Inyi

What's he thinking? What's he been up to? What's he contemplating doing?

Is this everyday dress for his people? Is it for a special occasion?

(When you're done, you can click on the picture to see where it came from.)

"Writing has made me rich ..."

Book curse

Your story will be working toward your character finding the following written on the inside cover of a book:

"For him that stealeth a book from this library, let it change into a serpent in his hand and rend him. Let him be struck with palsy and all his members blasted. Let him languish in pain crying aloud for mercy and let there be no surcease to his agony till he sink to dissolution. Let bookworms gnaw his entrails in token of the worm that dieth not, and when at last he goeth to his final punishment, let the flames of hell consume him for ever and aye."

Where your story begins is with a corpse that has died in agony. Your character is the town's investigator. (The setting can be any time or place, real or imagined.) But what has caused the death? Is it some weird disease? The first incidence of a plague? Some tortured contract killing? Are curses known in your world but this is something far more powerful?

Are there more killings? Why have they begun now?

When you find the curse, why was it written? Was it a joke? Was one book magical that turned a joke real?

If your writing takes you in a different direction than the book, that's great too :-) You might find an even better answer to the unusual death. Sometimes writing does that :-)

(In the Middle Ages, books were protected by curses. The above came from the Monastery of San Pedro in Barcelona. You see that one and several others at Book Curses. Pages on the internet are ephemeral, unlike the above curse, so if that link sinks to dissolution, just search on the beginning of the curse and you'll find plenty of protection for your books.)

Cwm glyphs

The shortest sentence in English which uses all 26 letters is only 26 letters long:

Cwm, fjord-bank glyphs vext quiz.

Pretty clever! Except it needs translation so maybe not high on the communication end ;-)

"The carved symbols in the mountain hollow at the edge of the fjord irritated an eccentric person."

So why was he or she vexed? Why were the symbols carved around the hollow? What were they?

There's lots of carving going on. Did the glaciers or some powerful being carve the symbols along with the hollow and the fjord?

(A cwm (pronounced coom, in Welsh the w is a "double u") is a steep bowl-shaped mountain basin; a fjord is long, narrow inlet with steep sides; vext is another form of vexed; quiz is an eccentric person. Inspired by Wordsmith.org and The Straight Dope.)


Can you read the glyph in the image or does it vex you? Click the picture for another clue. If you're still stumped, click here.

"One of the really bad things ..."

100 sentence challenge

For each word or phrase write a sentence about one of your characters, old or new.

A few ways to use this (some tend to generate more than a sentence):

• I've used the word to prompt a thought from me about the character.
  
• I've let the character respond to an interviewer's question containing that word. I didn't even make up the question. The character "heard" an appropriately probing question, to which they often crafted a lie for the interviewer ;-)
  
• Brandilyn Collins in Getting into Character suggests acting as a psychologist and have your character respond to probing questions under hypnosis. That could be adapted to this and prevent the character from lying. ;-)
• A list member used the word in a sentence or bit of dialogue that might fit into her current story.

1. Introduction
2. Love
3. Light
4. Dark
5. Seeking Solace
6. Break Away
7. Heaven
8. Innocence
9. Drive
10. Breathe Again
11. Memory
12. Insanity
13. Misfortune
14. Smile
15. Silence
16. Questioning
17. Blood
18. Rainbow
19. Gray
20. Fortitude
21. Vacation
22. Mother Nature
23. Cat
24. No Time
25. Trouble Lurking
26. Tears
27. Foreign
28. Sorrow
29. Happiness
30. Under the Rain
31. Flowers
32. Night
33. Expectations
34. Stars
35. Hold My Hand
36. Precious Treasure
37. Eyes
38. Abandoned
39. Dreams
40. Rated
41. Teamwork
42. Standing Still
43. Dying
44. Two Roads
45. Illusion
46. Family
47. Creation
48. Childhood
49. Stripes
50. Breaking the Rules
51. Sport
52. Deep in Thought
53. Keeping a Secret
54. Tower
55. Waiting
56. Danger Ahead
57. Sacrifice
58. Kick in the Head
59. No Way Out
60. Rejection
61. Fairy Tale
62. Magic
63. Do Not Disturb
64. Multitasking
65. Horror
66. Traps
67. Playing the Melody
68. Hero
69. Annoyance
70. 67%
71. Obsession
72. Mischief Managed
73. I Can't
74. Are You Challenging Me?
75. Mirror
76. Broken Pieces
77. Test
78. Drink
79. Starvation
80. Words
81. Pen and Paper
82. Can You Hear Me?
83. Heal
84. Out Cold
85. Spiral
86. Seeing Red
87. Food
88. Pain
89. Through the Fire
90. Triangle
91. Drowning
92. All That I Have
93. Give Up
94. Last Hope
95. Advertisement
96. In the Storm
97. Safety First
98. Puzzle
99. Solitude
100. Relaxation

This has been floating around Deviantart for a while, now residing as Variation 1 at 100 Themes Challenge and credited to AngieChild who says she got it elsewhere.

Most people use the themes as art challenges and they're very cool to see!

Irrational eggs

"You know, they're totally irrational and crazy and absurd and - but uh, I guess we keep going through it...because...most of us need the eggs."

The last line of a movie, but work it into your writing piece in some way.

(It helps a lot not to know where the quote came from :-) But when you're done, you can click on the picture and find out.)

"I used to be adjective happy ..."

Twisted description

Describe someone in positive terms but then add a negative twist.

• In a neat strip his hair clung to his head from forehead to shoulders like a beaver tail of soft curls.
• Her cherry lips framed corn yellow teeth that rivaled a horse's.

Also describe someone in negative terms but add a positive twist.

• The wrinkled parchment of his face burst into life with his smile.
• Her fog of thinning hair glowed like dandelion fluff in the sun.

From #161 at Meredith Sue Willis Writing Exercises.

Heart and Soul

"Top 10 things I believe with all my heart and soul."

Okay, I did promise no self reflection in the prompts! But you don't need to use it to dig beneath your dirty (or dull) layers ;-) Use it as a way to generate a real, heartfelt list that, with some tweaking, could be used for a character. Start with ten real ones, and then let them flow.

Though some may be weighty or serious, don't let the prompt limit you. I certainly believe with all my heart and soul that Chocolate Fudge Brownie Ice Cream would beat any other flavor in a wrestling match on my tongue ;-)

When you're done, look over what you've written. Take some directly, tweak some, get inspired by others to go a different direction then craft a character from the variety.

"Always grab the reader ..."

Transported

Take your favorite character and describe their car (or usual mode of transportation).

Is it new or used? Why that particular model? Did they pick the color specifically or just what was available? Where did they buy it?

What's lost under the seat? What's in the trunk? What are the stains on the seat and how did they get there?

What's in the glove compartment? The trunk? The storage area? What's in the back seat?

What's broken and do they intend to fix it?

Do they run it into the ground or is it well maintained?

Has it been modified? To be cool? To be more practical?

What are their rules for passengers?

Bad Penny

"She kept turning up like a bad penny."

We all know the saying refers to something that keeps coming back to you, that you can't get rid of.

But what is a bad penny and why does it want to keep coming back? Who made it? What is its journey like after it leaves you as it's trying to get back? What effect does it have on people (animals? nature?) around it? What happens when it returns?

"We are all apprentices ..."

The argument

Take it at face value.

Or add a fantasy twist. Only the two of them can understand each other? She's a professional donkey whisperer? Boyfriend and girlfriend who've been cursed? Aliens who didn't quite get their disguises right?

Just seven

Write a story in just seven sentences. But not just any seven sentences! Each sentence will play a specific role

This idea is from author Jim Van Pelt who created it for a creative fiction writing class as an exercise in plot:

An Exercise in Plotting: The Seven Sentence Story by Jim Van Pelt

We talked about plot having several components: an inciting moment, rising action, a climax and a denouement. One way to see how a plot can work is to build a plot skeleton, a very short story, stripped of everything except the plot.

To write this kind of story, you are limited to only seven sentences. Each sentence has a specific role.

1. Introduce what the main character wants and the first action he/she takes to accomplish the goal.
2. The results of the action the character takes from sentence 1 has to make the situation worse. The character should be farther from the goal now.
3. Based on the new situation, the character takes a second action to accomplish the goal.
4. The results of the second action the character takes from sentence 3 is to make the situation worse. The character should be even farther from the goal now.
5. Based on the new situation, the character takes a third and final action to accomplish the goal.
6. This third action either accomplishes the character’s goal, fails to accomplish the goal, or there is an unusual but oddly satisfying different result of the last action.
7. The denouement. This sentence wraps the story up. It could tell the reader how the character felt about the results, or provide a moral, or tell how the character’s life continued on.

After his class had a great deal of fun with this, he held a contest. When you're done, you can check out the entries.

"Characters take on life ..."

Only one returned

Three brothers went to war but only one came back.

The obvious explanation is that two were killed. But don't go for the obvious! What else could have happened? And why did the one return?

As usual, it doesn't need to be present day. Past, future, fantasy. It can be three sisters. They don't even need to be human.

---

From a response to "What's Your Favorite Writing Exercise" by Ginny Wiehardt at About Fiction Writing.

Kisses

Moro absolutely adores himself, thinks the world of himself.

In a paragraph, convey Moro's love by describing just his actions, no thoughts.

---

Inspired by #127 in Unjournaling: Daily writing exercises that are Not personal, Not introspective, Not boring! by Dawn DiPrince and Cheryl Miller Thurston.

"I think the first duty of all art ..."

Moony for the moon

Write a love letter to the moon.

Maybe you're a dog or a werewolf or some other creature of the night.

Maybe you've returned from a galactic trip where other moons are lumps of rock. (Our large round moon that perfectly eclipses the sun may actually be quite unusual!)

Maybe it's the moon of your own world and not Earth's your love letter is to.

Maybe the moon is a methaphor for something else you're in love with.

Maybe the moon was a constant in your life when nothing else was.

Maybe the moon was full on several wonderful events in your life.

Maybe you've been Moonstruck :-)

I should have posted this Tuesday when the moon was full but it's just 2 days past. So go check it out :-)

Strip and Knit With Style

The Bookseller has been giving out the Diagram Prize for Oddest Book Title of the Year since 1978.

They deliberately don't look at what the book is about so as not to be influenced by reason and sense. ;-) The titles are being judged on their own merits.

Pick a couple of titles and write a blurb or review of the book the title inspires for you. (Note, if you're doing this with kids, read through the list first so you can make adjustments for your kids' tastes! ;-)

This year's winner: The 2009-2014 World Outlook for 60-Milligram Containers of Fromage Frais

A selection of past years' winners and some nominees:

• The Rape-Sponge Cucumber
• Strip and Knit With Style
• What do Socks do?
• Bombproof Your Horse
• Sex After Death
• Toilets That Make Compost
• All Dogs Have ADHD
• How to Shit in the Woods: An Environmentally Sound Approach to a Lost Art
• The Large Sieve and Its Applications
• Deathing: An Intelligent Alternative for the Final Moments of Life
• A God or a Bench
• Children Are Like Wet Cement
• People Who Don't Know They're Dead: How They Attach Themselves to Unsuspecting Bystanders and What to Do About It
• Malformed Frogs
• Waterproofing Your Child
• Male Genital Organs and Their Improvement
• The Madam as Entrepreneur: Career Management in House Prostitution
• Techniques for Corrosion Monitoring
• The Care and Feeding of Stuffed Animals
• Versailles: The View From Sweden
• The Emotional Life of Contemporary Public Memorials
• Egg Banjos from Around the World
• The Industrial Vagina

"Detail makes the difference ..."

Captive audience

(Click to enlarge)

What conversation do you overhear around this event? Is the child the only one talking? Or are the bears contributing?

Last things first

"But what in the world do they want a trumpet for?"

It's the last line of a movie. But use it as your first line (of a story, poem, play, movie, dialogue ...)

"Writing fiction is ..."

Humoresque

Hippocrates believed moods and behaviors were caused by the balance of four bodily fluids (called humors): blood, yellow bile, black bile, phlegm. During the Renaissance, Shakespeare and other authors based characters on the four humors or temperaments. It's good to have a balance in real life, but for characters it's good to be unbalanced :-)

Come up with some characters based on the four humors. Set them in a situation together and see what happens.

Sanguine (blood, cheerful)

A sanguine person is generally light-hearted, fun-loving, a people person, loves to entertain, spontaneous, leadership abilities, and confident. However they can be arrogant, cocky, and indulgent. They can be day-dreamy and off-task to the point of not accomplishing anything and can be impulsive, possibly acting on whims in an unpredictable fashion.

The temperament is associated with the season of spring, the qualities of warm and moist, the element of air. Various modern equivalents are: artisan, improvisor, artistic, innovative, changeable.

Synonyms: cheerful, confident, optimistic, assured, hopeful, buoyant, in good heart

Choleric (yellow bile, enthusiastic)

A choleric person is a doer. They have a lot of ambition, energy, and passion, and try to instill it in others. They can dominate people of other temperaments, especially phlegmatic types. Many great charismatic military and political figures were cholerics. On the negative side, they are easily angered, bad-tempered, mean-spirited, suspicious and angry.

The temperament is associated with the season of summer, the qualities of warm and dry, and the element of fire. Various modern equivalents are: idealist, catalyst, religious, doctrinaire, inspired.

Synonyms: irate, testy, hot-tempered, fiery, irritable, quarrelsome

Melancholic (black bile, somber)

A melancholic person is a thoughtful ponderer. Often very kind and considerate, melancholics can be highly creative – as in poetry and art - but can become overly pre-occupied with the tragedy and cruelty in the world, thus becoming depressed. A melancholic is also often a perfectionist. This often results in being unsatisfied with one's own artistic or creative works and always pointing out to themselves what could and should be improved.

The temperament is associated with the season of autumn, the qualities of cold and dry, and the element of earth. Various modern equivalents are: guardian, stabilizer, economic, traditional, industrious.

Synonyms: languid, spiritless, gloomy

Phlegmatic (phlegm, calm)

A phlegmatic person is calm and unemotional. While phlegmatics are generally self-content and kind, their shy personality can often inhibit enthusiasm in others and make themselves lazy and resistant to change. They are very consistent, relaxed, rational, curious, and observant, making them good administrators and diplomats. Like the sanguine personality, the phlegmatic has many friends. However the phlegmatic is more reliable and compassionate; these characteristics typically make the phlegmatic a more dependable friend.

The temperament is associated with the season of winter, the qualities of cold and moist, and the element of water. Various modern equivalents are: rational, theorist, theoretic, skeptical, curious.

Synonyms: unemotional, indifferent, cold, heavy, dull, sluggish, matter-of-fact, placid, stoical, lethargic, bovine, apathetic, frigid, lymphatic, listless, impassive, stolid, unfeeling, undemonstrative

There's a chart that categorizes the traits and strengths and weaknesses of each:

If you'd like to see the mixture of humors in your character (or yourself) there's a personality test.

The Divided Kingdom by Rupert Thomson is about a world where people are isolated into quarters by personality type. I'm seeing some inherent conflict there in a land filled with leaders but no followers and thinkers but no doers.

The growler

Anu Garg of Wordsmith.org sent out a week of words that have multiple and varied meanings. Growler had 5 definitions:

1. One that growls.
   
2. A container brought by a customer to fetch beer.
   
3. Small iceberg pieces less than 5 meters at the waterline get their name from the sound they make when they plunge down into the water when oscillating in sea swells.
   
4. A four-wheeled cab.
   
5. An electromagnetic device for testing short-circuited coils.

Use all the meanings in a single writing piece.

If five isn't enough for you, here are some informal definitions sent by readers of the Word A Day newsletter:

• A student who can't sing in tune.
  
• The sound box put inside "talking bears."
  
• A Victorian-era slang word for a sausage (at least so says James P. Blaylock in his novel Homonculus)
  
• A slang term for a pork pie (in Yorkshire, in the North of England).
  
• A very large clam (at least it is in Phillip Craig's mystery series set on Martha's Vineyard (an island off the coast of Massachusetts)).
  
• A station to station telephone that employs a small hand crank to produce a growling noise at the called station (US Navy).
  
• A large-mouthed black bass.
  
• A diesel locomotive.
  
• Translucent messages and icons that appear on a computer screen for a short time.
  
• Pre-fabricated burgers once served at the student cafeteria at Memorial University of Newfoundland; for their obvious effect once ingested.
  
• A heavy, fast food meat pie in Northern England that can cause quite severe indigestion.
  
• Portable electric toilets used by wilderness guides in areas such as the Grand Canyon.
  
• A slang meaning I've often heard for this word is 'outhouse'. Also portable toilets.
  
• A bathroom.

When you're done "Dave from Maryland" illustrated the five meanings at Word A Day.

"When once the itch ..."

WHAT did you say?

What are these guys thinking? Write a caption or a bit of dialogue.

Phasma symphonizing

A friend passed on some spam with words that caught my eye.

phasma symphonizing
vertebration riddled

I like the sounds of phasma and vertebration. Each sounds like it is several concepts bundled up snugly together.

Play with those. Let the sounds of phasma and vertebration and the combinations take you where where they will in free form writing for 10 minutes or so.

When you feel the ideas fading, check out the real definitions (and I thought they were made up words!) for a recharge for a few more minutes.

When you're done, go back and circle your favorite phrases. See if you can arrange them into a poemish creation.

"You cannot depend ..."

Fear and loathing

What does your character ...

... fear?
... dread?
... want?
... want to avoid losing?
... want to avoid gaining?
... love?
... desire?
... need?
... crave?
... hate?
... loathe?
... have a passion for?

If your character doesn't want something badly, there isn't much reason to read about them.

"As God is my witness, I'll never be hungry again." -- Scarlett O'Hara

While in real life happiness is a great thing, it's boring in a character ;-) Their desire needn't be a huge thing like saving the world. It can be simple personal quest like recreating Mom's lost recipe for cherry pie or a war on the invading bedbugs.

This can work for a current character, a dropped character you were fond of but couldn't make work, a brand new character.

(The above words are intentionally similar to need. Some words may feel the same to you. That's okay. We each have slightly different connotations for words and words you feel are the same may spark very different ideas in someone else.)

Ace of spades

Come up with a new deck of cards for current times, a fantasy world, a future world, for your own or someone else's world. J.K. Rowling showed us wizarding chess. What do their cards look like? Who or what is on them? What do Goth cards look like? Klingon? Robot? (They all probably exist! ;-)

You can stick with the standard 52+Joker deck of 4 suits or not. (Not to be practical on you or anything ;-), but I suspect a number close to 52 is easy to shuffle. The 65 cards in Five Crowns is tough! So maybe your characters have larger hands if you decide to have more cards or they have some technique to get around that.)

So, what suits have meaning for your world? Will you use something other than numbers? Do you have a set corresponding to the royals?

From Caffeine for the Creative Mind: 250 Exercises to Wake Up Your Brain by Stefan Mumaw and Wendy Lee Oldfield

---

Did you know?

The kings in the French decks represent actual kings? King David (spades), Charlemagne or Charles IV (hearts), Julius Ceasar (diamonds), Alexander the Great (clubs). So do the queens and jacks (knaves).

The Ace of Spades picture is usually much larger for a reason? The cards in Europe were taxed and that's the card chosen for the tax stamp.

That the ace, which used to be the lowest card, trumps the king probably came about during the French Revolution when the peasants revolted against the king?

There's way more than you thought to question about playing cards :-)

Little Red Zombiehood

Turn Little Red Riding Hood into a zombie story. Is she the zombie? Is she a zombie fighter? Who represents the wolf? And who the grandma?

An old prompt to turn Jack and the Beanstalk into a vampire story inspired this and I wasn't even thinking of the mashup Pride and Prejudice and Zombies: The Classic Regency Romance - Now with Ultraviolent Zombie Mayhem! but it looks very cool!

"I rather fancy most authors ..."

The gateway

Did you stumble across this? Or were you directed here?

Was the picture taken before entering, or just after, facing back where you came?

Does the archway lead where it seems to, or is it a portal?

If you enjoy abandoned places, Web Urbanist has a massive collection of photos grouped by type.

Till death

I overheard, "Analen's getting married."

And my whole life changed.

Take it from there.

Or, alternately, take it many places from there. See how many beginnings you can come up with.

"A writer is a person ..."

Pyrophobic firefighter

On slips of paper, write down a dozen occupations that fit with your preferred writing genre. If you're expanding beyond contemporary, you don't need to stick with firefighter and doctor so you can throw in zombie hunter or holodeck author. But, even on Mars, they'll have fires and someone needs to fight them. :-)

On another set of slips write down personality quirks (like kleptomaniac, no sense of humor, or superstitious).

Draw one from each set and use the combination as the inspiration of a character or three. Match them up and see what happens.

Brainstorm on the quirks for a bit. You'll be surprised what starts coming out once you allow yourself to loosen up.

If you want to add in some quirks from someone else's brain: 100 character quirks you can steal from me and 100 character traits you can totally steal from me part II. And a phobia list with a bit of story to set them up.

Home theater

Tell the story of a house from the house's point of view. What do houses care about? Not the same things as the parasites -- er, symbiotic lifeforms living in them ;-)

How have the people through the years used and abused the house. How have they altered it, improved it or let it decay? What invaders (termites, squirrels ...) have moved in? What's it feel like to the house when the roof leaks (and to be helpless to fix it when people ignore it!) Any walls or floor ripped out or basement dug up to hide secrets? Ghosts? Good or bad karma left in the house? What about the surrounding house "friends" who have come and gone? What about the new "kid" on the block?

"Fundamentally, all writing ..."

Murder of crow(d)s

Ben Shott writes about words for the NY Times with an occasional weekend competition.

This weekend's competition is to come up with new collective nouns for modern nouns. Collective nouns are the words for groups like pride of lions and murder of crows.

Here's his description:

Many of the collective nouns with which we are familiar can be found in the “Book of St. Albans,” published in 1486. This curious volume, often attributed to Juliana Berners, contains treatises on hawking, hunting and heraldry, as well as a host of, now famous, nouns of assemblage, including:

An exultation of larks; a parliament of rooks; a murmuration of starlings; a shrewdness of apes; a gaggle of geese; a turmoil of porpoises; a business of ferrets; a spring of teal; and a pride of lions.

This weekend, co-vocabularists are invited to submit novel nouns of assemblage for modern phenomena. A bucket of Wiis? A swamp of blogs? A murder of crowds?

You can add to or just check out the contributions at his blog.

(Not sure if you'll need to register to read the blog. I know you do for the NY Times articles.)

Toe tow

Use the following homophones in sentences.

toe/tow
pidgin/pigeon
complement/compliment
manner/manor
mane/main
medal/meddle/metal/mettle
principal/principle
vain/vane/vein
pi/pie