Category: Prompts
Wedding day!
| October 8, 2011 | Posted by ljquillyn under Prompts, Things that inspire me, Writing with confidence |
Hello wonderful readers!
Today is my wedding day! Isn’t that exciting? My fiance and I are having a book themed wedding. We both love to read and we wanted to create a wondrous, fantastical wedding for our friends and family to enjoy with us. I’ll post pictures, don’t worry.
During our ceremony, we’re using some literary readings. The first book that my fiance ever gave to me was The Princess Bride, so naturally, we will be including the wisdom of the Archdean:
“Mawidge is a dweam wiffin a dweam. The dweam of wuv wapped wiffin the gweater dweam of everwasting west. Eternity is our fwiend, wemember that and wuv wiw fowwow you fowever.”
We’re also including Shakespeare’s Sonnet 116:
Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove:
O no! it is an ever-fixed mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wandering bark,
Whose worth’s unknown, although his height be taken.
Love’s not Time’s fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle’s compass come:
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
If this be error and upon me proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever loved.
So, in the spirit of love, today’s prompt is this: Write your own love sonnet or write out your wisdom about marriage.
Enjoy your day!
LJ
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Faithful fairy tales – the art of retelling
| September 30, 2011 | Posted by ljquillyn under Prompts, Things that inspire me, Writing with confidence |
It occurred to me today that I love Fairy Tales. Love them. I love them in their old forms, and I love retellings.
Have you read or watched Fractured Fairy Tales? They were on Rocky & Bullwinkle. I love how clever they are!
Your homework for the weekend is to write your own retelling of a classic fairy tale. Don’t worry about being silly, don’t censor yourself! Just let your imagination take over. I’ll post mine on Monday.
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Searching for writing inspiration
| September 16, 2011 | Posted by ljquillyn under Prompts, Things that inspire me, Writing with confidence |
Good morning, dear writers!
Today, I’ve been thinking about where to look for writing inspiration. Here are a couple of ideas for you:
1. Scour the news. One of my favorite things is my igoogle homepage. I love it because I can populate it with all kinds of gadgets that are inspiring. A staple is the NPR news feed. It even has a little audio component, so I can listen to news stories. News can hold all kinds of inspiration. Read or listen to some stories and think about what makes them interesting. Is there something in there that you can use as the seed for a story? Secondarily, if you like historical fiction, you can use news to come up with some plot points.
2. What interests you? One of the neat things about being a writer is that it gives you an excuse to study random things that interest you. Are you interested in Japanese mythology? Biotechnology? Racecar driving? Make a list of things that have been nagging your mind for more attention. If you can’t think of what to write about, do some research. You can always use it in your stories later.
3. Documentaries. Oh boy, oh boy, oh boy. I love documentaries. Netflix has a veritable plethora of them. I watched a great one about Secret Societies. So much fodder for inspiration!
4. Ride the train/bus. I get all kinds of inspiration from observing people on public transit. One day, I overheard two older guys talking about love they’d lost as younger men and how they’d regretted it. One lamented that he’d been left for a pilot.
5. Go to the library. Just pick a section that looks good and start perusing. You might end up reading about philosophy, history, pets, lord knows! You could even consider picking two books on disparate subjects and looking for a way to combine them. For example, you might find a book about 18th century France and a book about garden gnomes. What if you created a children’s series about French gnomes in the 1700′s?
Just open your eyes and let your imagination guide you.
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Power Trip
| September 15, 2011 | Posted by ljquillyn under Character Development, Prompts |
“Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man’s character, give him power.” – Abe Lincoln
How do your characters react when you give them power (both your protagonist and antagonist)? From where do they draw their power? Who has power over your character? What kind?
French and Raven have put together some interesting philosophy about different kinds of power and their sources. Here’s a link to a website that discusses them.
In short they are:
1. Referent power – think of somebody at work who is not your boss, but who you look to for advice. This person has referent power, as in, you use them as a reference. They can influence you because they are a type of role model.
2. Coercive Power – just like it sounds. Influencing someone by force or threat.
3. Legitimate Power – elected officials have legitimate power. Your boss has legitimate power.
4. Reward Power – this is often used with kids. If you are good and take a nap, you’ll be rewarded with dessert tonight.
5. Expert Power – you trust your doctor, right? Because your doctor is an expert on medical things, you give him or her the power to influence you in health decisions.
Use the different types to help you make assessments about your characters motivations and sources of power.
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Character Development: Career Counseling Session 2
| September 13, 2011 | Posted by ljquillyn under Character Development, Prompts, Things that inspire me |
You may remember this stuff from Session 1, but here it is in case you missed that post:
In my other life, I advised college students. We talked about all kinds of things, but career seemed to be a pretty common theme in our discussions. I discovered that I have a special knack for helping people parse out their dreams and goals (ya know, no big). Since everything from my normal life finds its way into my writing life, I’ve decided that it would be fun to write a prompt for career coaching your character.
Here’s why I think this is a good idea: You want to get at the heart of your character’s desires, right? Well, in career counseling, the idea is to help people understand important events or moments in their lives that have shaped who they are. What are their values? More importantly, why do they hold those values? What do these things lead them to desire? What do they perceive to be barriers to success?
So in Session 1, we just got some basic, surface level information. Now we’re going to start digging a little deeper and looking for the wells of emotion. You’re looking for the things that have held lasting importance in your character’s life.
Here are some suggestions about what to ask your character in this session:
1. How was your week? Always start with a check in, that way you’ll now if anything is bothering your character.
2. Check in about whatever your character told you that he or she was looking forward to in the last session. This will allow you to gather information about something that was exciting for your character. You may build on this later in this session.
3. What do you love to do? How often do you do this? How did you discover that you enjoy it? Answers can be anything, hobbies included.
4. What is something that people have always told you you’re good at? Do you believe them? Why or why not? This will give you a sense for what this character’s special talents might be. Often, others recognize them in a person before he or she recognizes them.
5. What was your dream job when you were a kid? Spend some time on this, let your character tell you some of the professions he or she considered and then follow your intuition. Which ones seem most important to the character?
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Character Development: You have Enemies? Good.
| September 8, 2011 | Posted by ljquillyn under Character Development, Prompts |
“You have enemies? Good. That means you’ve stood up for something, sometime in your life.” — Winston Churchill
Your character is absolutely bound to have enemies. If he didn’t, there would be no story. Your job as the writer/mastermind of this enthralling plot is to figure out who those enemies are, how they became enemies, and why they’re holding such a grudge. Or maybe it’s the other way around. Maybe your character is the one holding the grudge.
In some cases, it may be that your character’s enemy is not another character but rather nature, time, himself, etc. Those things, for me, are more difficult to conceptualize. However, if that’s where your heart is taking you, by all means, follow it. Just be aware of the way that your enemy works and how it affects your character on his journey.
Here are some basic questions to answer:
1. Who is the enemy? Are there more than one? How did your enemy come to be who he or she is today?
2. Where is your enemy from? What does he like to do? What are some major events in her life? What are the strengths and weaknesses of the enemy?
Now that you know a little bit about the enemy itself, start to put together how and why the enemy is a problem for your beloved protagonist.
3. How did the protagonist and the enemy meet?
4. How have they come to interfere in a negative way in your character’s life?
5. Why has your character avoided a confrontation with him/her/it thus far? More importantly, why is your character facing them now, in this moment?
6. Does the enemy have an impact on the larger world in addition to your protagonist?
I have one more section for you to complete. For some people, this may be difficult, but you must do it in order to create a round enemy, rather than a flat one. Ready?
7. What is likeable about the enemy?
8. If you were a trusted friend of the enemy, what would you think of him? What would you think of the protagonist?
9. If your enemy has no friends, what would her mother love about her?
10. What qualities will she has that make the reader wonder if she really hates him or if he’s just getting the bum rap?
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Character Development: Home is wherever I’m with you
| September 8, 2011 | Posted by ljquillyn under Character Development, Prompts, Things that inspire me, Writing with confidence |
This is one of my current favorite songs. It has great lyrics, a great beat, it’s just so catchy! So, we’re going to use it for a writing prompt!
Choose two of your characters who are going to end up together. Write a 500-1000 word vignette about them that meets the following criteria:
1. They can’t be in their actual home, but they need to be making the best of life wherever they are. Provide enough context for readers to surmise the reason for their separation from their proper home.
2. They have to discuss a memory from early in their relationship.
3. Work in a nickname somewhere- one they only use when they’re alone together.
Have fun!
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Character Development: Career Counseling Session 1
| September 7, 2011 | Posted by ljquillyn under Character Development, Prompts, Writing with confidence |
In my other life, I advised college students. We talked about all kinds of things, but career seemed to be a pretty common theme in our discussions. I discovered that I have a special knack for helping people parse out their dreams and goals (ya know, no big). Since everything from my normal life finds its way into my writing life, I’ve decided that it would be fun to write a prompt for career coaching your character.
Here’s why I think this is a good idea: You want to get at the heart of your character’s desires, right? Well, in career counseling, the idea is to help people understand important events or moments in their lives that have shaped who they are. What are their values? More importantly, why do they hold those values? What do these things lead them to desire? What do they perceive to be barriers to success?
Let’s get to it.
Set up an interview with your character. You’ll be the career counselor. I suggest breaking this endeavor into multiple sessions. Here’s session 1.
Session 1
Session 1 is all about getting familiar with the big picture of your character’s life. You want to know basic background information, current situation, and get a general feel for who this person is. In this session, listen to answers, take note of topics that crop up frequently, and pay special attention to body language. In general, you should be able to tell if there’s something lurking beneath the surface of a seemingly innocuous comment. Spend 30-60 minutes on this.
Here are some basic questions to ask:
1. How are you today? (If any sort of answer other than “fine” is given, inquire further – you want to know if something really great or really stressful is going on in your character’s life. Also, the amount of information he or she is willing to share in a first session reveals a lot about personality.)
2. What is your background? Where do you come from? (Gives you insight into possible values, can be a wealth of information about how this character interacts with the world.)
3. What jobs did your parents and grandparents have? (What runs in your character’s blood?)
4. What do you currently do to make a living? Do you like it? (If yes, why? If no, what would you rather do?)
5. What are you looking forward to between now and our next session? (You want to find out what the other important parts of the character’s life are.)
Whew! What do you think? What did you learn about your character? Anything good? What are you dying to ask in your next session?
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Character Development: Interview
| September 2, 2011 | Posted by ljquillyn under Character Development, Prompts |
How much do you really know about your characters? Try out this exercise to find out.
Interview. Close your eyes and put your hands on the keyboard. Imagine yourself sitting in a comfortable place (a coffee shop, your living room, a baseball game, whatever works for you) with your character.
a) Appearance. Just let your mind focus on him or her at first. Study the appearance, make note of important features. Does your character fidget? Sit still? Look bored or interested? What kind of clothes does he or she wear?
b) Interview. You must have questions about your character. Ask away! Try to let your mind relax. Don’t force any answers, and don’t try to guide what the character says. Just listen. You might be surprised at what he or she tells you. If your character says nothing, maybe that’s part of his personality. Just be patient, as you would with getting to know anybody else.
c) Listen. Listen for the tone of the character’s voice. What kind of body language do you notice? Are there questions that make him or her uncomfortable? Subjects that she has a lot to say about?
The answers to your questions are undoubtedly important, but knowing your character involves more than just back story. Your character should come alive in your mind. Everybody has little quirks, a special way of talking or listening, etc. Pay attention to the whole picture during your interview.
The next level….
Okay, so you’ve got a basic understanding of your character. In order to write more confidently about this person, you need a depth of understanding. Here are a couple of things that you can do in order to develop that.
1. Ask why five times. For every answer you get from your character, keep asking why. For example:
You: What is your favorite time of year?
Character: Summer.
You: Why?
Character: I don’t know, I like to be warm and go outside.
You: Why?
Character: It reminds me of my mom.
You: why?
Character: When I was a child, my mother always took me to the park on warm summer days. It was the only time I was truly happy.
You: Why?
Character: (may be getting edgy now, you’re getting close to the heart) Because my father was an abusive drunk and it was the only time he would let us out. I knew he was watching from the window of our house, but I sometimes thought of running away. But then I couldn’t leave my mother. She was so sweet. I remember sitting in her lap, warm from her, but the warm air from the summer day pressed in like a blanket.
See how that works? And I only had to ask why 4 times…. If I had asked again I probably would have asked, “Why didn’t you and your mom run away (too scared, nowhere to go)?” or “What drove your father to alcoholism (his father was the same way, when he lost his job at the tire factory, he lost his mind)?”
What you learn from asking why is the reasoning for the current state of affairs. It also gives you a clearer understanding of why your character needs to get the hell out. Or it tells you what scarring life events have made him the way he is.
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Creating a Story World, Day 31: Unexplained Phenomena
| August 31, 2011 | Posted by ljquillyn under Project August, Prompts, worldbuilding |
Many people have offered explanations about why vessels disappear in the Bermuda Triangle. Some say that something funky happens to compasses there. Others assert hurricanes, sabotage, or plain old human error cause the disappearance of ships. But nobody really knows for certain.
No matter how much work you do to create your story world, there will always be some things that you just can’t explain. What kind of unexplained phenomena exist in your world? How long have they been in occurrence? What are some of the theories about what’s happening?
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