Thursday, February 7, 2013

Writing Prompts

In order to get myself to post more, I'm giving myself assignments!  I'm choosing prompts with I will post the first week of each month and will be writing to them over the course of the month.  As today is the 7th, I'm starting at the tail end of the week, but hey--it's a start.

Why prompts?  I love writing exercises. They push me a little bit, get me out of my standard train of thought, but I don't feel that I need to write anything more than a snippet at a time.  If they lead to a short story, good.  If they don't--so what?  They're fun, they can help work out knots in one's main WIP, develop a skill that needs a little work, and I never feel my time is wasted on them.

So there are three more weeks in February.
Here are 9 prompts:


  1. A character out of place, new to a city/town/time/planet
  2. Describe, in detail, a single room in a manner that conveys the emotional state of the POV character.
  3. Enemies, alone, trapped in a situation where neither can kill each other or do one another any real harm--what happens?
  4. Construct a scene with dialogue alone, that still gives a sense of setting/place.
  5. Action scene with an unskilled main character, out of depth
  6. Escape from a magical institution (temple, school, estate) by a non-magical character
  7. Best friends learn something about each other that could change the nature of their relationship, and cannot tell each other what they know, while in a situation forced to interact socially (either privately, or in public).
  8. Magical being loses ability and is forced to live among humans--but telling the story from the perspective from an unsuspecting human.
  9. Princess in a tower: refuses to believe she deserves the imprisonment, but she does (the POV of a villain! hard for me).
If you like any of these and want to use them, feel free! I just came up with them, so there's no site to quote or anything.  But, if you do, I'd love to read them, so be sure to let me know.

I will also be open to any prompts you might have for me for March.

2 comments:

  1. Shameless plug: check out Romantic Friday Writers for a monthly prompt (we call them challenges).

    I like writing to prompts too. I've had a few inspirations that took off as short stories and were published, or left me with great novel ideas. Prompts are excellent for stimulating creativity. I'm with you, sometime I need them to get me out of a slump, or just kick my writing muse into gear.

    .......dhole

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  2. I just signed up for the next one :) Might end up a regular participant. Looks fun.

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