yourwords

Ideas don’t fall from the sky. Actually they do, but frequently is another story. Unless I’m having a lucky week or happen to be taking a writing class in which I have to really dig, then it’s normal for me to go for stretches without a word from idea-land.

So if you don’t have an idea, nor do you have any previous ideas to further explore, how are you supposed to practice?

• prompts are always good. The ‘good’ ones aren’t easy to find, but if I say suck it up and do the ones that make you cringe. You’ll be better for it in the end.
• Ask friends and family for ’starter sentences’. These are random sentences that you turn into a story. For example: “When the sun hit the roof, I screamed.” See? Possibilities are endless. If your friends/family aren’t inclined, open a book or newspaper to a random page and point. Better yet, use lyrics like yesterday’s prompt. Also, this is one of many generator sites. Google has more.
• If you want practice with writing a story before you try to create one, something you might want to do is go back through your family tree and write someone’s story down like it’s a novel. Think of great-grandpappy as your main character, in a story someone else made up (God? The fates? great-grandpappy himself?) The good thing about this is if you like how they story turns out, you have the freedom to publish it without fear of copyright infringement.
• If you know you’ll never want to publish it, then take the fan fiction route. Those are fun. It’s best to pick something that has a ‘universe’ like the all-too-popular Star Wars, Harry Potter, Zelda, Twilight, Lord of the Rings, the Simpsons… Anything that has a lot of characters and therefore possible subplots to choose from. Also, it’s best to choose a ‘universe’ you are familiar with, and are fairly obsessed with. After that point you can go nuts. Once I mixed the universes of Xena , Labyrinth , and Buffy .
• Craziest suggestion: take inspiration from your dreams. They make for the best fantasy plots EVER…

prompt #4

Write a requiem for a fallen character. This can be a real person who’s died, a character you’ve created on the spot, one you’ve created previously, or a pre-made character from a book. It doesn’t matter how they’ve died, but I suggest an untimely death- the sadder the requiem the better. That said, I also suggest picking either a real person, or a character from a universe in which you were sad to ’see’ them go. If you don’t have to fake the sorrow, the requiem will mean more to you. Example: did you cry when Sirius died?

Your requiem could be a poem if you want, or a short story wherein you are at their funeral. Call me crazy, but I think writing a grieving letter to the dead presents a lot of emotions. Practicing to express your emotions is very good for your writing.

I’m using humor here to lessen the strength of my feelings about requiems, because I’ve had to write a few of them. Don’t let the humor fool you, though. I still want you to write serious for this prompt.

Trackback URI | Comments RSS