Disturbing the priest

Disturbing the priest

What's a warm up?

Playing against type

Take your favorite characters (2 or 3 should do it, your own or someone else's) and cast them in a scene from a very atmospheric genre. Then pick another. Do 3 all together.

Do the characters adapt themselves well or do they feel awkward?

Some ideas for genres:

noir detective
pirates
wizards
British period piece
alien invasion
monster in the house
buddy cops
zombie apocalypse
high school drama
space explorers
bodice buster
superhero or superhero team
Disney fairy tale
Christmas story

Be as florid as you wish :-)

Perfect gentleman

Perfect gentleman

What's a warm up?

"But words are things ..."

Ministry of saints

Ministry of saints

What's a warm up?

Lost antiquities

Sad Herakles before he was returned home to Turkey :-(

"Artifacts, just like people, animals or plants, have souls and historical memories," said Turkey’s culture minister, Ertugrul Gunay."When they are repatriated to their countries, the balance of nature will be restored." (Actual quote.)

So what happens if the antiquities don't get to go home? Can the antiquities influence people? Their environment? Do the other antiquities around them that are in their home lands feel for them?

Does time pass slowly for them or at the same rate as for humans?

What if their "historical memory" isn't a pleasant one?

What if the home they are returned to no longer feels like home?

If they have souls, do they have their own gods?

Don't stop being crazy

Don't stop being crazy

What's a warm up?

"Let's get one thing clear ..."

The Healer

The Healer

What's a warm up?

Marriage Survives a Decapitation

Marriage Survives a Decapitation ...

Before you scroll down take a minute to brainstorm some ideas on what the story is behind that headline. Unlike the New York Times, you're not limited to reality. It opens up all sorts of possibilities.

And yet ... if you are limited to reality, what could the story be? Limitations can create even greater exercise for the brain.

Done?

If you're ready for the teaser intro to the article, scroll past the Black Knight Kitty, who managed to lose everything but his head.

"She is a retired New York City correction officer with a job at a security firm. He is a convicted drug dealer from Brooklyn who has admitted and denied — in that order — cutting off a stranger’s head with a chain saw. Nobody said marriage would be easy."

The rest of the article is at Marriage Survives Decapitation. The article brings the headline down into the realm of possible and yet still maintains that level of, "You can't make this stuff up!"

Master of shadows

Master of shadows

What's a warm up?

"The muscles of writing ..."

Foreclosure of a dream

Foreclosure of a dream

What's a warm up?

Jar Jar Re-Jarred

Imagine you could replace Jar Jar in Star Wars with another comic relief character. Write the scene where Qui-Gon Jinn and Obi-Wan Kenobi first meet him or her. Then their escape from the Federation troops up through meeting with Queen Amidala in Theed.

Dweller in the cellar

Dweller in the cellar

What's a warm up?

"The cat sat on the mat ..."

12 Tips on Creating an Engaging Flawed Hero

Stock by cherrybomb-81

12 Tips on Creating an Engaging Flawed Hero

1. Flawed — But not just any flaw. A flaw that the reader can see prevents her from getting what she needs to be a better person. Instantly you've created a problem the reader hopes the Hero will be able to solve.
   
   
2. Passionate about what they do — It's often why villains are so appealing: they love what they do! Even if he's selfishly motivated to solve a problem, if he's passionate, he's engaging. Like Sherlock and House.

   
   
3. An admirable value — Duty, honor, dedication to family. There's something to admire amidst the thorns.
   
   
4. Compassion towards those weaker — also called "Save the cat" or "Pet the dog."
   
   
5. Important to someone or something else — a flower in an abandoned lot, a broken winged bird, a dying language, a small child.
   
   
6. "Grit" — no matter the obstacle, she's determined.
   
   
7. "Wit" — Humor that, though barbed, is insightful not mean spirited.
   
   
8. "It"* — sex appeal, charm.
   
   
9. Undeserved misfortune** — Not just misfortune but undeserved. The Hero isn't as bad as life is treating him.
   
   
10. Vulnerable but determined not to let others see weakness — Others may mistake this as pretense, until the Hero's handicap or misfortune is revealed.
    
    
11. Circumstances that make unpleasant behavior understandable — Release from prison, death of a loved one.
    
    
12. Quirk — What is it about quirks that humanizes people? It also makes the character more memorable.

© Joyce Fetteroll 2012

* "Grit, wit and it." James Scott Bell, The Art of War for Writers.
** "Undeserved misfortune." Jeffrey Alan Schechter, My Story Can Beat Up Your Story!

Royal death

Royal death

What's a warm up?

Voices from the past

Picture your character growing up hearing one of these phrases until it has become truth to them. Holding this truth has allowed them to get what they wanted in life, but now it feels like there's something missing. They need something more, but don't know what it is.

How has it shaped their life? Their choice of profession? Friends? Spouse?

Where and what has it gotten them in life?

What is missing? What opportunity might spark their interest to step out of their comfortable life?"

Write the opening scene. (It doesn't, of course, need to be contemporary. Any genre you want.)

"Bigger is better."
"You are just like your (brother, mother, etc)."
"Why can't you be smart like .."
"Don't fight."
"It's all just luck."
"Only weak people forgive."
"Work hard and you deserve the best."
"Quitters never win and winners never quit."
"Don't waste money on frivolous things."
"Don't show your pain."
"Family comes first."
"You won't have any friends if you are different."
"For a smart person you have no common sense."
"We are all sinners."

Angel witch

Angel witch

What's a warm up?

"Brave, strong people ..."

Space eater

Space eater

What's a warm up?

Dead end

Celesta is the first vampire to rise to fame for real talent, not just for being a vampire. But now she's famous for being dead. Again. For reals this time.

But who did it? Was she killed for being the person she is or for being a vampire?

Was it her manager who was in love with her?

Was it her mother who never could accept her becoming a vampire?

Was it her brother who wanted her to turn him into a vampire?

Was it the fan who had been sending her increasingly disturbing messages and packages.

Was it someone else?

Black magic woman

Black magic woman

What's a warm up?

"Everything in life ..."

Idiot of the sea

Idiot of the sea

What's a warm up?

Isn't it ironic?

It's ironic lamentable that it's often not ironic!

Poor irony, it's losing its meaning because even people who understand it find it hard to articulate what it is. What passes for irony is often Murphy's Law in action: If the worst can happen it will. And other interpretations. (A good site is Is It Ironic? where you can vote on whether a situation is ironic or not.)

Dictionary definition: Incongruity between what might be expected and what actually occurs.

Simpler: When what happens isn't in keeping with what's expected to happen.

So, for story purposes, a hyperactive librarian, a direction-challenged taxi driver, an ex-line backer child-care provider, a vegetarian werewolf, are all ironic combinations. The two are not just unexpected, but one half would seem to prevent it from coming together with the other.

A dramatic expansion on the definition might be: Irony is when a character's effort to avoid a situation then causes that situation to happen.

I don't know if the "effort to move away then leading to" is necessary for something to be ironic, but it creates tension and conflict which are always good for stories!


Another, harder to picture at first, but more obvious when you get it: When mutually inclusive factors bring mutually exclusive factors together.

The bullied would avoid the bully but what if the bullied became principal and the bully became a father of -- to add further irony -- the valedictorian? The tow truck that shows up to pull the car full of Young Republicans out of the ditch is driven by a gay black woman.


For the following character types (including the 4 listed in the first paragraph), set up situations such that the character's choices (a one time choice or a lifetime of choices) creates the expectation that something won't happen, but then a choice of theirs causes that thing to happen.

To add extra irony, choose personality flaws and values that are the opposite of what's expected. Check Chaotic Shiny's Motive generator and Death Quaker's Big List of Merits and Flaws for ideas if you need them.

What situation would make this person feel like a fish out of water?

What skills and beliefs of the character would be challenged by the new situation?

What choices might such a character normally make -- like getting married, job searching, going to religious services, having a child -- that might, ironically, cause them to end up in this situation?

What could the character want that might unexpectedly connect to this situation, thus forcing the character to deal with it?

Psychic
Reporter
Monk
Detective
Drummer
Demon hunter
Priest
Woodworker
Army grunt
Peacekeeper
Ninja
Warlord
Translator
Fashion designer

---

A couple more common forms of irony used in stories:

Verbal irony: Saying the opposite of what's meant. If the intent is to disparage someone, then it's sarcasm.

Dramatic irony: When a character expects the situation to be one way, but the reader knows more and is aware the character's expectations won't be met.

Karn evil 9

Karn evil 9

What's a warm up?

"All stories are about ..."

Dream healer

Dream healer

What's a warm up?

Average Jim

From Frontiers in Perception Science

Jim Smith is an ordinary man living an ordinary life. He is 5' 10.2". He weighs 177.9 pounds. He earned last year, rounded to the nearest dollar, $46,326. He has 2 children (rounded to the nearest child.) Amazingly, even though no one considered race as a factor, he is 3/4 Caucasian, 1/8 African American and 1/8 Hispanic. He is an average American. He is so average, in fact, he's unique.

Once he's identified, the media descends on him and he's no longer living an ordinary life. While the media frenzy lasts only as long as such frenzies do, he is now known to everyone in town and a week doesn't go by when someone doesn't want a picture with him or want to interview him.

He becomes so representatively average of regular people in the minds of his fellow townsfolk, he's elected mayor. While the salary is more than the average, he says he'll only accept the average American salary. Which endears him even more.

Jim watches his weight. (He even double checked on that vasectomy he'd had two years before.) Then at his yearly check up the doctor gives him the horrific news: he's shrunk. He's 5' 9.9". This is perfectly normal, his doctor reassures him. Everyone shrinks with age.

But, no, this is terrible! He's no longer the most average man in America! He'd lived his whole life being so average no one noticed him. Which he thought he had been okay with. But now he realizes how great it was to be unique.

So what does Jim do? Does he find a way to be unique again or does he come to accept that being just average average is okay?

---

There's a book about such a search The Average American: The Extraordinary Search for the Nation's Most Ordinary Citizen. :-)

"A great writer reveals ..."

Eat the rich

Eat the rich

What's a warm up?

The graying of gamers

Write the dialog between these guys.

Who are they? Are they brothers returned to their childhood home?

Is this 40 years in the future where they've gotten together to play video games like they used to? Are they grousing about the current depraved state of games (played on holodecks most likely!) and gamers?

Do they have unresolved issues from the last time they played that the gaming brings out?

Occasion Avenue

Occasion Avenue

What's a warm up?

"Stories are all about ..."

Background image by Anne Geddes

Letter to my back door friend

Letter to my back door friend

What's a warm up?

No one goes to Tula with his own samovar.

Two choices. Come up with a definition for each of these rather cryptic proverbs. Or let them inspire a character who sprinkles their speech with these pearls of wisdom.

They are all actual Russian proverbs, translated literally from Russian. These are just the ones I whittled the list down to! :-) There are more in the comments. The link above provides the original proverbs, the literal translation as well as the English meaning. (I've copied it to the comments too in case the site disappears.)

The quieter you go - the further you'll be.
The casket opened simply
God won't give it away, pigs won't eat it
Written with a pitchfork on water.
There is no truth in feet.
Elder-berry is in the kitchen-garden, and Uncle is in Kiev.
Legs (feet) feed the wolf.
No one goes to Tula with his own samovar.
The devil puts a spoonful of honey into anothers' wife.
Hunger is not your aunt, it won't bring you a pie
Health leaves in poods, but comes in zolotniks.
Both cheap and angry.
The turkey was also thinking, but ended up in the soup.
A kopeck saves the ruble, and the ruble guards your head
You can't forbid living beautifully.
It makes chicken laugh.
Love's evil, you'll love even a goat.
One son is not a son, two sons are half a son, three sons are a son.
Cat will get a downpour of mice's tears
The feather of a falcon and the inside of a crow.
Poor dancer is impeded (even) by his own balls.
You are close to the business, but he is  about a white goat.
Fear has large eyes.
He lives well, whose Grandma tells fortunes.
May be naked, but right
What is good to the Russian, is death to the German

Pleasure drone

Pleasure drone

What's a warm up?

"After nourishment ..."

Rattlesnake shake

Rattlesnake shake

What's a warm up?

A Cluster of Cliches

Take one of the cliche plots and brainstorm as many twists and off the wall approaches as you can.

• The princess has been kidnapped and must be rescued.
• A boy and girl from families who are mortal enemies, fall in love.
• Character wakes up with amnesia.
• Two characters who hate each other, must work together for a common goal.
• A character is granted 3 wishes.
• Characters dare each other to spend the night in the "haunted" house.
• It's revealed the character is "the Chosen One."
• An inheritance stipulates the heir must do accomplish something that's counter to their nature within a year or they don't get the inheritance.
• A character has sold his soul to the devil, and now it's time to pay up.
• Au unpleasant character is visited by ghosts from Christmas Past, Present and Future.
• Character has prophetic dreams.
• One character meets their perfect match, but the perfect match is in love with the wrong person.
• The relative from hell moves in for a couple of weeks.
• A ghost has some unfinished business.
• Character is imbued with superpowers or a destiny when all they want is to be normal.
• Aliens want to take over Earth.
• Two brothers, one ruthless and one principled, are in competition with each other.
• The "monster" who is trying to be good.
• Santa Clause can't deliver the presents this year.
• The character has been hidden and his evil twin has taken his place.
• Character wakes up (from spell, from cryosleep, etc.) 100 years in the future. (Or past.)
• Character must go into the past to stop something from happening.
• The ultimate evil has been unleashed.
• The Search for the Holy Grail.
• The Search for eternal life.
• Characters get shrunk to bug size.
• Characters need to be shrunk to bug size to accomplish something.
• The parent/spouse you thought was dead is actually alive.
• The aliens can take on human form and are secretly among us.
• Character is yanked into the past with a head full of modern knowledge.
• "Angel" must redeem himself on Earth to get back into Heaven.
• A period of time keeps repeating until the character gets "it" "right".
• Bodies of two very different people get swapped.
• Sucked into a video game.
• Modern person sucked into a fantasy world.
• Imaginary friend no one else can see isn't imaginary.
• The "prince" and the "pauper" switch places.
• The ugly duckling must be turned into a swan before the time is up.
• We want our town back!
• Long lost love has returned.

Devil's swing

Devil's swing

What's a warm up?

'Writers write because ..."

Slumming angel

Slumming angel

What's a warm up?

Combining senses

Try combining smell, taste and touch words with sound or speech words. See what kind of attention perking images you can come up with .... a gingery drawl, a raw sigh, crisp chatter ...

SMELL	TASTE	TOUCH	SOUND	SPEECH
sweet balmy earthy rotten fishy scented spicy piney reeking fragrant sharp tempting spoiled moldy perfumed fresh pungent sickly	oily bittersweet crisp fruity overripe buttery hearty ripe tangy burnt salty mellow bland raw gingery bitter sugary sour hot peppery	cool spongy mushy thick hot thin fuzzy crisp slippery satiny icy soft rubbery elastic feathery tough silky sandy oily waxy furry tender woolly wet gritty rough smooth warm dry prickly furry damp steamy velvety sharp fleshy dull hairy leathery sticky	sigh growl bump smash bark clink murmur crash thump rasp roar mute whisper thud boom clash blare still whir pitter-patter thunder jamble racket hush rustle thwap bang bawl bleat hubbub	stutter screech whisper stammer snort whimper giggle bellow talk laugh chatter speak sing murmur drawl

---

From Rip the Page!: Adventures in Creative Writing by Karen Benke. A hundred ideas honed in workshops at schools for playing with words, with examples from kids. The exercises are nterspersed with pep talks from writers, many of them children's writers. You can tell she's a poet since her word lists are luscious :-D

Shout at the devil

Shout at the devil

What's a warm up?

"An author in his book ..."

Riot in the dungeons

Riot in the dungeons

What's a warm up?

Mix and Match

Get in the habit of finding, gathering and generating story ideas. Write them down in a notebook. (Or a couple of notebooks kept in places where you often get ideas. Or your smart phone.) Save them for when you need them.

Go to Mix-and-Match Game. Click on Generate Character. Make that character the best at this, the ultimate expression: the most charming, the most faithful, most mysterious, the most whatever. Set a timer for 5 minutes and crank out a story idea. (Dr. Wicked's Write or Die, in the blog's sidebar, can come in handy for this.)

Do this 2 more times.

This is one of the exercises from My Story Can Beat Up Your Story! by Jeffrey Alan Schechter. He walks you through ten steps to ramp up your ideas into compelling story telling.

Every story has a central question that, when answered definitively yes or no, signals the story is over. Each question has 3 parts, a physical part that many people care about (kill Dracula), an emotional part that characters closest to the hero care about (win the love of the most recently turned vampire wife) and a spiritual part that the hero cares about (regain his self-respect).

What three goals could your most confused wedding planner or most frantic princess want more than anything? Goals that, if not achieved, would doom him or the world to actual or virtual death?

Deviantly roving ROCKS

The mystery of Sailing Stones (and for the mystery revealed, click the picture)

For this deviant description, you can mention the rock, since moving rocks are pretty deviant themselves.

For the rest, deviantly describe the scene without using the names of the objects. Dig into what objects look and feel like rather than telling what they are.

Capture the senses' experience. What does it feel like to your whole body? Does it get inside your clothes? Does it get inside you? What does it smell like? Taste like? Sound like?

Go further and find a mood or personality of the place and let those inspire the descriptive words you choose.

Try unexpected adjectives and vivid verbs. For example, svelt, sleek, oozing, crouching aren't words normally associated with places, but can create fresh images.

"The unread story .."

The three gods of purification

The three gods of purification

What's a warm up?

In stereo

Eric Myer stereotype shuffler

Create a list of 12 stereotypical characters each doing something stereotypical.

Cut them up, shuffle them to create new combinations of people doing unexpected things. Pick 3 of your favorites and explore their interactions.

Try mixing fantasy with mundane stereotypes. If your brain is stuck on ethnic or racial stereotypes, I've posted a list of professions and preferences that often get stereotyped in the comments. There's also a massive List of Stereotypes by country (probably once at the Uncyclopedia). (If the list disappears, it's preserved at List of Stereotypes (copy).)

(Needed a quickie since my daughter and sister are visiting. But I rather like it! Sometimes simple is best. :-)

Stoned in the temple

Stoned in the temple

What's a warm up?

"The role of a writer ..."

Flight of the rat

Flight of the rat

What's a warm up?

Two guys and a shop

These guys have opened up a shop in your small town. It quickly becomes popular with the locals

So, what's the shop? Is it popular with a broad cross section? Or to a segment of the population? Which segment? Who are they and how do they manage to be accepted despite being comfortably outside the norm?

Roland the headless Thompson gunner

Roland the headless Thompson gunner

What's a warm up?

"A writer needs ..."