Guided Prompts

So I have a fun idea to get away from the blank page syndrome (a.k.a. writer's block, a.k.a. I-dunno-how-to-start-this-really-cool-idea).  Looking back at my writing history I realize that I write better (or at least more profusely) when working off a prompt.  This is why Role Play story writing is so successful.  Each time you interchange with a partner, it is essentially them giving you a prompt.  For any of you out there that might not know what Role Play (RP) writing is, it is just as the name suggests.  You write (in third person) the experiences and thoughts of a single character performing an act or a series of acts and then you have a writing partner have their character react to what you wrote.  It's a fun back and forth that is not only great writing practice but wonderful at helping you build and develop characters.  One of the reason's it's so fun and so successful is because you are kept wondering what your partner will write because that is your next prompt.

Back when Yahoo!360 was an active site (may it rest in peace), I used to write a few short segments based on prompts I found on sites like Writer's Digest.  One such story was about a person receiving a text from an unknown number.  I pumped out a generous amount for such a tiny prompt and had thoughts to even take it further.  Now, when I say 'prompt' it doesn't necessarily have to be 'It was a dark and stormy night when Mrs. Winters went outside to look for Pooky and found...' like that.  I mean even a self prompt like 'what would I do if I won the lottery.'  Things like that to get the juices going.  And this brings me to the point of this blog post: guided prompts.  If you have an idea and you want to write about it but aren't sure how to get started, try prompting yourself into scenes.

I have an android piece that I am itching to work on and so far I have about five different beginnings, all of which I despise and I know that it's because I'm putting too much pressure on myself to make it 'perfect' and I'm not letting myself just relax and write (which is kind of the point of writing, right?).  So what I'm going to do is give myself specific prompts.

Idea: Dystopian Android Tribe

Prompt: Leader of Android Tribe comes across a dead human.  What does he do?

Prompt: Androids find a baby and attempt to raise it.

Prompt: Androids think of themselves as 'living,' how do they react when someone tells them they have no value and are just pieces of machinery?

Prompt: Show the androids breaking or following the three laws of Robotics.

Prompt: Do androids really dream of electric sheep?

Prompt: It was a dark and stormy night... wait... no, I meant: one of the androids falls into disrepair, how do the androids react to the 'death' of one of their own?

These are all scenes that could potentially work themselves into the book, but the real purpose of these prompts is to get me somewhere in character and plot development and, ultimately, to get words on the page.  I will most likely be answering some of these tomorrow and posting them on my Gurgle Burp blog.   I know that the idea as I've written it is very vague (trust me I do have a bit more of a plan in mind than just that), but if you have any prompts for that idea, please post them and I will attempt to answer them as well!  Prompts are fun, dang it.  They shouldn't just be used to generate ideas, they can also be employed to fuel ideas that are already hatched and eager for development.

Amanda LaFantasie (Skoora) © April 2013

PROMPT - Take it outside: Scene Exercise

(all images used are free domain)

One of the hardest challenges for writers is capturing landscape.  Because landscape is so much more than just trees and hills. Landscape has shape, colors, facets, and smells. Landscape has atmosphere. You can take as much from the landscape as you can a character, and you can use that landscape to characterize said character.  So I come with a challenge for all of you.

Take it outside. This can be either figuratively or literally.  If you don't want to go outside, because I know it's cold with winter looming, find a photograph and just look at it for five or ten minutes. Take in the way the light filters through leaves and branches, or how the breeze seems to have lifted the leaves even though you can't feel it. How does the grass sway. Is there a path? How does it look? Mountains, are they jagged and covered in snow? Or are they smooth and dusty? Once you find a landscape that pulls to you, start writing, write anything, anywhere, but make sure you have a character. Use the land to characterize said character.  How does your character feel in the landscape, how does he/she walk or move within the land. What do they look like within the land? Does the land compliment them or distress them?

If you can, because I'm not a stickler for literary fiction, bring mythological or magical elements in. How does the land itself accept this character. Are there challenges keeping the character out, or is it trying to bring her/him in? The point is, use the land in a way you might not usually. Make the land your primary focus in this scene. Let the land build your character rather than the other way around.

Most importantly though, have fun with it!

I am going to do this prompt later today, and in the near future I shall share my results.

Some keywords to get you started: Towering, light, rainbow, silhouette, wispy, shadow, darkness, frail, firm, stagnant, glistening.

Helpful hints: If you can, use metaphor to build your landscape, or even personification. Make the land a character in itself. 

~ Beth

Getting Ready! NaNoWriMo

Five days, counting today, until National Novel Writer's Month.  I have been stuffing myself with a variety of books to get into the mood.  Most recently I finished How Not to Write a Novel and found it to be an unexpectedly fantastic read that pretty much says it how it is.  Also, it talked about vanity publishing and e-publishing as a possible option but not the end goal for serious authors.  Another book that I'm still reading is Writing Horror by Edo Van Belkom.  I have found this to be very informative in looking at the physiological effects that books have on their readers and how different genres affect different areas of the body.  For instance, fantasy affects the heart (the feeling of wonder and awe, hopefulness and bedazzlement). Science fiction affects the mind and forces the reader to think (it's up to the author as to exactly what they should be thinking about).  But in Horror, it's the gut.  Interestingly, Erotica also attacks the gut which is why erotic horror and sex and violence tend to be so closely linked.  I find this concept very fascinating.

For this November, I would like to focus on what part of the body I am trying to affect.  However, just as in acting, you can't put the desired outcome before the process.  You can't say 'be evil' when portraying Lady Macbeth and call it good.  You can't say 'I want this to make my reader hotter than July' and expect it to happen.  When trying to 'be evil' you have to feel what she feels, justify her every emotion to yourself, and imagine the most trivial of physical attributes such as nervous sweating and the way your tummy feels when you are angry.  And so, when you set out to make your readers guts twist in anticipation, you have to start by analyzing what sorts of things actually cause arousal.  During NaNoWriMo I would like to work with the building blocks of horror and eroticism and, hopefully, at the end of the month I will have something that affects the human body in just the right way.

But then again, it is NaNoWriMo, and while I'm aiming at creating a deliciously erotic tale of terror, I will be happy to just 1) accomplish the word goal for the month, 2) work on only one or two projects during the month and actually generate some length, and 3) have a complete or near complete manuscript to work with at the end.  I think a good exercise (one that is mentioned in Van Belkom's book) is to take time and generate ten really interesting story ideas.  They can be as comprehensive or as vague as you want.  My addition to this exercise is to add ten story endings to the mix.  They don't have to relate to the beginnings in any way.  In fact, you can write a story completely based off the ending idea rather than the beginning one.  I think that having an ending in mind can be a real life-saver (or a total downer depending on the writer and their process).  During the next five days, I will be making a list of ideas both new and old as well as doing various primer exercises.  I intend to grab November by the horns.

Amanda LaFantasie (Skoora) © 2012

Heffron Prompts: Part II

PROMPT: If you're stuck, consider changing the time of day you usually use for writing.  If you've been putting in an hour on your story before heading to work in the morning, write during your lunch break, or as soon as you get home in the evening.  Also consider changing where you write.  If at a computer, take a notepad to a park or a library.  New times and locations and routines for writing can spark new interest.


PROMPT: Spend at least three sessions practicing the "stay in the chair" method.  Set a timer for your session, and write whatever you want, perhaps responding to a prompt in this book.  Do not for any reason get up from the chair.  Turn off the phone, shut down your e-mail, tell family members that you are not to be disturbed unless someone is facing a life-or-death situation.  If the idea you're exploring stalls before you finish, begin a new one or simply write about writing or describe the room in which you're working.  Your goal is to practice staying in the chair.

PROMPT: Create a new element of the story that is being kept secret by one of the characters.  Allude to this secret somewhere in the first scene.  As you move ahead, slowly reveal the secret, one that adds another complication to the story.  You needn't know the secret yourself when you start writing.  Allow yourself to discover it as you write.

PROMPT: Steal a line from something you've read.  It might only be a phrase, but grab that sucker and plunk it into a piece of your own.  If you don't have a piece in progress, spend a session exploring an idea in which that line or phrase can appear.

PROMPT: Describe a process.  This exercise is a standard in technical writing courses.  Students explain the steps involved in doing something, such as fixing a flat tire or installing a water heater.  Spend part of a writing session describing a process.  Then look for ways of weaving this process into the work in progress.  For example, in her essay on how to write the lyric essay, Brenda Miller describes how to make challah bread.  She uses the process to enlarge the essay and make her points about craft in a more lyric way.  In fiction, describing a process can have the same effect, the most famous being the chapters in Moby Dick that describe the techniques of whaling.  Your fictional character, rather than react to his wife's leaving in the typical ways, might carefully wax his car.  Don't look for obvious parallels when deciding on which process to describe.  Choose one you know well or one you can research.

~*~

Prompt excerpts from: Heffron, Jack. The Writer's Idea Workshop: how to make your good ideas great. Cincinnati, Ohio, 2003

For other more prompts from The Writer's Idea Workshop, please check out Heffron Prompts: Part I.

Amanda LaFantasie (Skoora) © 2012

Prompt - Stanza Story

Sometimes professors have the coolest prompts.

Last week our class was assigned a prompt to write a story based off of a stanza from a famous poem.  So I want to challenge you all to do the same.  The poem we were provided was, "Resurrection of the Dust," by John McKernan, because of copyright issues, I will not be using this poem, but rather a classical work, that has no risk of Copyright infringement. So for this prompt I shall use "The Phoenix and the Turtle," by William Shakespeare.

The purpose of this poem is to choose one stanza. That stanza will be the beginning of your story.  You should challenge yourself by limiting your story to one or two pages.  Practice quick and concise writing, however, if you go over, that is okay too!

The Phoenix and the Turtle

By William Shakespeare

Retrieved from here.

The Phoenix and the Turtle

Let the bird of loudest lay

On the sole Arabian tree,

Herald sad and trumpet be,

To whose sound chaste wings obey.

But thou shrieking harbinger,

Foul precurrer of the fiend,

Augur of the fever's end,

To this troop come thou not near.

From this session interdict

Every fowl of tyrant wing

Save the eagle, feather'd king:

Keep the obsequy so strict.

Let the priest in surplice white

That defunctive music can,

Be the death-divining swan,

Lest the requiem lack his right.

And thou, treble-dated crow,

That thy sable gender mak'st

With the breath thou giv'st and tak'st,

'Mongst our mourners shalt thou go.

Here the anthem doth commence:—

Love and constancy is dead;

Phoenix and the turtle fled

In a mutual flame from hence.

So they loved, as love in twain

Had the essence but in one;

Two distincts, division none;

Number there in love was slain.

Hearts remote, yet not asunder;

Distance, and no space was seen

'Twixt the turtle and his queen:

But in them it were a wonder.

So between them love did shine,

That the turtle saw his right

Flaming in the phoenix' sight;

Either was the other's mine.

Property was thus appall'd,

That the self was not the same;

Single nature's double name

Neither two nor one was call'd.

Reason, in itself confounded,

Saw division grow together;

To themselves yet either neither;

Simple were so well compounded,

That it cried, 'How true a twain

Seemeth this concordant one!

Love hath reason, reason none

If what parts can so remain.'

Whereupon it made this threne

To the phoenix and the dove,

Co-supremes and stars of love,

As chorus to their tragic scene.

THRENOS

BEAUTY, truth, and rarity,

Grace in all simplicity,

Here enclosed in cinders lie.

Death is now the phoenix' nest;

And the turtle's loyal breast

To eternity doth rest,

Leaving no posterity:

'Twas not their infirmity,

It was married chastity.

Truth may seem, but cannot be;

Beauty brag, but 'tis not she;

Truth and beauty buried be.

To this urn let those repair

That are either true or fair;

For these dead birds sigh a prayer. 

Obviously a problem arises in that this is not a modern poem, so your story may take the feel of this poem. Feel free to use the stanza in quote form.  Use it for characterization, whatever purpose you need.  Just have fun with it. If this poem is too difficult, choose a different one. Just keep in mind copyright laws when you do so. 

~Beth

Heffron Prompts: Part I

I am currently reading The Writer's Idea Workshop; how to make your good ideas great by Jack Heffron.  I am four chapters in and while much of what I am reading has been touched upon in other writing books, this one has struck a singular cord within me.  In Heffron's book he talks about how we, as writers, often talk an idea to death and then lose all drive to write about it and how we should keep some ideas secret until we have enough written on the page to sort of rope us into the project rather than allow the idea to exist as some ideal that we will never actually work toward finishing.  I am ever so guilty of this and that is why my current project - something that I've mentioned in passing to Crimson - is going to remain under wraps until I have a few chapters pumped out and can make a real decision on whether or not this idea is any good.  In the mean time, here are some of the prompts from his book, which contains over three hundred prompts, that I found particularly interesting and useful. 

PROMPT: If you have an idea that you've been carrying around in your mind for a while, stop reading this book and put something on paper.  Even if you can only spend five minutes doing it, spend the five minutes.  If you're hesitant to begin writing, just describe the story in a paragraph or write five possible titles or name all the characters.  But do it now.  This very minute.  I'm not kidding.  Go.  You shouldn't be reading this sentence, unless you've taken time to do this prompt.

PROMPT: Write a pledge to yourself to keep secret an idea for a writing project.  Tell no one about it.  If you tend to be a blabbermouth, as writers often are, give the pact with yourself a time limit, such as: "I'll keep this idea a secret for one month, during which I'll write a little something on it every day." 

PROMPT: If you've been working on a piece for a good while and feel it may be time to let go, put it away for a while, give yourself a deadline for working on it.  For example, tell yourself you'll spend the next five sessions on the piece before putting it away.  Then, stick to that schedule, even if the piece suddenly comes to life.  If it does come to life, you can bring it out again later but for now you've decided to move on to something new.

PROMPT: Write about a place you've never been, one in which you've always had an interest or somewhere that has inspired a feeling of connection.  Investigate your interest or connection.

PROMPT: Create a prompt of your own.  One of the themes of this chapter is that creativity requires moving past what you've been told to do, and so what I'm telling you to do is tell yourself what to do.  You might want to brainstorm a half-dozen "assignments" and choose one to explore in a session.  The key here is to set forth your own task and then find ways to accomplish it.

PROMPT: After a writing session, write a congratulatory note from your ideal reader to you.  The reader should tell you he or she loves your idea.

Excerpts from: Heffron, Jack. The Writer's Idea Workshop: how to make your good ideas great. Cincinnati, Ohio, 2003

~

I, for one, jumped on that first prompt!  I hope that some of you will do the same.  Don't get stuck on a project that is taking forever and eating up the time that you could be using practicing, polishing, and, most importantly, creating!  I put some of these prompts up with specific contributors in mind but I hope these are useful to any and all of our readers.  For more prompts please check out Heffron Prompts: Part II.


Amanda LaFantasie (Skoora) © 2012

Generators, Name Lists, and Dolls! Oh, my!

I would like to talk about randomness for a moment.  First, nothing is truly random - even when we seek names, numbers, and coin flips from random generators there is some higher artistic power at work that we humans are too puny to comprehend.  Yes, I really just said that.  Secondly, when a randomly generated name or number or color or whatever is presented to us, it forces us to make a choice and therefore our choice takes away the randomness because suddenly we have ascribed purpose to whatever it is that we have decided.  Do I want Chinese food for dinner or American?  My friend randomly shouts out, "American!"  And because a choice has now been set before me, I can say with full confidence that, no, I actually wanted Chinese food.  Canton here I come!  It is the same way with random generators on the internet.  I put in that I want an Arabic male name and I am presented with one.  I now choose whether to accept it (along with all the instant images and ideas that come along with it) or reject it and press the generate button one more time.  Even if you limit yourself and say 'I will press the generate button once and whatever comes up is what I shall use' you are still making a choice.  You will use that name, research that name, glorify or slander that name, and make a character to be the perfect match or foil to that name.  

In this post I have included random generators (as well as already generated name lists) that I have used in the past.  What I would like to know, is if you find such things to be enormous wastes of time or if they help you in developing characters in some way.  Do they at least help you decide what not to do?  Further down the list I have also included generators and visual aides that might help with the design of the character and even the setting in which they might live.  I find such things to be very useful in some situations (not all).  More often than not, room design and dress up games are just a starting point for me, and then my own imagination and creativity take over.  Could such things end up being distractions from the process?  Try a few out perhaps and then decide.  And of course, it always depends on the situation.

• Name Generator Index (A list of generators that provide you with everything from Hillbilly names to names for your pony.)
• Fantasy Name Lists (A branch of the previous site wherein you can find links to various fantasy name lists, a few fantasy specific name generators, and also the 100 most essential words in anime - talk about random O_o.)
• Names Master List (Another branch of the same site with a plethora of links to name lists for pretty much anything you could think of to name.  If it isn't there, it doesn't deserve a name.)
• 20,000 Names (A personal favorite of mine and Crimson Lantern.  This is also linked to this very blog.  It is a very informative and well categorized name database for practical and fantastical use.)
• Fantasy Name Generator (Just push generate and you'll have a whole slew of interesting and unique names and if you don't like what you see, refresh the results page for more names.)
• Pet Names (as in lovey dovey, not for Fido) (If you have a character who likes to say things like 'sweetie pie' and 'pumpkin tits' this might be a good place to find inspiration.)
• New Identity (This site generates a new name and a whole new identity for you - should you need one  O_O - or can be a good starting place for a character.  I used it to create a new identity for a character who went into witness protection.)
• Random Name Generator (This site is similar to the last one but with a less intense tone.  You can generate based on ethnicity or even race of magical creature.)
• Character Name Generator (D&D) (A place to go if you want some creative names for your Dungeons and Dragons characters, or novel characters who merit such names.  Kind of fun.)
• Noemata (I have used this over and over again - it basically pumps out random collections of letters and syllables that are without trademark.  It is a good place to look up fake brands for stories or to seek inspiration for cyber-punk or fantasy names.)
• Random.Org (If you are debating on having your character go left or right - this is a place where you can flip a virtual coin or pick a number between X and Y.  You can also roll the dice.  It's nice if you don't have coins and dice handy and would like to practice randomness in your decision making.)
• D&D Dice Roller (Because I felt like I couldn't leave it off after the last entry.  If you need to know how badly your poor character took a beating in that alley last night and you want help deciding - just roll a D20 and let the carnage begin.)

And, as promised here are some other random things that may or may not help you along your way to creativity and production.

• Elizabethan Insults (The name really says it all.  Included in this site is a link to an Elizabethan insult generator above and beyond what is already presented. Good fun.)
• Fantasy Dress Up Index (A whole slew of dress up doll games that could give you ideas for clothes, looks, locations,or even anthropomorphic additions to your characters.)
• Doll Divine (The site I use more than others to find dress up doll games for male and female characters.  You can screen shot your final creations and tuck them away for further inspiration.)
• Room Sketcher (Design your, or your character's, dream house and give yourself a good visual of where things are located about the house so that you can describe it easily in your writing.  I haven't used this site very much at all, but I know others who have found it pretty helpful.)

Randomness is something that writers all come to embrace.  Dani posted picture cubes as a writing prompt, others toss word dice to come up with a plot.  Some people put names, places, and activities in three separate hats and pull out the makings for a writing exercise or story.  There was a musician (a composer) who used to walk around naked then lay on his piano and pound the keys randomly until inspiration struck.  It all seems so random and yet it is all a choice.  Choose randomness.  That is one way to keep the creative juices flowing.   In closing, here is a link to Script Frenzy's plot machine: Script Frenzy.Org.  Script Frenzy (a sister branch of NanoWriMo) is no longer an event, but the site remains intact for people to make use of their script writing tools which include this plot machine.  Randomness in motion.  If anyone has any generators or lists that they have found useful in the past, I would love for you to share them with me.  And if you have any creative prompts that hinge on randomness, please share those as well.

Amanda LaFantasie (Skoora) © 2012