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. Imagine there is a knock on a character’s door, and when they peer through the peephole, they see someone who they haven’t seen in over a decade. Write a few pages telling us who the visitor is and why they're showing up now.
2. Flip the common symbolism of rain on its head. Instead of having it symbolize sorrow, write a few pages about a character who radiates joy on a stormy day.
3. From a scuba-diving pizza delivery man to a full-time Netflix viewer (yes, they really exist), write a few pages about a character with one such unconventional job.
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Tips:
1. 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.
2. 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!
3. Know the rules before you break them! Or as Dorothy Parker once said, "If you have any young friends who aspire to become writers, the second greatest favor you can do them is to present them with copies of The Elements of Style. The first greatest, of course, is to tell them to quit now, while they’re happy.
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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:
ADD
Words
Minutes
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