Your Prompts and Tips
Some free resources to help you write better and achieve the success you deserve
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Prompts:
1. A jester, or a fool, is a common character archetype. Popular examples include Dory in Finding Nemo and twin brothers Fred and George from Harry Potter. Write a few pages about a character that plays the fool while not having very much luck on dating apps/websites.
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. Memorial Day is the unofficial start of summer. Write a few pages in which a character uses that day to develop a bucket list of ten activities they want to do before the summer is out. Then, have them start with one.
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Tips:
1. We joke about the cliché of a psychologist asking “How does that make you feel?” but it’s valuable to take stock of how a story makes you feel. Since emotions can be complicated in the world of stories and real life, oftentimes it’s a mixed bag. Do you think the writer intended for you to feel that way?
2. Don’t just say you like or dislike an aspect of a story. Dig deeper to support your view and get at the heart of your reaction. Did you find a particular metaphor effective? Or did a passage confuse you? In a workshop setting, it benefits the writer if you’re as specific as possible.
3. Style may seem difficult to nail down, but think of it as what sets a writer’s work apart. It goes beyond the content: it is the way a particular person tells the story. It’s comprised of everything from tone and figurative language to sentence structure. When you read, think about how you would describe the writer’s style. What elements in their work contribute to it?
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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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