Julie Duffy's Blog, page 181

[Writing Prompt] Write Sam’s Story

Continuing on from yesterday’s theme of giving you an element of the story you must use, today I’m giving you a character. I’m seeding some hints about this character into the prompt and you should take them where ever they lead you.

The Prompt

Sam Chase has just left a meeting with the big boss. Sam has been offered a dream position — or at least a position that would have been a dream if it had been dangled out there two years ago. But lately, Sam has been beginning to understand that there’s more to life than ambition, career, advancement, the trappings of success. Oh let’s be honest: it’s been coming on ever since last summer. If the only constant is change, Sam thinks, I’m a walking illustration.

Write Sam’s story.

Tips

In case you hadn’t noticed, I was very careful to use no pronouns in that blurb about Sam. Sam can be male or female, at your whim.
Will you explain what happened “last summer” or keep it mysterious? If you do explain it, will your story start there? End there? Mention it as a big reveal at the climax?
What will Sam choose? Just because we’re tapped on the shoulder by our better angels, doesn’t mean we always make the right choice. But then again, sometimes we do. What will YOUR Sam do?

Go!

[Writing Prompt] Set At A Wedding

This week I’m giving you some more traditional prompts, where one element of your story is dictated by me. (Oh, the power!)

The Prompt

Write A Story Set At A Wedding

Tips

The conflict in this story can be micro-scale (a guest reflecting on a deeply personal challenge, brought into the light by this landmark occasion) or dramatic (a headline-worthy bust-up, with generations of family tension erupting in a hot, molten mess).
Weddings are often the scene of comic stories because of the solemnity inherent in the occasion. But I was at a super-fun wedding recently. A story set at that wedding would lend itself to a solemn moment as an abrupt change of pace.
You can say a lot about your characters without beating the reader over the head with it, by describing which traditions your wedding principals and guests choose to honor (or flout). You can get rich cultural mileage out of this setting.

You can choose another culturally significant/religious event to write about if weddings really aren’t doing it for you.

Go!

[Writing Prompt] Epistolary Stories

This is one of my favorite forms of writing and I don’t know why I don’t do it more:

The Prompt

Write a story in the form of letters, journal entries, blog posts, tweets or other epistle.

Tips



This used to seem like a bit of an old-fashioned story form now that we no longer have five-times-a-day letter delivery (as in Jane Austen’s day) but with all of our new ways of communicating in the written word it is ripe for a reboot.
You should feel free to use old-fashioned letters, but consider using other communication vehicles.
Remember that all the information must come in the form of communications from one person at a time. No dialogue attribution, no speculation by a narrator. This is essentially a First-Person format, but you can have more than one person talking, in turn.

Go!

[Writing Prompt] Third Person, Omniscsient

The Prompt

Write a story in the Third Person, Omniscient style
Tips

Think of a Dickens novel if you’re struggling to zone in one this style. The narrator of your story can know everything about everyone, and even interject with thoughts and judgements.

It is perfectly fine to ‘head hop’ in this style: i. e. follow the thoughts of one character in one scene and another in the next. In a short story you probably don’t want to do too much of this, but why not try it a little?

[Writing Prompt] Third Person, Limited

So did you all have fun with Second Person yesterday?

Today we’re focusing on a perspective that you’ve likely had more practice with.

The Prompt

Write a story in the Third Person, Limited POV

Tips

Remember that in Third Person, Limited, you are writing in the ‘he said, she said’ format.
You can go inside a character’s head and have them look at the world but you must only ever go inside one character’s head.
This is a familiar style from those bubble-gum pink chick-lit books of the 1990 or many third-person mystery series.

Go!

[Writing Prompt] Second Person Savvy

Second person. Sounds scary. How can you possibly manage to write a story in the second person without sounding as if you’re writing the text for a Dungeon’s & Dragons campaign1 or a Choose Your Own Adventure?

Well, mainly by being aware that you shouldn’t. Remember that and you should be fine

The Prompt

Write A Story In The Second Person

But in all seriousness, I think this is quite a natural way to write if you focus on the voice. Maybe it’s because I’m Scottish, but I think we talk this way quite a lot when relaying experiences to our friends (“You know that way when you’re running late and the cat throws up in the doorway and for some reason your keys are not on the hook by the door but instead in the bread bin? That’s the day a whacking great truck pulls out in front of you and drives at four miles an hour and just as you’re thinking ‘hey, that latch looks a bit loose’, he slams on the breaks and sheds a full load of packing peanuts all over you and your car and the road ahead of you.”).

Tips

If you need an example, take a look at the opening page of Bright Lights, Big City, by Jay McInerney.
Remember that second voice pulls your reader directly into the story. It’s a great way to create a visceral reaction in the reader. Why not make it exciting, thrilling?
Keep the story short if you’re not confident in this form
Allow the story to suck if you have to, but finish it and ask yourself what you’ve learned. File this away and try it again some time soon.

Go!

Not that there’s anything wrong with that… ↩

[Writing Prompt] First Person Story

For the next few days we’re going to be concentrating on point of view. Sometimes it’s tempting to write all our stories in the same kind of voice. Not this week. I’m going to give you a real work out and take you through many different types of voice and story.

Ready? Let’s get started.

The Prompt

Write A Story Using The First Person Voice

Tips

The whole thing should be told in the “I” voice.
It should, for preference, be a story about something that happened/is happening to the person telling the story.
When writing in the first person you can never allow your narrative to stray inside another character’s head. The “I” character can speculate about what other people are thinking, but everything must come from their perspective.
If you fancy it, try writing the same story over the next few days, but each day from a different perspective.

Go!

[Writing Prompt] Location Location Location

In this age of Google Maps and Street view and everyone-documenting-everything, there is no reason not to set your story in a ‘foreign’ location and still get the details right.

The Prompt

Write a story in a place you’ve never actually been to.

Tips

Use a search engine to find out a few important facts about the place.
Use Google Street View to take a look at the place (if your story is taking place in a diner in North-East Philadelphia, hope on Google maps and find out exactly what your heroine sees as she’s looking out of the window, waiting to say that thing she wants to say).
Find a blog or informal tourist account of the location and gather some off-the-beaten-track details.
Don’t spend all day doing these things. Just find one or two really colorful details that will help ground your story in the location. Make your characters from somewhere else if you’re not confident of capturing local speech patterns.
If you don’t write realistic fiction, find somewhere to act as a model for your extra-terrestrial setting. Use a detail or two (like the architecture of the TRW ‘Space Park’ in Redondo Beach, California; used in a Star Trek episode in 1967; or England’s Home Counties as Tolkein’s Middle Earth).

[Writing Prompt] Front Page of Wikipedia

Quickly scan the “In The News” and “On This Day…” sections, or even the Featured Article. If something catches your eye, use it as the spark for today’s story.

The Prompt

Grab a story spark from the front page of Wikipedia

Tips

Don’t spend more than 5 minutes trying to find a story that sparks your interest
Don’t pick something that requires lots of specialist knowledge unless you a, work in the field or b, are comfortable blagging.
Try to concentrate on the characters and their reactions more than the facts. This might be inspired by an encyclopedia entry, but you shouldn’t sound like you’re writing one!

To see how some of last year’s participants used this prompt, check out the comments on this post.

Go!

[Writing Prompt] From Beyond The Grave

OK, this prompt is not as spooky as the title might lead you to believe.

Since we’ve started talking about ‘character’, let’s stay there for a while.

It can be hard to come up with a fascinating character for each new story. Yes, you can certainly use recurring characters, but what about when you get bored and need a change? You’ve raided your memories, you’ve looked at pictures for inspiration, but what to do on a day when you’re truly stuck?

The Prompt

Write A Story Based On An Obituary

Say what?!

Seriously, obituaries are like little potted character studies. Read them carefully and you’ll find stories there you never would have thought of: the little old lady in the nursing home who was actually a counter-espionage agent during WWII; the mother of four who loved to race go-karts; the business leader who quietly spent his retirement raising prize-winning orchids.

Characters, every one!

And if you feel strange ripping off someone else’s life story, try to see it as a celebration of their life instead. Change the names, change the details, but the story you write that was inspired by the obituary will remain a tribute to the unique human being you read about.

Where To Find Obituaries

Obituaries.com
Your local newspaper’s website

Tips

Reading about the great and good can be interesting, but paging down to the unsung, everyday people can be where you find the most unexpected and fruitful material.
Seize on that one detail about a person that makes them seem real to you.
What made them do the things they did?
What stories lie behind their passions?
What moment led them to that one fascinating detail in their obituary. Wind back the clock and show us the moment when it all started.
Try not to read more than five profiles before choosing one to write about. You could easily lose your whole day looking for the perfect character (or simply reading about people’s lives). Pick the first person who has a detail that makes you go “huh!”