “A fool thinks himself to be wise, but a wise man knows himself to be a fool.”
Consider making the quote the last line (or first line) of your story.
How can you incorporate the actual line into your story? What kind of story will you write if you opt to use the spirit of the quote rather than Will’s words?
Shakespeare endures, not because we’re interested in Elizabethan life, but because the characters he wrote were so true to human nature. Make your characters similarly realistic.

GO!

Which quote did you use? Did you use it verbatim or only in the spirit? How did this prompt help with your writing today? Comment below or join the conversation in the community.

[Writing Prompt] Word List Silliness

This is an extremely silly way to start a story, but it always seems to work — maybe because it removes any pressure you may be putting on yourself to write something “good”. Today you write a story using these words from my Third Grader’s spelling list.

The Prompt

Use These Words In A Story: Lettuce, Happen, basket, Winter, Sister, Monster, Supper, Subject, Puppet

Tips

Don’t worry too much about this one. Just write something!
Don’t forget to give us a character who want something (perhaps a lettuce? A sister? A monster?).
Post your story somewhere we can see it (in the comments or in the community) and read everyone else’s stories. Revel in the weirdness!

Go!

Did you remember to post your story in the comments or in the community? Did you have fun with this? Was your story, nevertheless, serious? What does that tell you about writing in general?

[Writing Prompt] Non-Linear Tales

We’ve looked at the parts of the story. We’ve looked at point of view. We’ve learned the rules. Now I’m inviting you to throw it all out of the window.

The Prompt

Write A Non-Linear Story

Tips

Today you’ll write a story that does not go from beginning to middle to end.
There is no need whatsoever to mollycoddle your reader and write a coherent series of events
Try jumping around in time (feel free to retell a story you’ve previously written, to help you get a headstart on this assignment)
Think about writing a stream-of-consciousness monologue, which contains narrative strands, only not necessarily in a traditional narrative way.
Tell the story backwards (think about Memento; Looper; , the story arc of River Song from Doctor Who)
Paint random scenes. Make no attempt to tell a traditional narrative story. Just tell it how your character sees things (think: The Time Traveller’s Wife). This is particularly effective for harrowing stories or if you really want to disorient your readers (There was a famous British modernist composer, Sir Peter Maxwell Davies, whose works were unapologetically ‘difficult’. “I work hard to write them,” ‘Max’ was known to say. “Why shouldn’t my audience work hard too?”)

GO!

How did this go today? Did it feel like a relief to be freed from the need to end your story neatly? Did you find yourself slipping back into traditional narrative mode and if so did you fight it or go with it? Leave a comment or talk about it in the community.

[Writing Prompt] Epistolary Stories

Breaking with the narrative form again today, after flogging it’s poor dead horse corpse at the beginning of the week. Today we tackle a form for which I have an inexplicable and enduring love: letters!

The Prompt

Write An Epistolary Story (i.e. One Told As A Series of Letters/Documents)

Tips

Take the term “Letters/Documents” with a huge pinch of salt. Write a story made up of Tweets, Facebook updates, text messages between friends, comments on a Vine video, an author Q&A, whatever tickles your fancy.
Write a ‘story’ as a list (think McSweeneys).
Write a mock guidebook to some place you know well (or some experience you’ve been through)
Write an open letter to someone your character hates/loves/has a bone to pick with. Consider including a response from their object of scorn/affection/correction.

GO!

What form did you choose? How did it work out for you? Leave a comment or join the conversation in the community.

[Writing Prompt] Multiple Perspectives

I’ve been going on (and on) about the importance of not ‘head-hopping’ between characters in a different scene, to take things easy on the reader. Today I say: mix it up! Make the reader work for their entertainment!

The Prompt

Write A Story From Multiple Perspectives

Tips

You might have had some experience with this already this week, if you’ve been following my suggestion that you rewrite your first story from a different perspective every day. If not, now’s your chance.
Think of an interesting ensemble (a family, a sitcom ‘family’, an office full of coworkers, the witnesses at a trial) and get each of them to tell all or part of a story from their unique perspective.
You can break from the traditional narrative form here and still end up with a successful story. Don’t feel constrained by the ‘beginning, middle, end’  format, except in the sense that you’ll hint at ‘the truth’ more at the start of the story and leave the reader able to reach an ‘end’ or a conclusion by themselves by the time you finish up the story.
Include some of the same ‘facts’ in each character’s account of events, but add to, subtract from, contradict, deepen, confound our understanding as you allow each character’s voice to come out.
This doesn’t have to be a long story. You can do this in a series of verbal exchanges and be finished in ten sentences!

Go!

How did this story feel after a week of focusing on different perspectives? What format did you use? How long was your story today? Leave a comment or talk about it in the community.

[Writing Prompt] Third Person, Omniscient

Today we’re climbing outside our protagonist’s head and looking at the whole scene.

The Prompt

Write A Story From The Third Person, Omniscient, Perspective

Tips

Agatha Christie, Charles Dickens, Terry Pratchett…they make this look easy. Now it’s your turn. Go and look up a favorite novel written with an omniscient narrator and notice how the author handles the transitions from allowing you to see inside one person’s head and then anthers, and then imparting information too.
You still want to be wary of ‘head-hopping’ within the same scene (sharing the inner thoughts of one person then jumping back and forth between difference characters) because it’s disorienting for the reader. You conjure up the most sympathy for a character when the reader can empathize with them, so be sparing in your use of internal monologues.
The advantages of writing in Third Person omniscient, are that you can commentate on the situation or the characters; you can be the reader’s best friend, relating the story of some other folks you know in an amusing or terrifying, or ironic style; you can give the reader a ‘heads up’ about what’s coming later (“If only Dorothy had been able to see the ‘wizard’, at that very moment at home, alone, eating a huge block of cheese and spaced out in front of the television. Perhaps then she would have relied a little more on her own abilities. But alas, she was, for now, in the dark….”); you can use a different voice from you characters, in the narrative section — you’re not limited to writing in the voice of a murderer or a southern belle or a 12 year old all the time; you don’t have to have a character in the scene all the time — you can have digressions and background information —  as long as it is interesting — and it can be easier to ‘show’ not ‘tell’ than when you were writing in First Person.
Beware of ‘info-dump’, where you just tell the reader what they need to know, instead of having the characters discover it or discuss  it – this is boring and unemotional for the reader. Also, beware the temptation to go off on those backstory tangents that take the reader out of the story; to preach; to point out the obvious and to end up writing the introduction to a 400,000 word epic tale. You’re still writing a short story, remember!
Consider rewriting your First Person story yet again, this time in Third Person, Omniscient

Go!

Did you write today? Did you rewrite an earlier story or come up with something new? Did you find yourself writing a fairy story or a Dickens tale? Was this a different perspective for you? Leave a comment or join the conversation in the community.

 

[Writing Prompt] Third Person, Limited Perspective

Today, it’s back to the tried and true, a format you’re probably much more familiar with than yesterday’s Second Person. Yes, today we write in Third Person, Limited Omniscience, perspective.

All of which means, you get inside a character’s head and stay there.

The Prompt

Write A Story in The Third Person, Limited Perspective

Tips

As with First Person, there is no head-hopping in Third Person, Limited. The difference is that everything is told in ‘he’ or ‘she’, rather than “I” and the character is not talking directly to a reader.
In Third Person, Limited, you still have to stay with the protagonist and what he/she knows. No popping out of character to look behind the curtain. Oh, there’s an example: the Wizard of Oz movie. The audience learns everything about that world at the same time that Dorothy does. The Wizard knows he’s just ‘the man behind the curtain’ all along, but Dorothy — and therefore, the audience — learn it in a big ‘reveal’ near the end. If this story was being told in Third Person, Omniscient, the film makers could have cut away and shown us the sham-wizard before Dorothy even gets near to her goal. That would have made for a different experience for the audience, don’t you agree?
The fact that the reader stays with the protagonist is one reason this is such a popular format for thrillers and mysteries. You, as the writer, can keep secrets from audience, only revealing them when it’s important to the character. Because you are pulling the strings, however, you can use your knowledge to foreshadow things that are coming up (if you’re a plotter. Otherwise, you’ll have to go back in and do this in the revision stage!)
Use today’s story as an exercise in trusting the reader. Pledge not to use the words “he thought” or “she felt” or “he assumed” or anything like that. Allow your protagonist to make declarative statements in their thoughts, without explaining that ‘she thought’. Here’s an example: “Sykes flops his entire torso out the window and yells, “Hell yes I’m drunk baby and I’m married too! But I’ll still love you ugly in the morning!” This gets the girls laughing and for a moment there’s hope, but Billy can see the light already dimming in their eyes. He sits back and pulls out his cell; they were probably never serious anyway.” (Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk: A Novel by Ben Fountain) It’s pretty clear that “they were probably never serious anyway” is Billy’s thought, isn’t it? But the author never feels the need to tell us this. Try it out in your story today.


As an experiment try re-writing your First Person story in Third Person Limited today.

 

Go!

Did you rewrite an earlier story in a new POV? Tell us about it in the comments or join the conversation in the community.

[Guest Prompt] Charlotte Rains Dixon

The Prompt

Write about the best gift your character was given.  Incorporate one of the seven deadly sins (wrath, gluttony, sloth, greed, pride, lust, envy) into the story.

 



Charlotte Rains Dixon is the author of Emma Jean’s Bad Behavior. She is a novelist, writing teacher, free-lance journalist, ghostwriter, and author. She is Director Emeritus and a current mentor at the Writer’s Loft, a certificate writing program at Middle Tennessee State University. She earned her MFA in creative writing from Spalding University and is the author of a dozen books. Her fiction has appeared in The Trunk, Santa FeWriter’s Project, Nameless Grace, and Somerset Studios and her articles have been published in Vogue Knitting, the Oregonian, and Pology, to name a few. She is a passionate spokesperson for the creative life and a lover of wine, family, friends, knitting, pugs, cats, reading, and hiking. Charlotte is blessed to live in Portland, Oregon with her husband and her extended family nearby.

[Writing Prompt] Second Person, Awkward

In the Second Person, the story is told like this, “You are walking around in the depths of winter and you find yourself shivering”.

It’s not a format that we see much and as a result it can be tricky to pull off. But it’s worth a try if only to show up the advantages of the other points-of-view available to you. Or maybe you’ll be one of those people, like Jay McInerney, who turns it into a work that is acknowledged as a contemporary classic.

The Prompt

Write A Story in the Second Person Perspective

Tips

Second person can be tricky because of the places we’re usually exposed to it: choose your own adventures; in-game narration; and, most damagingly, advertising (think about it…oh…see? Yup.) We learn how to write by reading and listening. If all you’ve ever heard in the second person is advertising and cheesy video/role-playing narration, and, ahem, self-help-y blog posts, then it’s no wonder it’s so hard to do well! Be aware of your influences (advertising) and resist them.
Read a sample from Bright Lights, Big City by Jay McInerney or Half Asleep in Frog Pajamas by Tom Robbins or How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia by Mohsin Hamid. Notice how quickly you adjust to reading in this form. It might feel awkward at first, but readers adapt very quickly. Can you, as a writer?
This POV can come across as bossy – the narrator is telling you what to do and think. To avoid this, use the old saw ‘show, don’t tell’. The good news is that Second Person can be perfect for this: “Your hands sweat. You would swear your head was detached from your body if you weren’t an educated person who knew this to be impossible. The burger you ate for lunch is lurching around somewhere near the top of your stomach and you’re not sure you’re going to able to keep it down…”  Doesn’t this pull you in? Don’t you know exactly what’s wrong with this person or at least how they feel about it? And all without being bossy at all!
The upside of Second Person is that it is highly effective for sharing psychotic or traumatic experiences. It’s great for when the narrator is self-aware, perhaps manipulative, or disassociating from something. They want to tell, but they don’t want to tell. It’s disorienting and that can be a strength. It’s unusual and that can be a way to inject something new into a story you feel has been told before.
As an experiment, consider taking your first person story and rewrite it, in the Second Person?

GO!

What did you learn today, writing in the Second Person? Did you rewrite yesterday’s story in the Second Person? What did it do to the story? Share your comments below or in the community.