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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. There are lots of different summer camps out there. There are traditional ones for kids, filled with archery and kayaking, but there are also lesser-known camps, like one where you can foster your circus skills. Write a few pages about one such unusual camp that you make up!

2. Plants may respond to music, but imagine they could actually talk. What would your house plants have to say? What about the grass on your lawn? Write a few pages about a character who is the first to communicate with plants.

3. Write a few pages about a couple of characters who are trapped on a boat but quickly begin developing feelings for each other: just not the kind you'd expect!

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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. Whether an outright romance novel or a story in which a character reminisces on a romantic memory for a moment, loving relationships can play a varying role in many stories. When you read such a story, ask yourself: Does it show the reader a character in a different light? Does it expose a character’s driving force? Or, is it part of a conflict that drives the plot forward entirely?

3. The words the writer chooses to put in the title carry heavier weight than any other word in the story. They are meant to entice us to read the story while also representing a theme, symbol, etc. It is always good practice to ponder the title for a moment before you read, and once again after you’ve finished the story to see if you come to understand it in a different way.

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