Your Prompts and Tips
Some free resources to help you write better and achieve the success you deserve
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Prompts:
1. Write a few pages about a child who discovers some kind of small, mythical creature in the tall grass of their backyard.
2. Write a few pages about someone who is walking down the street one day and notices a jack-o’-lantern on someone’s porch that is carved to look just like him or her.
3. Write a few pages in which two characters, who are vastly different and not particularly fond of the other person, get “trapped” somewhere—at a snowed-in cabin or an accidentally locked closet at work, for example—and start to see the other in a different light.
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Tips:
1. Take a close look at the world of the story. Could the story be told somewhere else to the same effect? Does it drive the plot in any way? For example, Sue Monk Kidd's “The Secret Lives of Bees” would not be the same if it were set anywhere but in South Carolina in 1964. Any time you read, pay special attention to the storyworld in which it's set. Is that world integral to the plot? How so?
2. Read with a pencil (literal or digital) in hand. From highlighting and underlining words and passages to scribbling notes in your journal, close reading does just that: it brings you closer to the story. Remember that reading is an active process.
3. When analyzing the conflict of a story, it is valuable to examine the stakes that each character faces if the outcome is not in his or her favor. When you are reading, weigh the stakes. Ask yourself what they have to lose: is it a tangible object like a beloved family heirloom, simply their time, or even a friendship?
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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,
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,
ADD DO
Show Dones
Metric:
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Words
Minutes
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