Writing Prompt #194: Disillusioning

Your character has to reveal to someone that something was a lie.

His lie? Someone else's lie? Has he previously gone along with the lie? Your choice.

Writing Prompt #193: Dressing Room Conversation

Dressing rooms are places of so much humor and conflict and role-reversal and vulnerability. The search for an adequate item of clothing can be  a source of so much frustration, and the way people discuss or disagree on choices can show a lot about them.

Write a scene in a dressing room environment. For the most mileage, make sure your character has an objective, questions about him or herself, and someone to serve as an accomplice/antagonist.

Writing Prompt #192: Offer of Protection

Someone offers to protect your character.

This is always such a weird situation when it happens to you.

Writing Prompt #191: First Impressions

Think about your first impressions of the people you've gotten to know in your life. Which ones were correct? When were you wrong? How have your understandings deepened as you've walked with them through bigger, harder things?

Write about a first impression, and how it was right, wrong, or not deep enough.

Writing Prompt #190: When I First Saw You

I have been so AWOL. I forgot the extent of my buffer-zone and got tied up in Christmas and promises to friends. I apologize. I did not mean to leave this blog unattended.

 Write a story tell someone about when you first met them.

Writing Prompt #189: Little Person, Big Deal

Someone meets a baby.

Writing Prompt #188: ...sorry, guys. v_v

Pick two of your friends who don't know each other, and stick them in a story together.

My apologies for lateness.

Writing Prompt #187: Young and Earnest

Do you remember how intensely new the world was when you were smaller? Can you think back to the way everything was important and live-rending, because you didn't have any perspective to let you know better? Do you remember the noble promises and fierce devotions of a heart that didn't know that it could break?

A small person makes a giant promise. Now make them keep it.

Writing Prompt #186: Difficult to Love

Create a character that is unlikeable, and someone who loves them.

Now show us the why.

Writing Prompt #185: No Time to Pack

I just saw The Hobbit.

It was so worth it.

Send a character on a trip they don't want to go on.

Writing Prompt #184: Unpopular

Someone takes an unpopular stand.

Writing Prompt #183: Trading Faces

Reverse an expectation. Your villain does something noble. Your mentor gives foolish advice. Your hero hurts someone he loves.

Writing Prompt #182: Broken Trust

What do you do when someone breaks a trust?

Trusts can be established or implicit. We trust that people will keep their promises; we trust that our friends won't steal the belongings we leave at a table; we trust that the strangers in bathrooms won't try to kill us. Sometimes, if we're lucky, we have someone we trust more than normal.

If the stranger in the bathroom breaks my trust in strangers in bathrooms, or a friend breaks my trust in friends, I experience a mini-trauma. There's a shock. There's a re-evaluation of the way I see my world. There's a scramble of guilt and doubt and searching to see if maybe I violated some tenet and this break is my fault.

But when someone I trusted more than other people violates the trust I put in them, it's more like getting socked in the gut. A semi-friend can steal my things, or a stranger can try to kill me, and I'll feel for it a bit and move on. But someone I feel safe with can cross a boundary we never defined and leave me gasping in a corner trying to breathe.

How do you deal with a break of trust? How do you work with relationships when people break the rules? How do you move on with life when your world is different?

And when trust is broken, can you mend it? How?

Writing Prompt #181: Cut Open to Interpretation

Have you ever noticed that a guy can say almost anything and if enough girls hear it someone will be able to translate it into a proclamation of affection?

"Pretty sure he just said I was the devil."
"No, that was TOTALLY his confession of love. Run to him, sister, and confess your undying like."

Riiiiiight.

Sometimes different cultures and experiences and genders really do see completely different subtext and meaning in what they say. Sometimes what one person sees as something kind or innocuous or flattering can mean "I don't like you and need you to understand that I am in love with Sylvia" to someone else. Sometimes we just wish people would not be so confusing.

Your challenge: A character receives multiple interpretations of what someone has said. Bonus points if you involve a metaphor including a piece of sports paraphernalia or a member of the local wildlife.

Writing Prompt #180: For Approval!

A character goes to an extreme length to win the approval of someone.

Writing Prompt #179: And then there were Puffed Sleeves

If you have never read The Vampire Diaries by L.J. Smith and you're planning to read them, the following contains sort-of-but-not-really-spoilers.

These spoilers will not tell you who lives or dies or anything except a bit of setting and an inconsequential section of the plot of the way-later book they happen in, but...wait, were you reading these books to be shocked by the plot? Really?

[KIND OF BUT NOT REALLY SPOILERS]

In the nth book, some people are in another dimension trying to organize a jail break. They are surrounded by vampires and demons and Japanese fox-thingies and damned souls. There is political and social and economic turmoil all around them. People are dying and being enslaved. The characters themselves are having near-death experiences constantly. So what does the author spend maybe twenty pages on?

The characters' intricate, pretty, non-combat-oriented clothing and makeup for a party.

Why? Because when you're going into a hellish alternate dimension to save your dying friend, your central focus is always whether or not you are dressed stylishly enough for a gala that is attended mainly by demons. (I am not exaggerating; the MC worries about this for more than a page.)

[END SPOILERS]

I am challenging you to give characters a big, important goal, and then make them focus on something completely inappropriate to the situation. Why are they worried about their clothes/lunch/windshield cleanliness/secret-Santa gift choice/allergies when something really important is going down?

I hope you have fun with this.

Writing Prompt #178: Right at the Wrong Time

A character puts off something he or she wants to do because the timing isn't right.

Writing Prompt #177: And then I Didn't Kill You

Someone responds graciously to an interruption of their work.

Writing Prompt #176: Oath Keeper

Someone keeps a promise made by someone else.

Writing Prompt #175: Guarding the Heart

Someone avoids lust.

Writing Prompt #174: Rush of Fools

Someone rushes to judgement and is wrong.

Writing Prompt #173: Painful Kindness

A character in pain does something for someone else.

Writing Prompt #172: Calculated Risk

Someone calculates a worst-case scenario and still decides a move is worth it.

Writing Prompt #171: Unworthy Authority

Someone respects an authority figure when the authority is doing something wrong.

Writing Prompt #170: Friend-mance

Spotlight the conflict and value of a non-romantic relationship.

Writing Prompt #169: Lousy Ambassador

Someone representing someone else does a bad job of it.

Writing Prompt #168: Deadly Consequence

Someone is killed by a mistake they made.

(Work this into your chick-flick, why don't you.)

Writing Prompt #167: The Welcome Muffin

Today's challenge is: Someone receives something they were hungry for.

"A desire fulfilled is a tree of life," right? Find something odd to hunger after, and an odd way to get what they want.

Writing Prompt #166: Holy Toothbrush

Write a character with the idea that they are "set apart" for something specific. Where does this concept of being different, being made for something different, come from for them? What do they have to give up in their pursuit of what they're "made for"?

The best description of "holy" I've heard came from an ex-rock star computer programmer of my acquaintance: "You don't use your toothbrush to scrub a toilet."

Your toothbrush is set apart for a specific use, so there are things you just don't use it for. Can the same be said of a person?

Writing Prompt #165: Honor for the Lowly

Someone treats a child with respect.

Writing Prompt #164: Response to Injustice

Someone accepts unfair punishment with grace.

Writing Prompt #163: Juxtaposition of Result

Someone falls short.

Someone else comes through.

This is a magnificent way to examine a theme. Just check out King Saul's reign and David's. It's so cool.

Writing Prompt #162: Insult to Not-Injury

Someone responds to an insult with a blessing.

Yeah, I totally stole this from the Bible.

I want to see how this works.

Writing Prompt #161: Lack of Will

A character must exert his or her will to do something they really don't want to do.

Writing Prompt #160: Corrected Thinking

A character has to stop a thought and replace it with the way they believe they should be thinking.

Writing Prompt #159: Social Avoidance

Give one character a good motivation to avoid people, and then give another character the need to foil that desire.

Basically, make someone avoid others and then shove a person at them.

Writing Prompt #158: Manners and Malevolence

Why would you choose to be polite to someone who had done terrible things without apology? Why would you be kind to someone wretchedly evil who hurt your friend?

Give someone a reason, and write a scene.

Your scene can be the encounter, or the decision, or both, but get into the how and the why. If this is easy for you personally, then find a circumstance that would make it hard.

If your character's will breaks and she shatters the dude's collar bone, you are disqualified.

Writing Prompt #157: Worth Waiting

A character gives up something that would be momentarily enjoyable in expectation of something of long-term worth.

Writing Prompt #156: Understanding Unexpected

You know that cliche scene where the character has something really important they're trying to say but no one understands them and it spirals downwards in a horror of misunderstanding and frustration?

I want you to write the opposite of that. Your character is incoherent and confusing and inarticulate and someone understands. Pick the most unlikely character to understand them. Now, why do they get it, and how will they help your character now that they understand?

Writing Prompt #155: Making Rules

When something happens that has never happened before, a lot of times there aren't rules to fall back on. You don't have a clear idea of limits or guidelines or what is expected. This can be fun, but sometimes it's just dangerous. There are situations where you need a really firm idea ahead of time of what you need to do and where things have to stop.

Have characters lay down guidelines ahead of time for an event. This can be having a friend over or dealing with an enemy or a first kiss. Conflict and unsurety are a must. Make your characters to define where they stand and what they won't compromise on.

When you don't know where you're standing and why, it's really easy to be moved.

Writing Prompt #154: Break a Rule

Two people have a rule they follow with each other. It can be formal or informal. Make one of them break it.

Ideas:

No apologizing.

We don't talk about parents.

We only act like we know each other outside school.


We don't make physical contact.


No one mentions eye drops.

Writing Prompt #153: Reverse a Villain

Take traits from one of the villains in your life, and make the character a hero.

Writing Prompt #152: A Comparison of Gifts

Today incidental placement on a shelf showed me starkly the differences between two people in my life.

One object was a gift from a friend. He had seen my interest in the object and heard my passing exclamation at its prettiness, and later acquired it. Then, he had found something else to make it prettier. He'd given it to me as a gift, on my birthday. The object has sat in a position of prominence wherever I've lived since then. It's one of the prettiest things I own, and I treasure it.

The other thing had been given to me in passing, as an afterthought, by someone who was going to throw it away. I'd treasured it on the same shelf, right next to the gift.

Why do we treasure the things thrown to us by people who don't care? How do we delude ourselves into treasuring a paper duck the way we treasure a vase? And why do we give people top shelf in our lives when we don't matter in theirs?

Write a story where two objects- be they gifts or possessions or trash- demonstrate the differences between two people.

I cleared off a shelf in my life today. I hope you have friends and good people and relationships to treasure in yours.

Writing Prompt #151: Fortitude

A character has to ignore their own suffering to get something done.

Writing Prompt #150: Sliced and Diced

A character finds a way to be gentle and kind with someone who hurt them badly.

My favorite way to do this is to find a troubled child they remind me of, and focus on loving them the way I'd love that kid.

Writing Prompt #149: Fine

I have been spending all day saying, "I'm fine."

My mom: Are you okay?
Me: I'm fine.
My mom: Are you okay?
Me: I'm fine.
My mom: Are you okay?
Me: I'm fine.

Your prompt: A character says they're fine and they are completely, terrifyingly wrong.

Writing Prompt #148: Small Victories

Write a scene where a character pushes past fear to do the right thing in something small.

Writing Prompt #147: Requests

Isn't it interesting that some people can ask us for help, and we feel manipulated and put upon, but someone else can ask us for help, and our hearts leap forward in delight at being needed?

Why do some people make us so happy when they ask us for things? And why are other people different?

Write a scene (or scenes) where someone is asked for help by two different people, one experience negative and one positive, and show us the difference.

Writing Prompt #146: Spilled

A character has to inform another character about something traumatic or odd or uncomfortable from their own life. How do they get it into conversation, and how do they keep the other person from worrying or thinking they're a freak?

Writing Prompt #145: Bad Parable

Someone is trying to use a story to teach something, but it goes wrong.

Ways stories typically go wrong:

- Unintended moral.
- Moral that sounds really terrible said out loud.
- Incredibly morbid subject matter (like the removal of organs)
- Making the consequences of the story so insane that you will terrify the child forever (like the removal of organs)
- Trying to fix the terrible ending but negating your moral. ("And that's why it's okay to remove organs!")

Things that make these stories a lot more entertaining:

- Poetic details that make it very clear exactly who your dad is talking about.
- Heavy use of fantasy and lots of "Once upon a Time."
- Organs. Actually, pretty much all of the horrible stuff from before. It only makes the story better.

Writing Prompt #144: Conflicting Advice

Have you ever had a conversation with a respected adult or authority figure where they start giving one kind of advice and then they transition to another track and by the end you have multiple commands that contradict each other and a fairy tale that went nowhere and you're right where you were when you started?

Someone is giving advice but they're contradicting their own advice.

Writing Prompt #143: Saying No

Your character says no to something he/she really wanted to say yes to. Why?

Writing Prompt #142: Conversation with a Stranger

Your character asks a personal question of a total stranger. Why? What happens next? Does it change the way your character thinks?

Writing Prompt #141: An Overdose of Happiness

Someone is so busy being happy that they forget something important.

Like updating this blog. Apologies.

Writing Prompt #140: No Good Deed

A person is destroyed by a small courtesy.

(Thanks, Michael.)

Writing Prompt #139: That Kind of Person

It's always strange when someone responds to a plan of mine with, "You won't. You're not that kind of person." It makes me want to ask, what kind of person am I, and why don't you think she'd do what I want to do?

Write a story where your character does something that would be easy to block with "You're not that kind of person." Make them push through it.

Alternately, stop a plan with "You're not that kind of person." Maybe their friend is right, just like mine was.

Writing Prompt #138: Secret Forgiveness

Your character forgives someone for a massive amount of harm that the person doesn't know they did.

Writing Prompt #137: Un-masking

Someone isn't the person your character thought him to be.

My immediate thought is something small and subtle and delicate, but I hope someone somewhere writes a story with lizard-aliens. That would be fun.

Writing Prompt #136: Benefit of a Doubt

Heroes and Heroines in stories constantly jump to the worst conclusions about the people they love, while the audience screams "No no no! It was his evil twin; listen to him!"

I'm challenging you to write a scene where a person is faced with pretty damning evidence, but treats the accused the way you would want to be treated.

Writing Prompt #135: False Alarm

A character has to reason away news of something awful.

If you're feeling kind, you can find a way for them to be right.

Writing Prompt #134: Brave Face

Smack your character across the face with horrible news they weren't expecting. Now, make them be normal for someone else.

Writing Prompt #133: Trade-off

Pick something normal and traditional to childhood, and take it away from your character. Now, explain why she thinks what she got instead was worth the trade.

Writing Prompt #132: Surprise Apology

A character apologizes for something that thee person being apologized to didn't think was wrong.

Writing Prompt #131: Annoying

The time you can most clearly see a person's characters is when he's dealing with someone who annoys him.

Is he still respectful to the authority figure who demeans him? Is he still kind to the friend who is rude or imposing? When people who can offer him nothing ask for his time, how does he respond?

Put a character opposite someone who can drive him nuts, and show us what his character is really like.

Writing Prompt #130: Contrast

The great function of "love triangles" in stories is to compare and contrast two people. What makes them different? What about them is similar, and where do they diverge?

You don't need an overwrought love triangle to do this. Every person we meet brings out the ways that every other person is unique. Create a contrast. Show us how the person who you're showing-off is special.

The more similar the two (or more) people are, the more delicate the contrasts you can show.

Writing Prompt #129: Trust Fall

Your character has to trust another person.

Some ideas include a medical procedure, a terrifying foray into ballroom dancing, a group assignment, or a foreign country.

Writing Prompt #128: Bashing Chandeliers

Something your character expected to be wonderful turns out terribly, terribly wrong.

Writing Prompt #127: Expectation

The expectation of something happening in the future hinders your character's ability to focus on a task.

Writing Prompt #126: Planning for the Worst

Everyone else is exciting about something wonderful happening, but your character is planning for the worst. Why?

Writing Prompt #125: a weird way of comforting

I was sad tonight, so my mom took me to a grocery store and calmly gave me tap-dancing lesson.

I want you to write a scene where someone helps someone else in a way that you wouldn't normally think of helping; a scene where someone comforts someone else in a way you don't normally comfort. According to Mr. Rogers, there are many ways to say 'I love you.' Find a new way to say, "I'm here for you, and you should feel better soon."

Writing Prompt #124: Telenovela

One hallmark of Spanish soap operas, or maybe soap operas in general, is that every single character is tangled up with all the others.

A character can't just have a long-lost mother; she has to be working for her long-lost mother and in love with her long-lost mother's stepson and friends with the woman who intentionally hit her long-lost mother with a car and got her lost and going to the scorned ex-lover of her long-lost mother for advice and finding inspiration through friendship with her long-lost mother's cheating ex-husband.

Create a few characters who would normally avoid each other in earnest, and freakishly entangle every aspect of their lives.

And if you need to, throw in a homicidal grandmother, because they make pretty fantastic characters when fully drawn.

Writing Prompt #123: Need-to-Know

A parent tries to a secret from their child.

Writing Prompt #122: Something Awful

Something terrible happens out of the blue.

Writing Prompt #121: Distant News

A character receives news from a distant land.

Writing Prompt #120: Twitterpated

Write about a character who is dancing-on-sunshine, spinning-in-the-hardware-store in like with someone.

Writing Prompt #119: Tackling Hamlet

Your character has to stop a revenge.

Writing Prompt #118: Unlikeable

Jacob lied to his dad while the guy was on his deathbed. "Yes, dad, I sound like Jacob, but I'm Esau. Totally. Pinkie swear."

How do you justify that to yourself? How do you get there?


How do you like a character while they do something like that?

I'm challenging you to write a character who does a really unlikeable thing. A theft, a betrayal, a swindle. Can you, without belittling the evil, portray a character in the act of something that they know is wrong?

I dare you.

Writing Prompt #117: Fearless

We admire people who are fearless; dancing on sidewalks, speaking to strangers in the elevator, pleasantly defending their point of view, even when others will despise them for it.

Give us a character who does something fearless. Let us love him. And then, give him a fear, and let us cheer for him as he overcomes it.

Writing Prompt #116: Intentional Sanity

A character going mad takes concrete steps to counter insanity. (You know you can always root for this guy.)

Writing Prompt #115: Inappropriate Venue

Set an incredibly tense, personal scene in the worst, most inappropriate location possible.

Ideas: a break-up, a "define the relationship" conversation, a confession, a proposal, an intervention/ a college midterm, a children's birthday party, a wedding, a funeral, on the stage of a school play

Writing Prompt #114: multi-objective conflict

Give someone a big, huge, walloping problem. Now give them a helpless person to take care of.

Writing Prompt #113: Fight to Heal

A character accidentally hurts someone they care about. How can they fix it?

Writing Prompt #112: Difficult Friendship

Write a character who chooses to continue being a friend to a person whose behavior they consider wrong.

How can you be a friend to someone when you can't support some of their actions?

Writing Prompt #111: Objective Thinking

Pick an inanimate object and describe life as that object. Then, write a human character with a similar experience.

A window- People always look right through me.

A chair- I always play a supporting role.

A lock- You'll never get through me unless you have the key.

Writing Prompt #110: Re-Learning

Your character has to pick up a forgotten skill. Long-atrophied language? Soft-shoe routine? Go for it.

Writing Prompt #109: No More Thinking

Bring a character to that place where additional thinking does not do any good. Push him/her to ACT, whether they know what they're doing or not. No more thinking in circles. No more talking it out. Go for it. Make the best move you see.

Writing Prompt #108: Unwanted Confession

A character has to deal with an unwanted confession of affection. Make sure both characters have objectives in the scene- including the one being approached.

Writing Prompt #107: Safe

Make a character feel safe.

Writing Prompt #106: make me like him

I challenge you to endear me to a secondary character in as few words as possible...with a narrator that hates him.

Writing Prompt #105: Different Values

I recently had a pleasant conversation with a young person in which he started showing me photographs of gifts that he'd given to his mom, and listing off prices. I'm always happy to see other people happy and I enjoy hearing people's stories, but the disparity in our respective incomes and that he thought the conversation was normal amused me greatly. The last gift he'd given his mom was a hundred and twenty times the price of the last gift I'd given mine. While in his social group, chatting about incomes and the prices of purchases is ordinary and accepted, I would be sternly dressed down by my family for talking about the same.

I challenge you to find a value that is foreign to you, or a subject that is generally taboo in your circles, and write about people who talk about it.

Money? Religion? Sex? Toe fungus? Go for it.

Writing Prompt #104: Defining Conversation

Two characters argue on the definition of a word.

Writing Prompt #103: Giant Wall

Create an impossible barrier to a relationship.

And no, I don't mean, "create a barrier you can jump over by having a deep conversation and killing a few characters," I mean, "actually create an obstacle that makes a previously tenable relationship impossible."

Writing Prompt #102: Reverse a Trend

Create a character with a perceivedly unflattering characteristic, and then make it admirable and/or endearing.

Easy: physical characteristics and handicaps.

Moderate difficulty: personal quirks and psychoses (phobias, fixations, obsessions and compulsions).

Hard: Bad habits- belching, scratching self, blowing nose on table cloth, drooling

Writing Prompt #101: The Least of These

You know how there's that person in your life who you have to be patient with, because they know less? Either you're more educated in a subject or you're more experienced in a craft or they're awful at not yelling embarrassing things across the room while you're trying to play chess or they're just generally five years old.

Write a scene where your character gets schooled by someone who knows way less than she does, whether it's a child or an old person or a mental patient or someone who acts like a mental patient or just that guy who's bad at all things life.

Write a scene where your character learns something vital from one of "the least of these." And while you're at it, I challenge you to pay attention when the weak in your life speak.

Writing Prompt #100: Inappropriate Response

Write a scene where a character laughs about something which causes him pain.

Writing Prompt #99: Unappreciated

A character does what they consider a good deed and faces ingratitude.

Writing Prompt #98: Trust

Write a scene where a character must teach someone to trust them.

Writing Prompt #97: Show-Off

Usually we avoid putting ourselves forward, but every once in a while, we're called on to go whole-hog and show what we can do. Every once in a while, it's not in our best interest to demure. Sometimes the very best thing we can do is show off.

Put a character in a position where their talents cannot be hidden. Make modesty impossible. Shove them to the front and give them incentive to take center stage.

It only happens every once in a while, but when it does it's really fun.

Writing Prompt #96: "You're Wrong," a love story

Have you ever had to stand up to a friend? Have you ever had to tell someone you loved that you believed something they were doing was wrong?

Write a scene where your character has to. Compel him. Make it important. Think about his reluctance and the stakes necessary to overcome that.

It's not fun to risk the anger of someone you love. It's hard to risk hurting someone you care about. But sometimes, when you really love someone, it's the only way not to betray that love.

Writing Prompt #95: Scholastic Error

A teacher makes a mistake.

Writing Prompt #94: Mercy

Write a scene where a character is kind to someone who doesn't deserve it.

Writing Prompt #93: Worst Face Forward

Write a scene where the character is trying to leave a deliberately bad impression.

Writing Prompt #92-and-a-half: Kill Something

I apparently made a terrible error when setting up the schedules for these things and even though I have the next two weeks on automatic today did not post.

Your writing prompt is: kill an animal.

Hopefully the next prompt is up on time.

Writing Prompt #92: Problematic Drive

"The drive to reproduce has been more problematic than predicted."

That's it. That's your prompt. Have fun.

Writing Prompt #91: Movie Mash-Up #1

The Wonderful Wizard of Oz meets Gone with the Wind.
I thank my dad for this one. He wanted to stump me. Instead he gave me my favorite historical fiction idea.

In 20 years, I so want to make this.

Writing Prompt #90: Treasuring

Have a character treasure an object that's out of character for them, because it reminds them of someone special.

Is it a gift? How did they get it?

Writing Prompt #89: Time Shift

The saddest thing about the present is the way it changes the past.

My writing prompt for you today is two scenes. One scene offering a central event, a relationship, and an image, and a second scene occurring later that changes the way we view the elements of the first.

Our present always colors our memories. New experiences with people change the way interpret past experiences. Even if we remember the same pictures and details and faces and words, what we've felt since colors and changes everything. Laughter lends golden hues to awkward moments, comfort lulls and softens the darkest hours- and betrayal washes sunny portraits out to gray.

Moments of clarity are best portrayed in writing prompts. The poetry doesn't last past 4 am very well.

Writing Prompt #88: Whoa, what? Haircut? o_o

It's actually been several weeks since I wrote yesterday's prompt- that's how the workflow on these goes. I walked into the first week of college ignoring the existence of my wretched haircut, cocky in the knowledge that as I had been ignored almost completely the semester before, I had nothing to worry about.

Then, everything got weird.

People were noticing me and making the effort to talk to me and learn my name and pressing my hand instead of shaking and what on earth, was that guy flirting? Then this one guy introduced himself and talked to me on purpose and I was so surprised that all I could think of to say, over and over, was "Glad to meet you." That works great till like, the fifth time you say it.

But what on earth? I was invisible last semester. And NOTHING about me has changed. I'm wearing the same shirts, the same pair of jeans, the same scuffed-up shoes. I have the same zits, the same weight, the same slap-dash makeup design I pulled out of an 80's book in tenth grade. What could possibly be different that would change the way people saw me so much?

I'd like to think I suddenly developed poise and confidence and chutzpah over the summer, but my mom laid it out for me. I walked in exactly the same- except for hair like a Shetland pony.

Prompt: A physical change alters the way your character is perceived by others.

Is that cliche? Yes. But it happens. And, boy, is it weird when it does.

Writing Prompt #87: Bad Hair Cut

I look like a Shetland pony.

My coping mechanisms for haircuts (which are inevitably horrible, and fall exactly when I start liking my hair again) are pretty simple. They start with martyrdom.

"This is more important to the stylist than to me. What they want is more important."

The coping continues through denial, "It'll grow in no time. I can use bobby pins. If I use enough hairspray it'll work. If I don't wash it for days it'll fit in a pony tail."

Then I hit frustration. "Stop asking me if I like my hair. Stop wanting me to like it. I will like it when it has grown out to where it was a half hour ago."

And inevitably, more denial. "Hair? Who cares about hair? I can see through this fringe. ...almost."

I am challenging you to take a character who is very sure of who he or she is and his position relative to others, and change some part of his physical expression. Is the way he relates to his environment the same? How does it change his interactions with others?

And how does not looking like yourself change the way you look at the world?

Writing Prompt #86: Twisted Metaphor

Create a metaphor that is completely opposite to your story, and make it work. If your story is about asylum escapees fighting werewolves with ice-picks, go for kindergarten and ice-cream and Silly Bands. If your story is about duck hunting, go for International Diplomacy.

If your story is about International Diplomacy, I suggest bodily fluids. Everyone loves a good metaphor with bodily fluids.

Writing Prompt #85: Recurring Setting

Re-purpose a location in your story. The happy-jolly family dining room from Act I is now headquarters for Hitler's command staff. Last chapter's ballroom is the setting for a kung-fu battle. Last chapter's torture chamber is the site for a tryst.

Mad props to Michael Grant's book, BZRK, for the most subtle use of this I've ever seen.

Actually, mad props to Michael Grant's BZRK for almost everything.

Writing Prompt #84: Comforting Presence

Have a character find comfort in someone's presence.

What's the weirdest person for them to be comforted by? Can you pull it off?

Writing Prompt #83: Betrayal

I offered to betray my dream today.

It still feels odd, residual terror squeezing my lungs. It's been nine hours since I said I'd walk away.

I'm still spinning.

I got out this time. But what about your character? What would make him do that? Is there a price he could be offered? Is there a person whose pain could sway him? Because it isn't all Star Wars and giant lasers and "I will never talk." Sometimes it's "Joy, I'm scared," and "Don't be. What do I have to do?"

I hope if a day like this ever comes to you, that the person you love is as merciful as the person who had power over me. I hope that even if you're weak, your quest stays strong. Mostly, I hope you chose the right quest. I hope I have.

Bring your hero to his weakest. Find the things he didn't know drove him. Torture him with them. Crush his will. What is more important than his quest?

See if he comes out strong.

Writing Prompt #82: Speaking Code

Write characters using words that don't mean what they say.

For instance, see Schlock Mercenary's : "When I say, 'bake me a chupaqueso,' commit regicide."

(Also see my sister's and my use of "llama tractor duck cake.")

Writing Prompt #81: Superfluous Comforter

Write a scene where someone is comforting someone who doesn't need to be comforted.

Writing Prompt #80: Reversal

Pick a relationship and change the statuses. Switch the lowest rung employee and his boss, the warden and the prisoner, the rescuer and the rescued. Change who is powerful. Change who is needy. Change who is helping/hurting/threatening/begging/saving/pursuing who.

We love that. I don't know why, but reversals are fun.

Writing Prompt #79: Meeting Younger You

An older friend of mine recently had a really weird experience at a local college. She was waiting in line for something, and met this girl who was planning the same career she had pursued. The chick had the same back-up plan she had had, she was dating a guy with the same career as my friend's husband, and she was making all the same miscalculations and mistakes about her future. My friend was in the weird position of talking to a younger version of herself, trying to convince her to change her path.

And it made me think. What would it be like to meet myself, thirty years from now? Would I tell me to go ahead with my plans? In thirty years, if I talk to people who are where I am now, what will I say?

Write a scene where a person meets a younger individual who is about the make the same choices that they did.

Writing Prompt #78: Bogeyman

Yesterday we talked about childhood fantasies. Now, go dark. What scared the daylights out of you as a child? Something in the closet? Monsters under the furniture? Make it real.

Writing Prompt #77: Reversion

Think about the things you day-dreamed about as a kid, and write a story that satisfies one of those wants.

Dreams of flying? Imaginary friends that were super powerful? Tap into something primal and go all-out with it. Wish-fulfillment sells.

Writing Prompt #76: Opportunity Cost

The concept of an opportunity cost is that for everything you get, you give up something else. For instance, the time you spend reading this blog is time you spend NOT watching Nyan-cat.

Today, push a character into a situation where he has to make choices on opportunity costs. Make his desires mutually exclusive. Force him to decide what he's going to give up.

The more innocent children you can squeeze into this the better it will be. And by better, I mean horrible for everyone involved. Ask anyone who's had to deal with co-op schedules.

Writing Prompt #75: Re-purpose

Re-purpose an object. Those scissors someone was threatened with a scene ago? Use them to escape. The hoodie from the romantic scene? Clean up a spill or make a tourniquet or hold a baby in it.

Easy thematic resonance? Check.

Writing Prompt #74: Peace-maker

Write a character who is trying to settle a dispute. Pick out why this is important to him and the sacrifices he'll have to make to put hostilities to rest.

Writing Prompt #73: Beauty and Eloquence

Write a scene where someone does a really good job of standing up for what's right. Write a scene where the bad guy get's trounced, and make us feel good about the people we're supporting in the story. Write a scene that makes us feel good, period. People spend so much of their lives feeling isolated and alone and surrounded by malevolent groups that hate them. Screw that. Write the most feel-good, good-guys-win, bad-guy-devastating scene you possibly can.

And if you want, throw in a rousing chant and a few classic rock songs. It's working for the RNC.

Writing Prompt #72: Child in the Room

Sometimes everything changes when you have a kid in the room. Write a scene where a character's actions and attitudes are altered by the presence of a child.

Writing Prompt #71: Unsolicited Advice

Write a scene where your character must respond graciously to unsolicited advice.

Why is it imperative to your character to respond kindly? Is this an external imposition or an internal one?

How can you make the advice more and more outrageously annoying?

I hope you have fun. My failure to maintain a generous attitude earlier today should be good for something besides jamming my foot into my mouth.

Writing Prompt #70: Giving Up

Write a scene where your character gives up something important to him.

Writing Prompt #69: Fail

Write a scene where your main character fails.

Writing Prompt #68: Trash

Somehow involve garbage.

Writing Prompt #67: Winning Respect

A character has to win the respect of an underling, and has to do it fast.

There are lots of variations on this. A student who's ahead of the pack. An actor or crew-member who's worked with people way more professional than you. Or a situation where you've been promoted and the people under you think the job should have been theirs.

You need these people to respect and work with you. You need to accomplish this fast. How?

[A few things I've learned since utterly failing as a high-school teacher at age 15:

1. Never emphasize that something is going to be easy, even if it will. It leads to people taking the work and you lightly.

2. Make it clear that you respect the capabilities of the people you're working with, and that you take them seriously and appreciate their contribution.

3. Enlist your most problematic elements in maintaining order. "Hi, [most anti-authority student.] We'll be working with a lot of younger kids and people with less experience today, and I'll be really strapped for help. Would you mind helping me keep the peace?"

4. Shock and awe. If there's a way to swiftly demonstrate competence in the thing you're leading them into, be it writing fiction or speaking Chinese or beating everyone at chess, do it. And do it as fast as possible.

5. If there is a way to dress the part, do it. If you can't dress for success...walk in like you did anyway.

Writing Prompt #66: Challenging Perceptions

Write a scene where a character takes an action that is radically different from the way another character perceives him.

For instance: Mary thinks Joe is a sadistic monster. Joe carefully frees a kitten from a fishing line. Terry thinks Shannon is the kindest most non-violent social worker ever. Shannon pistol-whips a mugger into submission. Amy thinks Mary is the strongest person alive. And Mary goes crazy.

Writing Prompt #65: No Kvetching

Write a scene where a character does not complain about something.

Writing Prompt #64: Straightjacket

Write a scene in which the character is unable to physically respond to her world.

Writing Prompt #63: Ability Leap

Something that was really hard for your character is now easy. Why?

And why is it really, really important to what he/she needs to do?

Writing Prompt #62: Misplaced Object

Your character has misplaced something. Why is she glad?

Writing Prompt #61: Reunion

Two people meet each other after a long separation.

Make sure each party has an objective in the scene, whether it's "ferret out the truth" "get her to marry me" or "don't show weakness."

If you can throw in an impediment to their reunion (an annoying waiter? An importuning boss? A hovering relative? A death threat?), bonus points.

Writing Prompt #60: Fish Out of Water

Take a character completely out of his element.

The more overwhelmingly capable he is in his own circles, the more fun this can be.

Writing Prompt #59: Unsentimental

Write a scene or a story where a character is unfeeling, unsentimental or heartless compared to those around him, and this is a not a bad thing.

Thankfully these publish so far after the events that inspire them that my acquaintances cannot feel victimized.

Writing Prompt #58: This is Not Amnesia

I recently found a passionately un-hinged paean  of suffering I wrote as a teen, and I have no clue what it's talking about. Something was apparently really important to me, and now I don't know anything about what was going on.

Stories about loss of memory don't have to be dramatic. No one has to have a concussion, or amnesia to forget. I'm challenging you to create a story where a character is finding memorabilia, records, or letters from their former self that they do not remember, and the contents affect decisions they should be making now.

Writing Prompt #57: Yellow Brick Road

Kids' stories are full of Oz-like stories where the lead character can go on one massive quest and solve everything. The sick relatives get better and the house is saved and the bad guys lose and Christmas and springtime hit at the same time and even if it was hard, it was the lead character who had the power to change everything.

And then huge chunks of our adult life consist of being powerless to help the people we love.

Write a story with a huge quest that can fix lots and lots of things. Stack the odds, send out your powerful hero. And if you're feeling bold, draw the line and delineate what he does and does not have the power to change.

Writing Prompt #56: Apology

I wrote screenplay right through the time when I was supposed to update this blog. I was so tied up in my world that I forgot my commitment, which I intended never to do. I am sorry.

Now is a bad time to tell you that a screenwriter friend blew my mind open to subplots and life is a wonderland of beautiful.

My challenge for you today is to write an apology. Have you ever apologized for something that wasn't really your fault? Is your character lying about anything? Are they choosing a path of expediency, or taking responsibility from some sense of honor? What will be the consequences of this apology, what is the worst thing that could happen, and what do they have to gain?

Being over fifteen and a half hours late today was totally my fault. Even if this thing is free, I do try to keep my promises. I will endeavor to improve the reliability of these posts in the future.

I hope your week is beautiful.

Writing Prompt #55: Mr. Perfect

The one thing every book on writing agrees on is this: when you're creating a protagonist, you can't make them perfectly good and they can't be good at everything.

The writers of Code Geass blatantly ignored this when they created Suzaku Kururugi.

This guy has no character hang-ups. At all. If he has a flaw, it's that he is too self-sacrificially good. Cats hate him, but he loves them anyway. The nation scorns him for his racial heritage and he loves and serves it anyway. His goal in life is to make peace so no more people have to die in war.

And it works, because he's the antagonist. It works because Suzaku's skills are all pitted against the side that we're rooting for. It works because he's so different from the hero we're watching throw people's lives away. It works because they use his self-sacrificing nature against us, and we hate his do-gooding because we love him too much to see him die.


How can you use a character who is intensely, overwhelmingly "good"?

Alternately, can you create an antagonist who we can root for as much as your hero?

Writing Prompt #54: Anime

With all the work I've been doing preparing for Season 1, I haven't put a word toward Season 2 this week. Goodbye, themed posts.

What I have done in the hour before I fall asleep is watch and dissect an anime called "Code Geass" with a couple of my best friends. And while I initially had heavy reservations about this story, there are quite a few things they are doing brilliant that I haven't seen before.

So today I'm tooling the prompt from an anime.

In Code Geass there are a lot of characters that are really horrible people. Like, "kill lots of innocent old people and children" kind of horrible people. We don't like them.

So the writer introduces someone who does.

They make you love this sweet, innocent, self-sacrificing person...who loves these people we hate. She has fond memories of these monsters. She has loving relationships with these creatures. And because we care about her, we are drawn to them as well.

I'm challenging you to create a character who sees a different side of your villain. Take the character that you have made us hate the most, and make us love someone who loves them.

Can you do it? Because this weird animated thing with pink hair and people yelling in Japanese has done a good job of it. If you don't mind way too much pointless fan-service, you might want to check it out.

Writing Prompt #53: Too Late

Write a story where a character misses a deadline, an opportunity, a meeting, a chance. Why did he miss it? Were the choices that brought him here the right ones? What are the consequences?

Write a story where the character is too late.

And please forgive the writer of this blog for being two hours and seven minutes tardy.

Writing Prompt #52: Make Him Cool

Take the most obnoxious character you have- not your "favorite" obnoxious character but the one who annoys you- and go-to making him cool. Give him a fantastic hobby. Make him smart at something. Give him good wisecracks and one-liners and let him win when he argues and put people who admire him into the scenes.

Make sure the characters you disagree with get as much or more loving care than the ones whose ideas jive with yours. Because a character isn't your enemy. And making him awesome can only better your work.

Writing Prompt #51: Weird Interest

In Writing Screenplays that Sell, Michael Hague mentioned that one of the ways to make us like a character is to make them really good at something. I'm asking you to push it a little bit further.

Can you make a group of people good at something most people are outsiders to, and use it to bond us to them? Can you make us feel like insiders because we know them now?

I was really nervous about trying this, and I'm grateful for friends who pushed me to do it.

Even if I did end up publishing my blog with two minutes to spare.

Writing Prompt #50: Season Two

I have the opportunity starting in September to begin filming for a web series I wrote called Homeschoolers vs. Zombies. I love the people I get to work with and I'm really excited to get started but the weird thing is that while we don't know whether season 1 will be a success, if there's going to be a season 2 it has to be written now.

So, for the next 7 days I'm going to give you a writing prompt based on what I'm getting to do right now.

Prompt-of-the-Day: Look over the characters you've already established and figure out what they all agree on and have in common. Then, introduce a character who espouses the opposite of whatever beliefs and traits they share.

Things that you took for granted are called into conflict.  People who seemed like polar opposites unite.

THIS IS SO MUCH FUN AND YOU NEED TO TRY IT.

Writing Prompt #49: Might Made Right

Can you write a situation where an act of violence is the right thing to do? Is there a line your character stops at?

Writing Prompt #48: A Sense of History

Evoke the history of a place- an old space station, a ruined temple, a farm house...bring us there. And keep us rooted in the objectives and experiences of your characters while you do it.

Writing Prompt #47: Waiting

Write a scene where the entire time, the character is waiting for something.

Writing Prompt #46: Punishing

Your character has to punish someone.

Writing Prompt #45: Unwanted Guest

Create a small, private get-together- and then invite someone that no one wants to be there.

Writing Prompt #44: Self-Villainization

Pick an attribute you struggle with in yourself and create a villain who embraces it.

Writing Prompt #43: Gas

Create a really cool character…and then make them a vessel for fart jokes.

Credit to my brilliant sister...if she wants it.

[Additional Note: This blog gets an average of two page views a day. That means that 50% of my audience has not only heard this prompt, but invented it.

If you are the member of this 50%, come to me with your dissatisfaction and I will give you another prompt, because you are important and special.]

Writing Prompt #42: Beverage

Use a beverage for something other than drinking.

Writing Prompt #41: Unabashed Sadness

Write a story where the character is allowed to be completely, unabashedly sad and it's acceptable for her to cry and scream and throw herself over a casket or cling to someone's skirt or throw himself against a door until he's purple and yellow and still screaming.

Or a story about a fairy princess who rides a unicorn that farts rainbows. But personally I think the above would be more cathartic.

Writing Prompt #40: Coping

Write a scene or a sketch or a story in which every single person is coping with something they cannot share and each person is coping a different way.

How are you going to make this interesting? I don't know. But when you figure out how to make coping fun, leave me a comment and let me know how.

Writing Prompt #39: Reconciliation

Write a reconciliation where the person who was wronged gets down on their knees.

Writing Prompt #38: Hard Choice

Make a character choose between a rule he believes in strongly and something he really wants.

Writing Prompt #37: Gift Wrap

You receive a package with scorch marks or blood stains on the outside. What’s inside it, and why has it come to you?

Writing Prompt #36: Swallow

A character has to eat something to be polite. Go.

Writing Prompt #35: Best Thing Ever

Have you ever been watching an infomercial, and asked yourself, "What if this really WAS the best thing ever?"

Write a story where a "not-in-stores" gadget is the key to all existence.

Writing Prompt #34: Side Effects May Include...

The side effects brought on by your medicine cabinet or even your refrigerator can be crazy…even more so if you’re writing science fiction or fantasy.

Give your character a goal: persuade someone to do something, gain possession of something, or destroy somewhere. Then hinder them by giving them a medical side effect that makes everything harder and harder.

Writing Prompt #33: I want to see what the sci-fi dudes do with this

Send two of your characters on a cutesy date, complete with goofy rules- and keep it way cheap.

Writing Prompt #32: Slimy and Fascinating

Something vitally interesting is vomited up.

Ta-dah.

Yes I did just take this a step grosser than yesterday's. Don’t tell me this isn’t fun.

Writing Prompt #31: Let's Go Projectile

Someone is vomited on. Have fun. And you’re welcome.

Writing Prompt #30: Juxtaposition

Write a really happy scene that happens at a funeral.

Writing Prompt #29: Per the Regulations

Take something you don't believe should be regulated by the government. What if it was?

Now make ignoring that regulation really important for someone.

Writing Prompt #28: Child-Sized

Take a successful adult story and make it a story for children. Change ages, level of violence, genre, and anything else appropriate. 

What is Othello for kindergarteners? Jane Eyre for preteens?

Writing Prompt #27: will-bending

Make a character who lives by a very firm rule, and then make him break it.

Writing Prompt #26: Real or Not Real?

I’m challenging you to write a scene where a character with an objective is not sure what’s real and what isn’t.

There are lots of logical ways to establish this- something slipped in a drink, a concussion, someone playing giant complicated mind games with you...paranoia. Just remember- this doesn’t have to be dark. It could be funny, even. Or, you know, dark and funny. That works.

Writing Prompt #25: Regrets Rectified

Give a character the chance to rectify a regret. “I always wished I’d done X. Now I can.”

Writing Prompt #24: Surprise! Stuff is Hard.

When I started this, I did not grasp the reality of a blog a day for the next few years. I just realized in the last few days that this is hard. And you know? This is a point I’ve gotten to with almost every thing I’ve ever done.

“Wow, making a movie is actually a pretty big undertaking.” “Hah, Polish grammar is closing around my neck like a python.” “Ten hours a day of Chinese is not fun like I thought.” “This isn’t the lark I set out on.”

There’s this point in every adventure where you actually understand what you’ve set out to do and how big it is, and you ask yourself, “Am I really doing this?”

I want you to bring your character to this point. His adventure is long and tedious and difficult and now he sees what it’s going to cost him, and he’s asking if it’s worth it. Write a scene that asks and answers that question.

And if this sounds boring, make him have this discourse while hanging upside down.

Writing Prompt #23: Choose Your Weapon

One of my favorite things about watching Korean television shows like “City Hunter” is seeing the hero grab a spoon and defeat the guy with the knife. One episode in particular showcased McGuiver-like ingenuity (and beautiful action choreography) by having the masked hero face down a mob who fought with pipes- wielding a water bottle.

Turn something near you into a weapon and write the scene explaining why it’s used. Is your character a martial arts expert, or just desperate?

Have fun.

Writing Prompt #22: Jonah and the Whale

Well, since I accidentally posted tomorrow's prompt last night, here's back-up.

A friend of mine is judging a writing contest for an online magazine, for entrants ten to fourteen years old. I'm a little over that age limit, but the prompt she gave sent my mind spinning.

She is challenging you to re-imagine, in a modern setting, the story of Jonah and the whale.

Whoa.

There are so many spins you could take on this. Is it a story about running away from something you know you should do, or about not wanting to help people who are "too evil?" Do we put in a human face to represent God or is there a way to make prophecy accessible to readers who've never encountered it? Are we keeping the life-and-death stakes? What are we using in place of the whale (or are we using a whale)?

My favorite version that my family has cooked up was my dad's re-imagining of the story as the tale of an eight-year-old. I love my dad.

Well, there you go. And if you happen to know anyone (yourself?) between ten and fourteen who writes really fast, here's the link to the contest site. I wish you bon voyage.

www.songsfromtheword.com/NewChristianBooks/invitation

Writing Prompt #21: Dancing with Incompetents

I’ve done a bit of tutoring in my time, but usually I’m hired when it looks like someone is going to fail a test. At best, I get a few hours to make someone look competent at a subject they’ve been ignoring for years. At worst, they slide into the seat beside me and say, “I haven’t studied this month. We’ve got five minutes, right? Explain.”

I don’t have time to make people understand what they’re doing. I don’t have time to make sure they’ll actually know it for the rest of their lives. I only have the time to invent stupid gimmicks and rhymes so they remember the material for the next thirty minutes, and hope they get most of it right.

I’m challenging you to write a scene where your character must teach someone who is wildly incapable to do something. The seven year old has to pilot the spaceship. Your ditsy twin must impersonate you in the presidential debate. This idiot must be able to perform surgery immediately.

Necessity is the mother of mnemonics.

Have fun.

Writing Prompt #20: Out of Character

Write about character trying to respect and honor someone who’s acting some way that’s out of character or unfitting to their position.

The king has dementia. The father is delusional on medicine. Your ship’s captain is making a decision you know he would say is wrong. The girl he loves is drunk. What are you going to do? How do you respect someone when they’re drooling, crazy, or doing something wrong?

Find a way to honor them right where they are.

Writing Prompt #19: Perspectives

I was in one of my college classes waiting for the teacher, and this one kinda airy girl said her cell phone wasn't working, but "I guess it could be worse." And one of the soldiers in the room said, conversationally, "Yeah. You could wake up without both your legs." And she said, "That would be weird,” ...and kind of giggled.

What for him was a part of normal life, for her was something out of a Dr. Seuss book. The people in our class were from very different worlds.

I'm challenging you to write a scene with people from two very different backgrounds and perspectives, and find a way for them to work together. A little patience with people who don’t understand us and a little respect for what we don’t know can go a long way.

Writing Prompt #18: Unseasonal Wardrobe

Put a character in unseasonal attire, be it a winter coat in August, a tank top in a snow storm, or a Christmas sweater in May.

Writing Prompt #17: Moving On

Mourning is complicated and confusing. Many cultures have guidelines that are understood, and you know what to wear, how to act, and how long until life should go back to normal (for instance, the practice of "sitting Shiva.") But in America, it isn't like that. Expectations are amorphous, and sometimes you don't know if you're allowed to mourn at all.

My challenge is the following: write a character who is mourning something that is not a person.

Bonus points if their personal mourning process includes singing, goblins or machine guns.

Writing Prompt #16: Changing the Venue

In the last post we talked about how fun and necessary it is to have a big showdown with the villain. I’m challenging you to find a new venue for this event.

Find something weird, be it a convenience store or a park fountain or the children’s section of the local library and then create a story so that this venue is meaningful.

Writing Prompt 15: Trash Talk

In the last post about hero vs. villain showdowns we mentioned David and Goliath. There’s one aspect of this story I think a lot of people miss: it features some serious trash talking.

These two guys are about to fight to the death and they start by insulting each other’s gods and “when I’m through with you-”

Goliath: Am I a dog that you’re sending little boys with sticks? Come here and I'll give your flesh to the wild animals.

David: I'm going to feed your carcass to the birds. I'm going to cut off your head with your sword. And then I'll hand over the bodies of your army to be eaten by vultures.

Okay, yes, I left out the famous section, but often we get so caught up in the part that delineates the differences between the two champions that we miss the part where David says he’s going to cut off Goliath’s head and feed him to the buzzards.

Your prompt: write a face-off between two majorly different opponents…and write EPIC trash-talk to start it off.

And if you're stuck, the example from above can be found at http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1%20Samuel%2017:42-47&version=NIV

Writing Prompt #14: Showdown

One crucial part of making an ending satisfying is that big showdown with the villain. We love the David and Goliath drag-out where two really different people meet face to face, communicate their differences and fight winner-take-all.  That’s why in films, even if the enemy is something big and amorphous like racism or a giant bureaucratic government, there will be one particular character to give evil a face, so we can smash it.

I am challenging you to create a giant, satisfying face-off, between ideas, using a flawed hero and an attractive villain.

Hardest prompt yet? Why yes. You're welcome.

Writing Prompt #13: Enclosed Spaces

Conflict is often exacerbated when you can’t get away from it.

There are lots of enclosed spaces in the world: elevators, lifeboats, janitor’s closets, the roofs of sky-scrapers. Take two characters who don’t want to be together and TRAP them.

Writing Prompt #12: A break from habit (throwing dishes)

Write a scene where a character is making an effort to respond differently than he normally would to an emotional situation.

What is the situation, why is he fighting his nature to do things differently, and how can you play the cards make it even harder? (Judith Weston acting trick: has this ever happened before?)

***

If you’re stuck, here are some ways that a person (say, you) could modify their behavior:

Controlling your temper when you usually snap

Being really polite when you normally would laugh at this jerk, or bite his head off

Paying attention to what this person is saying when normally this is a person you ignore or shut up or move away from

Speaking your mind instead of clamming up

Keeping your mouth shut instead of mouthing off

Not giving orders, when you’re used to solving problems with mandates

Avoiding being violent, when usually you throw people through walls

Plunging into being violent when normally you are that sweet listener

Respecting boundaries instead of  bulldozing over people

When you're normally self-contained, throwing things.

A character making a pre-meditated decision ahead of time to throw things, that’s exciting to me. But I’m always a sucker for the story where the person really wants to be sensitive and massively bungles the thing.

I hope you have fun.  

 

Writing Prompt #11: Dissecting Nick Jr.

Today I challenged myself to take the concepts of little kids shows and break them down into component pieces, and my favorite study I’ve made was Blues Clues.

What if Blue was a little girl who refused to talk? Look at the ridiculous lengths her brother is going to in order to make her feel safe and the crazy games he’ll play in order to understand and listen to her. “Yes, I’ll pretend you’re a puppy and all the furniture can talk and I will play really time-consuming games with you, because this is the way you reach out to me, and I am going to listen. Because being here for you is more important than college or a job or a girlfriend or whatever else I could be doing right now. I am going to live in this crazy, brightly-colored talking world of yours until you’re ready to come home into mine, because I love you.”

 I am challenging you to write a story or a scene or a sequence focusing on the lengths someone will go to in order to understand or connect with a child…or some other person who is difficult to reach.

Writing Prompt #10: About the Ink

A character has a really strange tattoo- what's the story behind it and how did he get it?

Writing Prompt #9: Strangling Tinkerbell

Fairies exist! Now explain why you want to kill all of them.

Writing Prompt #8: CAPTCHA's; prove your humanity

I’ve been struggling with CAPTCHA’s trying to post links on a website, and it is pathetic. I cannot prove that I am not a computer.

And that gives me an idea. Write a scene where a character must prove his identity without ID…or must prove that he is, in fact, human.

Writing Prompt #7: Totem

When I was a kid, I wore a rock on a piece of yarn around my neck for more than a year because it made me feel safe.

Create a totem for a character and the history behind it…and write a scene in which they give it up.

If you’re stuck, here are some possible items:

A guitar pick
A ring from a gumball machine
The paper slip from a fortune cookie
A plastic watch

A friendship bracelet           
A scrunchy

A bullet
A lock of hair
A photograph
A ticket stub
A clay bead
A rock with a face on it
A tooth

Writing Prompt #6: Bad Self-Help

I am an enormous Schlock Mercenary fan, and one of the running gags in the strip is Howard Taylor’s “The Seventy Maxims of Maximally Effective Mercenaries” (link below).

http://schlockmercenary.wikia.com/wiki/The_Seventy_Maxims_of_Maximally_Effective_Mercenaries

I am challenging you to either take one of Howard Taylor’s maxims from the link above and create a story around it, or to create a wacky self-help franchise of you own…and a character that really lives by it.

Writing Prompt #5: When I was a boy...

I’ve always loved listening to older people, so here’s my challenge to you: create a “when I was a boy” story, but set it in an alternate world, another time period or a really weird circumstance.

If you're stuck: "When I was a boy...

-we didn't invite vampires to lunch; we invited them to duels."


-we ate our mammoth and you never heard one of us complain."

-the pirates were a hundred times worse."

-no one had heard of a wormhole."

Writing Prompt #4: a break with normal

I'm posting tomorrow's prompt early, because I'll be too busy Saturday. (See? One follower and already mega-responsible.)

In the last post, I mentioned rudeness in grocery stores. Where I live, people avoid eye-contact in public and work to ignore each other in produce aisles, dairy sections and just about all public places. When someone purposefully talks to you, even just to ask you where the bread is, it makes a big impression.

Think about what the normal, acceptable behavior is in some arena of your public life, and then create a character with a motive to break your unspoken rules.

And if you’re ever in my grocery store, feel free to say hi. I’ll direct you to the bread.

Writing Prompt #3: Monologues for Evil

The best villains are the ones that almost convince us that they're right. Write a monologue putting forward a viewpoint you heavily disagree with. Like, the government should control reproduction, or smoking is good for you, or people should always be rude in grocery stores.

Writing Prompt #2: Communal Fridge

The article in the last post mentioned that you should label your squirrel brains if you have a communal fridge. Write a scene where someone finds something abnormal in the fridge...and explain what it's doing there.

Writing Prompt #1: Squirrel Brains

I was looking for a name for this blog and I came across this article.

http://www.lifesongadventures.com/2007/10/how-to-brain-tan-a-squirrel/

The author is explaining how to take a squirrel that was hit by a car and turn it into a wee soft furry rug to “honor the animal.” One of the steps given is rubbing the pelt with the included squirrel brains.

Grossed-out, fascinated and ready for your prompt? Find a how-to for something foreign to you (or use this one) and write a scene where the action is important to your main character, whether it’s a center of conflict, a sacred ritual, or a triumph.

And mad props if you’re now really tempted to make a squirrel rug.