Julie Duffy's Blog, page 176

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Writing in the first person seems simple, since this is the way we talk, write letters, tell our own stories. Introduce a keyboard or a notebook, however, and suddenly we get a bit frozen. So today we’re practicing telling a First Person story

The Prompt

Write A Story Narrated In The First Person

Tips

Go and grab a book from your shelf that has a strong main character and that is written in the first person. (Think Bridget Jones’ Diary or Elizabeth Peters’ Amelia Peabody series or any number of great stories)
Remember that in First Person, no head-hopping is allowed. You cannot tell us what any other character is feeling, only how your narrator perceives their words/actions.
Decide on one characteristic (or character flaw) that your character will have. Subvert it (or have it get them into trouble) at least once during the story, but try to make it a defining part of the story.

Go!

[Writing Prompt] Inciting Incident

There’s a difference between the first thing that happnes in your story and the thing that becomes the inciting incident.

The Prompt

Write a story in which your main character is going along doing whatever it is he/she does. Very quickly, someone else walks into the scene. This person imparts news of great importance to the character (someone is dead/has been fired/is coming/has escaped/something).

NOW write the inciting incident: the thing that makes it impossible for your character to go back to doing whatever it is he/she was doing before. It might be a threat. It might be a question. It might be something he/she sees and decides they must act upon (e. g. The newcomer leaves but, on the way out, drops a vital piece of evidence. Your character hesitates but, because they are secretly a hero, pick up the evidence and plunge after their friend, and on into the mystery). After this point there is no giving up until the story is resolved one way or another.

Tips

As pointed out in this excellent article, the inciting incident, especially in a short story, doesn’t have to happen ‘on screen’ — it might have happened before the story starts. But that’s getting fancy. You might want to keep everything in order for now.

[Writing Prompt] The Locked Room

Today you’ll write a story that starts with a set of characters, a location and a problem, all devised by me.

The Prompt

The Setting: Four blank walls and two doors, both currently locked.

The Characters: Don, a man in his fifties; Sooz, a young woman; Dante, a teenage boy; Charlie, a character of gender, age and appearance that you specify.

The Problem: There are thunderous booms coming from outside the room and the characters must decide what to do next.

Tips

You can set this story anywhere and at any time.
The room may be any size. It can be inside, outside, on a space ship, on a cruise ship, underground, in a forest, whatever you like.
You decide on the characters’ personalities. Remember, personality conflicts provide drama.
To make your characters more rounded, give us a hint of what they don’t want us to see about themselves.
You can reveal the source of the noises or not. It’s up to you.
You can give us a nice, neat ending, or leave the situation unresolved. Just make sure something is resolved during the story.

Go!

[Writing Prompt] The Little Old Lady

Today we’re concentrating on a character: in particular the kind of person who would have been known to me, when I was a child, as “a little old lady”.

The Prompt

Write a story featuring a little old lady

Tips

Remember, in the days before hair dye and facial peels and gym memberships and HRT—in the days of hard physical labor from dawn to dusk—being a ‘little old lady’ could start at any age from your mid-forties! Those days were NOT that long ago…
Feel free to use your little old lady to play to type (cast her as a fairytale witch or a helpless old woman) or against type (have her, I don’t know, swimming from Florida to Cuba without a shark cage…).
The interesting part of this story is going to be perhaps less about how this character changes, and more about how our perception/expectations as readers are changed during the story.

Go!

[Writing Prompt] The Fair

Today you’re going to rely on memory to conjure up a vivid setting for your story.

The Prompt

Tell a story set at a country fair

Tips

Use all your senses to place us at the fair, right at the start of the story
Paint a picture and include a character walking through that setting, his/her mind set on doing something (winning a prize perhaps? Meeting a particular someone in a particular place?).
Hint that there might be more to their desire than can be simply explained (he wants to be a big shot at the coconut shy; she wants to meet a boy). No, there is a deeper reason they want to do the thing they’re pursuing as we, the reader join them.
After you have squarely painted the fair scene for us, transition away from providing many details of the fair, and instead concentrate more on character.
Don’t forget to bring in something from your setting, near the end, to bring the reader full circle.

Yes, it sounds formulaic, but remember:

It’s only an exercise and
I’ll award a big fluffy panda to anyone who ends up writing something exactly like that of another StoryADay writer, by accident just because you’re using a formula!

Go!

[Writing Prompt] Word Challenge

During September, I’m going to be posting five writing prompts a week.  I’d love to hear from you about which ones resonate — either to prompt a story or a story idea. Leave a comment about the prompt, or post a link to your story, to be entered in a drawing to receive a free copy of my Time To Write Workshop

The Prompt

Today’s prompt is a list of words that you must use in a story. It’s a silly prompt, designed to empower you to take your writing-self a little less seriously

Sponge
Double
Acrobat
Splurge
Frame
Parsimonious

Go!

(And don’t forget to come back and leave a comment)

 

StoryADay September Update

I’ve decided not to host an official StoryADay September here, but don’t despair!

Starting on Tuesday (Sept 3) I’m going to bring you prompts five days a week and will be inviting you to check in here at the site on any days that you’re inspired to write (or determined to). We’ll be here with congratulations, encouragement and, of course, more prompts.

Keep writing!

Julie

[Writing Prompt] Twilight Zone

I’ve been binging on Twilight Zone recently. Things I have noticed:

The stories often, but not always, have a twist at the end
The weirdness is not constrained by the need for an explanation (last night I watched “Living Doll”. The story was about a creepy talking doll. The ‘how’ was never explained, but the character exploration was priceless nonetheless)
No matter how mundane or unusual the setting, the stories are always rooted in character. The opening scene paints a broad-stroke picture of one trait we’re going to be observing in the main character, and then throw something new at them. From there we follow the character until the consequences of his encounter with that ‘something new’ plays out.
Endings are not always happy. And sometimes that’s just fine.

The Prompt

Write a story featuring someone with a strong (or problem) character trait.

Throw a wrench into their nice, everyday routine.

See what happens.

Don’t feel the need to explain the ‘how’ if something unusual is happening (i.e. talking dolls, houshold objects that activate themselves; out-of-body/time experiences). Just focus on what it means for your character.

Special Announcement

I don’t often do this, but this week I wanted to mention a special offer from a friend, Michael Stelzner. Michael is the driving force behind the the Social Media Success Summit. The summit has been running for a few years as an outgrowth of Michael’s copywriting summits and has become the headline event for anyone who’s anyone in social media and online marketing (Chris Brogan, Mari Smith, Michael Hyatt…).

I attended one of Mike’s copywriting summits a few years ago and it was more than worth every penny – i.e. I used what I learned to immediately earn back the price of admission times four.

If you are serious about making a name for yourself using social media, you should check this out. The 50% discount goes away on August 30, so don’t delay. (And yes, this is an affiliate link, so I get a kickback if you buy, but I wouldn’t recommend it if I didn’t honestly think it’s great value for anyone looking to market themselves on social media.)

Important note: If you are still concentrating on building up your writing skills and don’t yet have anything to market, don’t get distracted. Don’t click on this link. Back to your writing, wordsmith!

Best of the Web for Short Story Writers Aug 23, 2013

I do a lot of reading about writing, sifting through the fluff and the downright wrong, so you don’t have to. Here’s what I’ve found in the past month or so that you should find pretty inspiring. Dive in.

Stop Trying To Go Viral – by Dan Blank

Start reading websites for writers and you’ll inevitably find a whole bunch of articles about how you *must* be developing a ‘platform’ so that readers will flock to your books. Dan’s article introduces a little sanity into the debate.

And on that note, I particularly enjoy Chuck Wendig’s quote on the topic of platform: “Here’s the thing: a writer without a platform can still get published if he has a kick-ass book, but a writer with a great platform isn’t likely to get published if his book is better off being dragged out behind the barn and shot in the head.”

Along the same lines, you might want to pay particular attention to the last two paragraphs of Seth Godin’s short blog post: You Could Just Make Something Awesome Instead.

Simplify: Let Go Of Your Crutches by Leo Babauta

Not directly about writing, but if you’re looking for some motivation to help you stop stalling on your next (or current) story, take a deep, cleansing breath and go and read Leo’s article.

Mindy King’s Rules for Writing In A Voice from The Happiness Project

A short article about how a TV writer reminds herself to write characters who are more than cardboard cutouts. Really useful. (Your list may vary from Mindy’s but it’s an exercise you might want to try.)

Related: Elizabeth S. Craig’s recent post about voice. She give a great piece of advice about how to hold onto a character’s voice once you’ve found it and then gives you a rabbit-hole of further reading links to fall down. Go, enjoy!

Jealousing Is The New Writing Exercise bt Liz Argall

This is an exercise I have long advocated (It’s part of the Copycat Writing class in the StoryADay Warm Up Course). Liz’s writes about it in a way that will make you want to try it! (This page loaded oddly in my browser. You may need to scroll down.)

10 Ways For an ADD Writer to be OOH! SHINY! by Kristen Lamb

Because we’re all a little bit ADD…

And along the same lines:

What Do You Focus On by Charlotte Rains Dixon

“What you put your attention on, grows”. Seems simple when she puts it like that, huh? Tips and tricks for turning your writing habit into something you focus on and relish.

The Single Largest Cause of Writer’s Block Might Not Be What You Believe by Kristen Lamb

Kristen’s on fire this month! This is well worth a read.

Top Ten Pieces of Writing Advice gathered by Flash Fiction Chronicles

You may have seen some of these quotes from great authors littered abour the Web, but here are ten of the best in one place.

The Encyclopaedid of Ethical Failures by the US Department of Defense (Downloads as a .doc file)

Looking for a plot or a crisis ripped from, well, not the headlines but a Department of Defense list of its own cock-ups? Read through this instructional manual produced by the DOD and I defy you not to get a story idea or two!

BONUS (about reading, not writing)

How school reading lists have changed over the past 100 years from GalleyCat.

(I’m all for kids reading modern writers but I’m a big sad to see that nothing on the 2012 snapshot was published earlier than 1953. What say you? — Ed)

Back To School

OK, so I know it’s not back to school time everywhere (or for everyone), but we’ve all had that clean slate, back to school feeling: starting a new project that is all promise and no disappointment yet; sharpening your new pencils; buying new notebooks; making timetables.

The Prompt

Write a Back To School Story

Tips

This doesn’t have to be a traditional ‘back to school’. Use this prompt to write any ‘fresh start’ kind of story
“Back To School” doesn’t always bring a sense of optimism.
Go beyond the obvious ideas. Dig deep. Try to write something with a rounded character or distinctive voice, or with a twist.

Go!