Writing Prompt #226: Excluding Him

Your character wants to leave someone out. Why?

Writing Prompt #225: Lists

I have a to-do list as long as my arm, so of course I'm working on this blog.

Make a list the center of a problem.

Writing Prompt #224: Soiled

My hands are speckled with spray paint, and my fingers are inspired. Someone has a fancy or important meeting with other human beings, whether a party or a business meeting or a date, but their skin and/or clothing is somehow stained, splattered, soiled or tainted. Can they get the substance out? Can they carry it off?

Writing Prompt #223: Improvise

Someone doesn't have an object that they need for a task. Make them improvise.

Writing Prompt #222: Off-Kilter Cuisine

People put together a celebratory meal with strange components under strange conditions.

Writing Prompt #221: Dressing Up

Someone takes extra steps to look nice.

Writing Prompt #220: Gourmand

Someone appreciates food.

Writing Prompt #219: Persistent Motion

Someone continues to function after the destruction of a hope.

Or, if this is too dark for you and today you need something happy (I can relate), a child gives someone a flower.

Writing Prompt #218: Off-Topic

Two people talk about one thing, but they're really talking about something else.

Writing Prompt #217: Tracing Faces

Someone memorizes a face.

Writing Prompt #216: Begin Again

Someone restarts something they failed, doing something differently.

Writing Prompt #215: Misinterpretation

I recently had a very awkward (do not read "singing in elevator" level but instead "vomiting on plane" level) situation at a friend's house. Someone asked me a question that I could not answer. I gaped like a fish, totally incapable of responding, and then I stuttered in bad old English, and then I rambled and said things wrong. It was awful, but not really because of what happened. Because of the way I interpreted the reaction of my friend.

I read his silence as doubt about my answer. I read the tension in his jaw and his averted eyes as him being embarrassed by me. I thought that I'd embarrassed disappointed my friend and that maybe he didn't even know me.

And I was wrong. As we talked afterwards I found out I'd been wrong about everything. As I'd thought he was misjudging me, I was misjudging him.

Write about someone who misinterprets someone's feelings. Show us both sides of the story, at the same time or in separate viewpoints. Show us how easy it is to be wrong.

I know I will be working not to make the same mistake again.

Writing Prompt #214: I LOVE YOU!!

Someone says "I love you" at a weird time.

The weirdest I've experienced involved a LOT of fecal matter, but it was immensely memorable.

Writing Prompt #213: Not Alone

Today, someone cleared their throat and I realized that I was not singing in an empty elevator.

Write a scene where someone thinks they're alone, but they're not.

Writing Prompt #212: Remembrance

Today a gentleman led me around his house showing me the memorabilia of his recently deceased mother. He was so happy and proud to display her ceramic fish, her pictures and her dolls. He'd made a place in his home to remember her.

How does your character remember someone who's gone? How do you hold on to what is dear, while moving forward?

Writing Prompt #211: Commonplace

The things I remember are almost always the big moments- production days and meetings with friends and big, shining, crazy challenges that were overcome. But when I look at most of my life, all of that exciting stuff happens because I spend lots and lots of time pulling things out and putting them in bags. And pulling them out of bags and putting them away. And over and over and over this dull, methodical work fills the interstitial spaces and lets me do what's big.

Can you write a good scene about what's interstitial? Can you make us see the importance, the value and the grace in what is mundane?

I hope you can. Because I want to value these scenes in my life, too.

Writing Prompt #210: Beat to the Punch

Your hero has a goal, and then finds out someone already accomplished it.

Now what?

Writing Prompt #209: Shockingly Good

Someone has pure intentions.

Yeah, this is usually a shocking reveal along the lines of "Wait, you're a space alien, a fairy and a Russian spy?"

I'm challenging you, though! Think about what a character with really pure intentions would be like. What opportunities for easy evil would they pass up? What good would they do that was unexpected?

I'm not saying build a sinless character, but think about your life. When you meet someone who actually does things because he cares about people and enjoys them instead of having ulterior motives all the time, it's like meeting the tooth fairy.

Writing Prompt #208: Breach of Etiquette

Someone responds to a breach of etiquette.

It can be an offense against the character himself, or someone around him.

Suggestions:

1. Spitting.

2. Picking up someone's stuff and moving it without acknowledging them.

3. Mopping at someone with a handkerchief. (Don't do this. You hand them the handkerchief. Mopping at a person entirely negates the chivalry and you look churlish. I mean, people forgive you because they love you, but it makes it harder for their friends to love you because it's very easy to see your action as an assault.)

4. Inviting yourself to someone's date.

5. Eating someone's food.

Writing Prompt #207: Missed Metaphor

Yesterday I had a conversation that went like this:

"And then they decided I was a leper."

"THEY THOUGHT YOU HAD LEPROSY? D:"

"...no. ._."

Someone takes a statement too literally.

Writing Prompt #206: Motivation Questioned

Someone is doing the right thing for the wrong reason.

Writing Prompt #205: Inconvenient

In the middle of doing something high-stakes and time-sensitive, your character is called on to keep a promise.

Writing Prompt #204: Laurel Rejected

Someone receives an award or an honor that they don't want.

Writing Prompt #203: Togetherness

Write about a family-bonding exercise.

Writing Prompt #202: Child-Unfriendly

Someone prepares a child for a conflict or a danger.

Writing Prompt #201: Shielding

Someone hides a weakness.

Writing Prompt #200: A Look at Evil

Have you ever met something that repulsed you? A level of spitefulness or deception or opportunism or lack of regard that was so gross that you wanted to get away, no, you wanted to destroy it, but you couldn't do that, so you wanted it to go as far away as it could and never come back?

What do you do when repulsive evil is attached to someone you are told is valuable? What do you do when what you hate is riding someone you are supposed to love?

Make us repulsed by evil. Then show us how your character deals with the person.

Writing Prompt #199: Gifted

A friend recently told me that she was going to purchase me a family photo. To this end, she had taken a picture of herself with me, one of my siblings and one of my parents, and she was going to take it to a store and they were going to make a large print and put it in a frame, so I could display it in my living room and in my office. She asked me, with glowing eyes, if I had ever had a family photo before.

Pick something odd or out of place or broken. Write a story where it's a heart-felt gift.

Writing Prompt #198: Unreliable Narrator (micro)

You might be familiar with the concept of an unreliable narrator- the idea that the person telling a story is lying or is himself blinded to the truths of his story. I'd like you to take this idea into the micro. Someone is telling your character a story, but for whatever reason, their take on things is unreliable- and your character knows it.

If you want to take this one step further from cliche, make the unreliability a result of limited intellect or emotional recollection instead of malice.

Writing Prompt #197: Victory

Have a character slam-dunk win at something.

Writing Prompt #196: Delicate Balance

How do you protect an underling from a superior? Make your character defend someone under him from someone who holds power over him.

Writing Prompt #195: Alternate History

My sister and I got into a debate today about how our lives would be different if the Americas had been colonized by Poland instead of Spain. While we discussed religion and geography and politics, we ultimately decided that Dora the Explorer would be a lot more complicated.

Your challenge for today is: Pick something in your past, or the past of the world at large, and change it. What's different? Write.