There's An Idea

 

Tuesday, August 03, 2004

Be like an athlete training for the Olympic Games. Fill a journal jar with the Writer's Digest daily prompts. Print out the pages of prompts, cut them into strips and store them inside the jar. Sit the jar on your desk and randomly select a prompt when you want to do some warm ups. I use a jar like this when I begin a session with a class that are trained to make writing a daily practice.

The British Museum has a stunning collection of elaborate Egyptian mummies and coffins. As I wandered around, mouth open in wonderment, I was remembered the time my Year 12 class made funky coffins in their visual diaries and then wrote pieces about death. The Emory Collection is one place to see some wonderful Egyptian artefacts. Design a coffin and see what rises from your word cauldron.

*Soul Food Cafe * Writing Prompt

Found More Writing Prompts

1. Your favorite childhood vacation.

2. The last words of your novel are, “As night became day, he started to understand the truth.” Now, go write the rest.

3. Turn one of the last texts you sent into a story.

4. Add an original scene to the last movie you watched.

5. Two friends have a disagreement.

6. Write about your favorite teacher.

7. Outside the window, you see something you can’t believe.

8. Write about the first time you held someone's hand.

9. Write about the last thing/person that made you smile.

10. Write about a time you were lost.

11. Write about your first job.

12. Write a letter to your 14-year old self.

13. Write about why you write.

14. Five years from now, I will be.

15. Write about your dream vacation.

16. Do you like to be alone or with company?

17. You have $300 and a Prius, describe the 2,800 mile road trip from NYC to LA.

18. Write about your biggest goal.

19. Write about your biggest fear.

20. A conversation you and a stranger have on a plane.

21. A time you or someone you love was scammed.

22. Turn the last song you listened to into a story.

23. Describe the life of your favorite singer.

24. Write about a piece of furniture in the room you’re in.

25. If I knew then what I know now.

26. If you could travel back in time, where would you go?

27. You have a billion dollars in your bank account. How did you make it?

28. You’ve discovered a new planet. Describe what you see.

29. If you could do anything for work, what would you do?

30. You live on an abandoned island, describe your morning routine.

31. You’re in a foreign country and don’t speak the native language.

32. Describe how you think your grandparents met.

33. Write about a time you failed.

34. You wake up today with the superpower of your choosing.

35. You’re a dog, describe your interaction with a human.

36. Write about someone you admire.

37. Go to Twitter or Facebook and write about the first post you see.

38. Write about a time you were uncomfortable.

39. She tried to forget him, but never could.

40. Just as your flight takes off, you discover a shocking note under your seat.

41. None of your friends remember you, describe yourself to them.

42. An island rose from the sea.

43. Out of the ashes, arose a hero.

44. The whales grew feet.

45. I open the last book on earth.

46. You knock louder and louder on the door, but nobody answers.

47. The door you had locked, is wide open.

48. Just as you fall asleep, the phone rings.

49. She had the perfect party planned, only to have it ruined by her ex.

50. She said her final words and left, there’s no turning back now.

51. A blind man falls in love, describe his feelings.

52. You have the power to stop time, what do you do?

53. The sun rose for the final time.

54. You discover that your partner is a robot.

55. You have 10 days to live.

56. How will cars look in 50 years?

57. This needs to be cleaned, the police will be here any minute.

58. For years, he carefully planned out this day.

59. The birds didn’t go south for the winter.

60. It’s June 13th, the snow won’t stop falling.

Write about somebody who likes to work in silence.

Set your story in the lowest rated restaurant in town.

Write about a character with an unreliable memory.

Found Prompts

 

1. A cat meowing from a tree branch.
2. A sink full of dirty dishes.
3. A splash in the pool behind your house.
4. A suitcase parked by the door.
5. The elderly women walking into a dive bar.

One Word Scary Story Prompts

 

• Describe a horrifying monster in as much detail as possible.
• 
  
• Write a monologue for a character who is afraid of something. 
• 
  
• Write a scene in which several characters are accusing each other of something. Focus on the tension and the emotions.
• 
  
• Describe a creepy old house. What are the elements that make it creepy?
• 
  
• Write a scene in which a character is paranoid about being watched or followed. Maybe they’re walking home in the dark, afraid of an ex-partner, or just overthinking. 
• 
  
• Write a character’s reaction to finding a dead body. 
• 
  
• Write a scene in which a character receives terrible news.
• 
  
• Listen to a horror movie soundtrack or horror ambiance track and write whatever it makes you think of. 
• 
  
• Write a series of letters, composed by one of your characters to a member of their family (or a close friend). 

MB Prompts H'ween/Suspense #6

Date:         Sun, 5 Oct 1997 12:45:17 EDT

Subject:      EXERCISE: Fear and Trembling...

Well, well, well...we are in the midst of our halloweenies contest, and
you still don't have an idea?  (you could always do a piece about a
writer facing a deadline without an idea, and the agonies of that
position, but perhaps that is a bit too recursive for you?  a bit too
far into the hall of mirrors, reflecting each other each other each
other...:)

Let's try an experiment.  First, pick a number from one to six.

1.  Fear is sharp-sighted, and can see things under ground, and much
more in the skies.  Cervantes, Don Quixote (1605-15), 1.3.6, tr. Peter
Motteux and John Ozell.

2.  Fear is the main source of superstition, and one of the main sources
of cruelty.  Bertrand Russell, "An Outline of Intellectual Rubbish,"
Unpopular Essays (1950).

3.  Neither a man nor a crowd nor a nation can be trusted to act
humanely or to think sanely under the influence of great fear.  Bertrand
Russell, "An Outline of Intellectual Rubbish," Unpopular Essays (1950).

4. Present fears / Are less than horrible imaginings.  Shakespeare,
Macbeth (1605-06), 1.3.137.

5.  Horror causes men to clench their fists, and in horror men join
together. Saint-Exupery, Wind, Sand, and Stars (1939), 9.3, tr. Lewis
Galantiere.

6.  Penetrating so many secrets, we cease to believe in the unknowable.
But there it sits nevertheless, calmly licking its chops.  H. L.
Mencken, Minority Report (1956), 364.

So there you have a little bit of a quote about fear...and maybe you
could pick again?  One to twelve this time...some of the flavors of
horror and fear, as given by the Microsoft Bookshelf thesaurus:

1. fear, healthy fear, dread, awe, respect
2. abject fear, cowardice
3. fright, stage fright
4. wind up, funk, blue funk
5. terror, mortal terror, panic terror
6. state of terror, intimidation, trepidation, alarm, false alarm
7. shock, flutter, flap, tailspin, agitation
8. fit, fit of terror, scare, stampede, panic, panic attack, spasm
9. flight, sauve qui peut
10. the creeps, horror, horripilation, hair on end, cold sweat, blood
turning to water
11. consternation, dismay, hopelessness
12. defense mechanism, fight or flight, repression, escapism, avoidance

[The Original Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases
(Americanized Version) is licensed from Longman Group UK Limited.
Copyright c 1994 by Longman Group UK Limited. All rights reserved.]

You probably got several words there.  Pick one of them, and think about
that particular shiver in the back of the neck, that specific clench in
the abdomen, that lovely pasty shade of fear...make yourself remember
when you felt that horrified.  What exactly had happened?  What did your
mouth feel like?  How about the back of your hand?  Your toes?

[horripilation, incidentally, is "bristling of ... body hair, as from
fear or cold; goose bumps" from The American Heritage Dictionary of the
English Language, Third Edition copyright c 1992 by Houghton Mifflin
Company. Electronic version licensed from INSO Corporation. All rights
reserved.]

Now, imagine that your quote was on a little brass plate (or maybe
nicely framed, waiting to catch your eye?  how about embodied somehow in
another character?  perhaps simply floating in the shared knowledge and
understanding of our reality, waiting to be reinvented?)  So there you
are, facing your horror (or running from it?) and the words, or at least
the sense (or nonsense?), of your quote slaps you hard in the cowardice
and stiffens your spine...

(pssst?  Make a list of five ways that your quote and your fears go
together--and conflict...)

Now, put it all together.  Imagine a character out there, with fear.
What kind of activity are they engaged in?  How many other people are
helping or hindering them (don't forget your antagonist!)  Put them into
that scene, and make us believe it, make us live it.

Then how does the horror creep in?  Or does it leap from a shadowed
alley, drop out of the blue blue sky, or merely slink along on soundless
paws, silently pursuing the victim with flickers on the edge of sight?

As the horror grows in power, how does the character struggle?  Do we
try to tell people, only to find that they don't believe that the kindly
old parish priest doesn't seem to have a shadow?  Do we look around in
fright, then start to run, and run, and run...?

(maybe two or three scenes here, with the protagonist investing more and
more in fighting the horror, and the horror growing stronger, more
pervasive?)

Finally, with the life, liberty, honor, and sanity of the protagonist at
stake (or at least whatever stakes you want to put up...not in, just
ante up)--does the protagonist face their fear?  Or does the horror
remove its face, revealing a truly gruesome gaping hole?  What is the
climax, the point toward which your horror story builds?

[you put the right foot in, you shake it all around, then drop it in the
pot... you put the left foot in, and stir up the piranha, then let them
strip it to the bone... that's how you do the horror stew?]

MB Prompts H'ween/Suspense #4

 te: Fri, 11 Oct 1996 23:30:20 EDT

Subject:      EXERCISE: To Dream, Aye, There's The Rub...

"To sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there's the rub;
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause...who would fardels bear,
To grunt and sweat under a weary life,
But that the dread of something after death,
The undiscover'd country from whose bourn
No traveler returns..."

Hamlet, III, i, 56, Shakespeare
From Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 16th Edition.

fardels?  oh, well, we could look it up, but such burdens and loads are
not worthy of our harried times, eh?

[For those who may be wondering--this is a simple exercise in the art
of tall tale construction, sometimes known as writing.  For our
purposes today, we'll be picking a few bits and pieces by selecting a
number from one to six (you may use dice if you like).  You may use or
abuse the exercise as you like, the instructor in the course isn't
terribly formal about it...]

Let's see.  Try taking one from the following:

1.  There and back again.  ...in which someone from our world ventures,
falls, or is abducted into another more magical world.

2.  Beyond the fields we know.  ...those works which take place entirely
in magic worlds, with no concrete links to our own time and place.

3.  Unicorns in the garden. ...those tales in which magical and
fantastic events occur in our mundane world.

4.  That Old Black Magic.  stories in which the everyday is menaced by
the supernatural to inspire fright and horror are a class by themselves;
alas, the unknown is still terrifying to most of humanity.

5.  Bambi's Children.  ...stories in which animals think, speak, and act
with human intelligence...

6.  Once and Future Kings, Queens, and Heroes.  stories that have been
handed down from time immemorial, the great legends of many cultures,
which have been used by contemporary authors to provide new insights
into the ancient myths or into our own time.

[categories from A Reader's Guide to Fantasy, by Baird Searles, Beth
Meacham, and Michael Franklin, ISBN 0-380-80333-x]

Mix well with...

1.  Health - fitness, ailments, liver, bile, or physical infirmity?
2.  Fate - work, career, plans and goals?
3.  Success - prestige, distinction, a name?
4.  Life - ambition, illness, emigration, where does this life wander?
5.  Head - concentration, self-control, independent, reckless, mindful?
6.  Heart - the emotions, the feelings, sympathy, jealousy, happiness?

[palmistry lines borrowed from The Book of Fortune Telling by Agnes M.
Miall, ISBN 0-517-64730-3]

Season with a dash of fairy dust, blinking in the eyelids:

1.  Ghosts
2.  A talking non-human entity (animal, mineral, veggie at your
discretion)
3.  A moving part of a dead body (which one?  you decide!)
4.  Energy (flashes, mere shocks, or whatever your little spirit
moves...)
5.  Parasites, small insects, or even your local viral infection...okay,
a mold or two will do if you really prefer fungi
6.  those amazing marching machines, ticking their way into your
embrace...with a scalpel?

So - one very sketchy category of story, one line of interest, and a
dash of ugliness.  Stir well, and think about where your protagonist
would like to go (the back seat of a chevy?  why?) and what your evil
genius (the monster, mashed?) wants (a quiet coffin of its very own?
with a view of the swamp?  simply heart rending, eh, wot?).

Then write that tale of the darkness, enchant the evil spirits, and send
it in to the contest!  Only a few hours remain before sharp edge of time
cuts across the deadline, so hurry, hurry, hurry, scrape your very own
beast out of the dusty soul of the cemetary and let it go...

Send them to "Robyn Meta Herrington" <rmherrin@acs.ucalgary.ca>

Fast Start?

    From the shadows, bent, fetid, tumultuous and lonely, squealing and
whistling now and then with exhilaration, it watched.

[You may use this sentence to start your work if you like.]

What dreams may come...
tink

MB Prompts H'ween/Suspense #3

 Date: Sun, 29 Sep 1996 19:19:13 EDT

Subject:      EXERCISE: Don't Open The Door!

[based on Chapter 5 in How To Write Horror Fiction by William F. Nolan]

(Behind that locked door, so rumor goes, lie the remains of...)

Suspense!

"_Anticipation_ is the key to suspense.  You are leading your reader
towards what he or she _knows_ is going to result in a dangerous
confrontation with evil.  You do it in careful stages, encouraging the
reader to anticipate the horror, but holding it back, layering in other
sequences that move your story forward but delay the actual climax the
reader _knows_ is coming."

(no, no, it was years ago, and the key was lost.  It was almost a work
of art, that key, and...yes, that's it!  Where did you get...you can't
be the long lost son of the family, sent away in hopes that the
curse...oh, nothing, nothing...)

"If you have done the proper job of characterization, of making your
reader _care_ about the protagonist, then they will emotionally identify
with the upcoming danger."

"The descriptive words and phrases you use to build suspense are
extremely important.  They set the proper mood for the upcoming
encounter."

"The reader never knows when or under what circumstances this horrible
transformation will occur--a guarantee of reader anticipation."

(I remember the night when it first happened...the dark clouds rolled
over the waning moon, and the ocean seemed to moan against the rocks,
grinding, battering, roaring defiance of the fates...)

1.  Set up your threat early.  Right in the beginning, have someone else
die, let a rumor ramble past, refer to the mystery...

2.  build and deepen suspense by bringing the menace closer.   a near
encounter, destruction of the means of escape/rescue, loss of
protection...

(We thought the priest could save us...and then we discovered him
crouched outside the church, frothing at the mouth, with his own hands
holding the stake in his chest...)

3.  separation/isolation are excellent aids in building the suspense.
Start with a busload of happy travellers, then whittle them down, down,
down to the final desperate survivors, standing off the hordes of
genetically exercised cockroaches with a bowie knife and a can of
beans...

"Your readers will stick with you as long as the outcome is uncertain.
They will be trying to guess what's going to happen, so your job is to
give the narrative a sudden twist that misleads.  This creates surprise
and continues the process of building suspense."

"The threat cannot be false.  It must pay off, and this means you must
show your monster _in action_.  Chewing up minor characters, for
instance..."

1.  The Principle -- Don't Open That Door!  And the hero(ine) walks down
the long, dark hallway, takes a deep breath, and slowly, slowly turns
the handle...

2.  Isolation, vulnerability -- put your characters at the mercy of the
incoming menace with nowhere to run, no one to help...and feel the
suspense rise!

3.  Darkness.  The primal fear of the night, of what may be lurking in
the shadows, of that sound from behind the black shield...

4.  Is the Monster Real?  Often, characters start out not believing,
then slowly give ground, until they finally believe completely in the
monster, just as they finally reach the limits of their attempts to deal
with it...often while the people at the 911 desk are still chuckling
about the nut with their crazy story...

Okay?  So, pick a number from one to six...

1.  napkin
2.  telephone
3.  empty vase
4.  broken light
5.  wastebasket
6.  painting

and again?

1.  A door
2.  A cave
3.  A car trunk (or the bonnet, for those of you who speak the queen's own)
4.  A locked suitcase
5.  A closet
6.  A long-unused boat house

and one more time?

1.  the family curse
2.  the monster from...
3.  the marching dead
4.  a zombie snake
5.  a doctor who doesn't know when to say "no more cutting and
    stitching!"
6.  your own pet fear, magnified and manifested out there, waiting for
    us...

Take the object, put it in the place, and think about how finding a
napkin in a locked suitcase could be the clue that makes (in time,
once we've fought our way past the disbelief, past the fear that
clutches our stomach, past all that...until, at last) your protagonist
rock and roll with the marching dead, streaming past on their way
to...

Short starter?

    "I don't want to go in there," she said.

But you and I know that she will, almost certainly, because she has to
face her terrors...and those terrors will grow, will encircle her, and
will make her shake in agony...

shiver!
tink

(and if you're still wondering what's behind the door...open it, go
ahead, turn the latch, pull on the handle and...now tell us what you
found there!)

MB Prompts- H'ween/Suspense#2

 Date: Mon, 23 Sep 1996 00:03:22 EDT

Subject:      EXERCISE: Fearfully...


In horror of the situation, let us consider some things that might make
you fearful.  Scared?  A deep-down, bone shaking, quivering puddle of
pusillanimous timidity?  Just as examples:

fear in a dentist's office...the sound of whirring, punctuated with
clashes of whining, framed in aching silence touched with liquid gushes.
the medicinal odors, tainted with the stink of burning bone and decay.
the faint twinge of abdominal muscles tightening in anticipation.  the
screaming--expected, awaited as a release from the tension, and yet
never allowed, never heard, swallowed in sputtering silence.

or perhaps your metier is a wall of blooms--lovely golden explosions of
petals, a joyful collar of lavender pink surrounding a black velvet
button, long green stems and tattered leaflets--and the small black
spider lurking deep inside, red hourglass marking the last grains of the
sands of time.  Or does the flitting bobbing drone of the happy bee
conceal the sting of finality?

So, pick a number from one to six.

1.  Insects (pick one, pick one...)
2.  Snakes/Reptiles/fish (you get to select one that you shiver with)
3.  Illness (yes, you decide whether it will be a simple burst appendix
or the more exotic strain of something from afar...Andromeda?)
4.  Disability (smashed, cut, gouged, a small nick in a nerve...)
5.  Rodents and other chitters in the night...
6.  Plants (from the little greenhouse of horrors?  or your own
backyard?  you plant the seed, water it, and reap the thorny cold
embrace...)

Play with it.  What about that would be frightening to you?  Now, can
you take a character or two and put them in a situation where they are
going to put their hand into the dark crevice where it lurks?

Let me give away a plot.

1.  The protagonist is introduced, with a little bit of foreshadowing
that this is a person who has some problems.  Perhaps they duck away
from the sound of a car backfiring?  Or maybe they have some trouble
pulling the drapes in their room to hide the hideous green outside?

2.  There is...a kitten?  a puppy?  a child?  someone weak and in need
of help...that forces our protagonist up against the thing they fear.

3.  amid flashbacks, carefully sketching in the breaking of the
protagonist, the horror of that time that can never be forgotten -- and
never remembered in full! -- the protagonist struggles and twists,
trying to help, but...

4.  take your time.  make us feel the agony of the protagonist, looking
at the little girl about to drown and fearing to tread where memory
tells them evil lurks...tighten the tension, drive home the drip of
sweat trickling cold down the back, make us hang our head in shame as
the hot tears and fear paralyze us...

5.  And the triumphant end!  The cathartic release of doing it, of
snapping the bonds of the past and saving the day!

Quick Start?

    "Leave the bloodsuckers behind us," she said, and kicked his
kneecap, hard, leaving him lying on the ground.

or maybe...

    Any day that starts with dead men kicking in your front door isn't
going to be a good one.

Write two three four...
tink

MB Prompts #1

 Date: Tue, 29 Dec 1998 08:00:00 -0500

Subject:      [WRITERS] EXERCISE: A Line In Deed (was: Re: FILL: A Poll For Us)

At 04:30 PM 12/22/98 -0800, Anthony V. Toscano wrote:
:)but they're all a bunch of oil-glazed pinkos sporting polka-dot panties and
:)bad attitudes, so pay them no mind.

[you'll probably recognize the tune soon enough...]

oil-glazed pinkos in polka-dot panties,
bad attitudes spiked with a stiletto,
these are a part of my curmudgeonry!
when the reds bomb...when Iraq burns...

(psst!  there's a beginning.  feel free to add to the chorus, to make the
welkin ring, to get up on that soapbox and raise a ruckus...)

[what, you don't know "These are a few of my favorite things"?]

"The friends that have it I do wrong
When ever I remake a song
Should know what issue is at stake,
It is myself that I remake."  William Butler Yeats

tink