Your Prompts and Tips
Some free resources to help you write better and achieve the success you deserve
This is a selection we've harvested from our archives, RELOAD THE PAGE for more!
Prompts:
1. Write a few pages about a mysterious boarding school where children of a certain family are sent when they reach a certain age, only to return quite differently.
2. Write a few pages set at a graduation ceremony (could be preschool, grad school, or even basic training), in which the graduation speaker gives a speech that brings the audience to their feet—in excitement about what they’re saying or strong disagreement with their message.
3. Imagine a character finds an old velvet couch in the middle of the woods while on a hike one day. When they sit down on it, they find themselves suddenly transported to a different world. Where do they go? Write a few pages telling us what they do there, and maybe how they get back.
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Tips:
1. Toss Perfectionism. Or, as Voltaire candidly quoted in his Dictionnaire Philosophique of 1770: "Il meglio e l'inimico del bene": the great is the enemy of the good. Excessive self-editing sabotages creativity and completion. Free yourself up on your first draft. Revision is your ally!
2. Mood can be defined as the certain feelings and vibes that are evoked. This can be hard to trace, but, when you read, you may simply feel happy vibes or even an aura of menace. This can be created by anything from a thunderstorm looming on the horizon, threatening a summer day at the beach, to cheerful dialogue. Mood helps place us in the world of the story.
3. The believability factor is an important one in any story. Even if the story is about talking garden gnomes, it still has to be realistic enough in the way the characters act, emotions are depicted, etc. to ground the reader in that world. When you read, ask yourself if the author really put themselves, and thus the reader, in the scene.
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TO DO LIST:
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SCRATCHPAD:
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PRIVATE JOURNAL:
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TRACKING:
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TO DO LIST:
Add tasks to your sortable list, then revel in checking them off.
SCRATCHPAD:
Cache your gems as they fall in this always accessible place.
PRIVATE JOURNAL:
Reflect on your process — good, bad and ugly — in your dated diary.
TRACKING:
Measure your progress with key writing metrics, automatically,
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Show Dones
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