"It's perfectly okay ..."

Right next door to Hell

 

Right next door to Hell

What's a warm up?

Jumping at shadows

 

Jumping at shadows

What's a warm up?

Just go away

Make a list of the "Top 10 things I wish would just disappear."

Brainstorm your own list first. (You may find the first batch are predictable so don't stop at 10, keep going to let the mundane run out.) I suspect you'll come up with a wider, quirkier variety than you could make up for a character. Poll your friends!

Then try your character's.

(From Writing Fix.)

Passing the time

 

Passing the time

What's a warm up?

All fouled up

Michael Arnzen keeps popping up like a zombie who just won't accept a shovel to the head! And as usual time is crunched during NaNo so I'll totally rip off his delicious list of Twisted Prompts for Nanowrimo Writers to inspire you:

• Unexpectedly kill a character. Have your protagonist hear their dying words…but only partially.
  


• Take a break and reflect: What element of fiction is the weakest in your book right now: character, setting, dialogue or conflict? Choose one. The next time you hit the keyboard, write three paragraphs of prose dedicated just to that element in some way. And make it DARK.
  


• The next time you give a description of a character’s physical features, identify a disfigurement. ANYTHING, ranging from an almost imperceptible scar on their brow to giant webbed feet. Expound through dialogue or monologue about what sort of torment that disfigurement causes the character, and how they endure it.
  


• Notice the teeth.
  


• Give your viewpoint character permission to have a lengthy flight of fantasy, imagining what they would do if they had psychic powers or dreaming how they might solve the main conflict if they had superhuman powers of some kind.
  


• Set your next dialogue-driven scene in a foul restaurant. Break up the conversation with intermittent observations of the low hygiene and filthy food. At the end, draw comparisons between the establishment and the novel’s conflict or antagonist.
  


• Use a banal object in a scene as a makeshift weapon.
  


• “Goth up” a minor character and give them something morbidly pithy or darkly ominous to say.
  


• Take your main character’s hostilities and frustrations out on an inconsequential object…but in prose that dramatizes this eruption in an ultraviolent way.
  


• Treat weather as a monster.
  


• As you head into your next plot point, ask yourself: “And what could make the outcome even worse?”
  


• Review your manuscript so far. Seize on an object or image from your description that you mentioned in passing, and bring it back into the picture in an uncannily meaningful way.
  


• Something strange is hidden under the desk/table/seat. Your protagonist stumbles on it. This is important to a future scene. But keep the discovery a secret for now. You’ll figure out its importance later.
  


• Make your main character sick. Whether a cold or a contracted disease. Use this sickness in an unexpected way to solve a problem.
  


• Describe a new character (as they enter the story) in the darkest way you know how, from head to toe. Then make them so nice it’s laughable.
  


• Introduce your viewpoint character to Insanity.
  


• Reference a horror movie or book in an explicit/overt/obvious way. Then turn it inside-out.

Broken bricks

 

Broken bricks

What's a warm up?

"When in doubt ..."

Where did you sleep last night

 

Where did you sleep last night

What's a warm up?

If my mind is evil

 

If my mind is evil

What's a warm up?

Writing down the page

• You know how sometimes an idea will pop into your head while you're writing something else? It's an obvious idea and you know you'll remember it so you slog through the scene and by the end you've forgotten what it was?
 
• You know how sometimes you'll hover over the keyboard, debating which choice to make and you just can't decide what would work best?

One of the Nanoers at our local kick off party mentioned a technique in Weekend Novelist by Robert J. Ray called:

Writing Down the Page

(I can't find a description on line so either she misremembered its name or no one else found it nifty, but I'm finding it useful! If anyone knows what it's called, please let me know!)

It's a way to capture fleeting ideas and get you writing instead of hovering.

If you use this for your whole NaNo (which I'm doing), you'll end up with a flowing collection of ideas. Which is a great way to send your internal editor on vacation since you may not be writing complete sentences and you're deliberately including a range of ideas some of which you know you'll eventually eliminate.

The important part is: don't write paragraphs. Hit carriage return after each sentence or snatch of an idea. It's going to look more like a poem, a long list, than a novel. It's a free flowing brainstorm. You can put an extra carriage return when you start a new idea and label it with some bold text.

Sometimes a fairly cohesive scene will flow out. (Mine is conforming to scenes and chapters.) Often it will be snatches of dialog. Bits of description. Questions for you to answer. Or half a dozen possibilities of what a character might do and why.

So if you're stuck, don't ponder. Write down the problem. Explore it right there in your Nano. Brainstorm a list of possibilities. If an idea for a scene comes up while you're doing that, write it down right where you are. (You can mark it with xxx to remind yourself to move it and expand it later.)

---

What I've done with it so far is, at the beginning of each chapter, I explore the character's desires (wants, objectives, goals). Each scene will have a goal (getting the demon nest rooted out, for example) as well as the character's greater goal of the novel hovering over them.

Then I explore obstacles (conflicts) I can throw in their way. (I tend to be too nice to my characters! Deliberately brainstorming obstacles keeps me focused on a story's engine: overcoming difficulties!) Each of these obstacles creates an evolving set of minigoals for the character to achieve (getting away from the annoying coworker, getting shoes that don't have a broken heel, for example).

Then I write down possible responses to the obstacles and how the character can reveal more of who he is, reveal more of what's going on in the story, in what he chooses to do and the way he chooses to do it. It helps remind me of the tree I'm writing about rather than getting lost in the foliage of a few thousand individual leaves.

I'm finding it much easier to throw problems and obstacles at a character when I don't (yet) need to write the scene that gets them out of it!

Wooly bully

Use the following idioms as literally as possible without mentioning the original idiom, so "wet blanket" will include a real wet blanket. For Nano you may want to pick just one :-) For others, write a few sentences for as many as you can in 10 minutes, or use one and see where it takes you.

Cry over spilled milk.
Pull the wool over his eyes.
Wet behind the ears.
Wild goose chase.
Sky's the limit.
With flying colors.
Face the music.
Throw a monkey wrench into the works.
Can't make heads or tails out of it.
The pen is mightier than the sword.
Third time's the charm.
On cloud nine.

The beginning of the end

 

The beginning of the end

What's a warm up?

Ordinary AND Special

Have your character list 5 ways they're ordinary (for their world, of course!) and 5 ways they're not ordinary. (Though you don't need to include it, they picked those particular items out of the totality of who they are for a reason.)

Idea from Charloft where's there's a new theme each day for your characters. (A very active community.) There are loads of responses to this particular one. In case the Live Journal community disappears one day, I saved the list.

I also opened an Ordinary and Special topic at the NaNoWriMo forums.

---

What's special or ordinary about the picture? Go to Face Research -- Make an Average. Click on several pictures. Click View Average and see what a composite of the pictures is like. (Try all the thin faces, all those with dark hair, all those with long chins, all with large ears ....) I tried to create a girl's face where race wasn't easy to pinpoint.

Roll over the post's image and you can see all the faces, male and female, averaged together. (The sampling of images does contain a large proportion of Caucasians.) Is it a girl or a boy? It would be interesting to see a composite of all 20 yos, 30 yos, etc in the world :-)

What's interesting is that average isn't bland but tends toward beauty. So beauty isn't so extraordinary as it is average!

Waiting for the sun

 

Waiting for the sun

What's a warm up?

"To be a writer ..."

Flash fiction and Plot generators

Whether you're gearing up for NaNo or want to try your hand at flash fiction, NaNo liaisons have passed on Plot Generator for the beginning of your story and Plot Twists.

Flash fiction are stories less than a 1000 words and come in many varieties with sometimes very specific rules. Some other names are: short-short stories, sudden, postcard, minute, furious, fast, quick, and skinny fiction. Many have websites where you can share the torture of confining your writing by word count:

365 Tomorrows posts a new flash fiction everyday. You may submit your (science fiction based) stories for consideration.

Camille Renshaw provides a good overview of the craft in The Essentials of Micro-Fiction.

Here are a few types of flash fiction with specific limitations:

• pinhead stories (50 words or fewer)
• nanofiction (less than 50)
• 55 word (55 or fewer but must include a setting, character or characters, conflict, resolution, so it's not, for example, a slice of life piece.) You can read the 2008 winners of the 55-word contest run by New Times magazine for inspiration.
• 69er, 88er, 99er
• microfiction (under 100)
• drabble (100 exactly and its spinoffs: dribble - exactly 50 words, droubble - exactly 200 words) The Drabble Project has some examples from drabble's beginnings.
• ficleys (64-1024 words but you can continue someone else's story).

St. Anger

 

St. Anger

What's a warm up?

Beyond the realms of death

 

Beyond the realms of death

What's a warm up?

Death of the party

Come up with a zombie party plan -- for real zombies. Invitations (date, time, place). Special instructions for guests (as in bring your own brains, dress). Food. Games.

No headstone on my grave

 

No headstone on my grave

What's a warm up?

Gaggle of giggling ghoul girls

For each letter of the alphabet write a sentence that's ghoulishly alliterative.

---

A bit overkill for this ;-) but as I searched for a link for the picture, I found Wikipedia's List of monsters by culture [deleted] Legendary creatures.

Like Star Wars? Like zombies? Click the picture. :-)

Shoot me again

 

Shoot me again

What's a warm up?

"Use your imagination ..."

Inside the fire

 

Inside the fire

What's a warm up?

Cast it out

 

Cast it out

What's a warm up?

A vicious monster

Create your own comic strip with the Historic Tale Construction Kit. There are people, buildings, animals and text from the Bayeux Tapestry to play with. When you're done you can submit it to the gallery. (Though I couldn't get the email or gallery to work. I had to save all the images and paste them together in Photoshop.)

Don't let the historic images limit you! Googling images for the kit I see several Harry Potter comics. (Like this bit of Harry Potter slash: A Chance Meeting. Note: preview it before you show it to your kids so you're not surprised by unexpected questions! ;-)

If all the possibilities leave you stuck for a story, begin with the foundation of storytelling: a desire, a want, a need. One of those characters wants something. Other characters will get in the way with desires of their own. One of those desires will triumph. Or not. Maybe a dragon will eat them all ;-)

(Click the image to see mine.)

Two tips:

If you like your backgrounds consistent from panel to panel, line images up with flaws on the fabric.

Sometimes the images misbehave. (At least they did for me in Safari.) Back up to the previous panel then return.

There is a similar story telling app, Create your own Bayeux Tapestry. The pictures are nice and it might be cool to work with but I haven't figured out how to save. If you want to try it, do something simple and play around with the saving and loading. If all fails, screen capture each page.

There's a nice collection of story telling tools aimed at kids at Introduce Your Kids to Story Telling Tools.

Tyrant

 

Tyrant

What's a warm up?

Beneath the surface

"Morning."
"Morning."
"Sleep well?"
"Yeah."

Somewhere in your piece will be those lines of dialogue. (You can build up to the first "Morning.")

Not much to go on. Or, really, too many possibilities! This is from an exercise on subtexting from Getting Into Character by Brandilyn Collins. The point is that we often don't say what we mean ... and it builds tension when our characters don't either.

The first "Morning," might really mean, "Where were you last night?" or "I know where you were last night (heh, heh, heh)," or "I'd like to bash your head in with a 2x4," or "I wish everything were as normal as I'm trying to make it feel."

One challenge of hinting at what's beneath the surface is that only one character, the point of view character, reveals their thoughts to the reader. The other character offers only a tiny, foggy window into what they're thinking through their body language, facial expression, tone and what they're saying instead of what they mean. What's going on beyond the fog is open to interpretation by the reader and by the, not necessarily objective, other character. (The point of view character is often not objective about their own thoughts and feelings either!) But the cool thing is that not knowing builds tension also and raises questions in the reader's mind that makes them want to read on and find the answers. (Which are all the current skills I'm working on!)

As always, and as mundane as the lines are, don't feel tied to a contemporary setting.

Defenders of the faith

Defenders of the faith

What's a warm up?

"Say all you have to say ..."

Ugly truth

 

Ugly truth

What's a warm up?

NaNo is coming!

October 31 at midnight, NaNoWriMo begins!

National Novel Writing Month is a time when people all over the world withdraw from life to crank out a 50,000 word novel in one month.

At first it seems insane and impossible. After doing it a few times, it's really not so bad! :-)

Everything you need to know about it is at the NaNoWriMo website.

I'll be posting prompts that are usable for Nano (or other writing) throughout the month. (If anyone wants to drop me a "Hi!"or add me as a buddy, I'm JFetteroll (so original, I'm always JFetteroll!) at the NaNo website.)

In the forums are online and face-to-face support. (Check out the regional boards to see if there are writing groups near you.) There are word wars (to see who can churn out the most words within a certain time) and prompts and people to help if you get stuck either emotionally, logically or factoidally.

And most people do get stuck around week 2, at the 15,000 word mark. Expect to hit that wall. At that point you've let your characters run rampant setting up their relationships and you suddenly realize you've written 15,000 words of crap and you've pushed the characters as far as you can go and alphabetizing your spices would be a much better use of your time. Every novelist hits that point. What separates the failed novelists from the successful ones is that the successful ones keep going. :-)

If you think you don't have time, I found this week's posting at the NaNo website inspiring :-) Cylithria Dubois -- what a great fantasy name! -- wrote her last novel while part of a forward observation team stationed in Iraq: Cylithria Dubois, Marine Corps novelist


Some tips:

✓ Don't worry about quality. Your goal is quantity not quality. Send your internal editor on vacation. This month there's no such thing as bad writing. (Or it's all bad! Whatever mindset keeps the words flowing for you.) Note: No one will read it. Bots at the website count your words to see if you've gotten at least 50,000.

✓ Don't worry about getting the beginning right. Jump into the middle of the story. Write the end first. Write the middle first. Doesn't matter!

✓ Don't worry about going in order. If you get stumped, or another scene is begging to be written, jump ahead. (As you find out more about your characters, you'll know how to fill those jumps in -- which might be after NaNo.)

✓ Don't worry about finishing the story. The goal is 50,000 words of a single work (eg, not a bunch of short stories). It doesn't have to be a complete novel. It's a way to get you started. (Novels are closer to 100,000 words, though it depends on the genre.)


You can plan as much or as little as you want, but no actual writing before November 1. Some people like an outline. Some people don't want to know where their characters are taking them. Whatever works for you.

Happy writing!

Bad medicine

 

Bad medicine

What's a warm up?

Squirrel wars

Is this unexpected?

Is this normal in your world?

Are other animals fighting or just the squirrels? Fighting over what?

Those damned blue-collar tweekers

 

Those damned blue-collar tweekers

What's a warm up?

The night before

Roll a die and pick one from each of the four following categories. Use them as the starting point of your piece.

(Roll a die. Sheesh. Can you tell I played Dungeons and Dragons? If you don't have a 10-sided die handy try the handy widget down at the bottom.)

Time

1. Dead of winter
   
2. During a thunderstorm
   
3. The morning after
   
4. When the moon is full
   
5. Just before dawn
   
6. Midnight
   
7. Height of summer
   
8. In the middle of a battle
   
9. In the middle of a storm
   
10. The night before

Situation

1. A death
   
2. A secret needs to be told
   
3. Someone has or will hurt someone
   
4. A crime has occurred or is about to
   
5. Someone has lost/found something
   
6. Someone is falling in love
   
7. Reminiscing on how things change
   
8. There has been a family emergency
   
9. Something embarrassing happened
   
10. Someone holds a medication

Character

1. A match maker
   
2. A nerd
   
3. A barista
   
4. A visitor
   
5. A homeless man
   
6. A novice
   
7. A mechanic
   
8. An eccentric
   
9. A musician
   
10. An actress

Setting

1. A theater
   
2. A wedding
   
3. A cemetery
   
4. A restaurant
   
5. A dungeon/jail
   
6. A mountain peak
   
7. An inn
   
8. A cave
   
9. A sporting event
   
10. A convention

Adapted from 6 Creative Writing Prompts to expand them beyond contemporary topics. All the situations except the last that mentioned a doctor were amazingly universal :-)

Troubleshooter

 

Troubleshooter

What's a warm up?

"If you told me to write ..."

March of the pigs

 

March of the pigs

What's a warm up?

Wind of change

 

Wind of change

What's a warm up?

A proposition

(Click image to enlarge.)

"Listen, we've got a proposition for you."

As always, let you imagination take you where it will. Don't let it be hampered by 3 real monkeys staring at it. ;-) They could be aliens! Or products of a deteriorating mind. (Or so you think!) Or a sentient species in a fantasy world. Or ...

Hellrider

Hellrider

What's a warm up?

I resign!

Write a resignation letter.

You could use it to tell the boss what you really think about him or her and the job and your co-workers.

Or resign from being the boss and tell your underlings what you think of them.

Or from:

• being the country's ruler.

• • being God. Or the Devil.

• • • being a hero. Or the bad guy.

• • • • being someone's fan. (You've moved on? They've disappointed you?)

• • • • • the "perfect" job that didn't even give you a call.

• • • • • • being a slave. Or being a prisoner. Or school.

• • • • • • • a marriage or family.

• • • • • • • • association with a race or species.

• • • • • • • • • a religion or political party or life style.

• • • • • • • • • • being someone's pet.

• • • • • • • • • • • being someone's possession (car, television, stove ....)

Purify

Purify

What's a warm up?

"Don't say ..."

Death dealer

 

Death dealer

What's a warm up?

The memory remains

 

The memory remains

What's a warm up?

Perfect crime

 

Perfect crime

What's a warm up?

Now with 100% more zombies!

Take any movie and add zombies to it. Write a blurb for the ones that spark your interest. Expand one that really grabs you.

If you need a list of movies, here's one culled from Mr. Showbiz' Reader's Poll.

Star Wars
Casablanca
Gone With The Wind
Raiders of the Lost Ark
The Empire Strikes Back
It's A Wonderful Life
E.T. - The Extra-Terrestrial
The Wizard of Oz
Jaws
One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest
The Sound of Music
Fargo
Grease
Singin' In The Rain
Dances With Wolves
The Princess Bride
Top Gun
West Side Story
Field of Dreams
Monty Python and the Holy Grail
Jurassic Park
Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade
The Maltese Falcon
Ben-Hur
Back to the Future
Rocky
Dead Poets Society
The Lion King
The Breakfast Club
Toy Story

Obviously there are oodles of lists available just a Google away by searching for "100 best movies". A good place to start is AFI's 100 lists.

Zombie courtesy of toxiccandie.

Let it loose

 

Let it loose

Something new today! :-) Every morning that I don't post a prompt, I'll post a phrase you can use to write for 5-10 minutes.

You can:

1. use it for a focused free write: begin with the topic and let the words flow from you continuously without pause, disregarding spelling, grammar, drift from topic. Even if your brain stalls and you need to write "I can't think what to write" over and over. Keep doing that until a new thought comes.
 
2. use it to spark a scene with your current characters. Likely it won't generate anything you can plop into your story, but see where your characters go with it. They're likely to give you some new insights into who they are.
 
3. come up with a scenario then use the prompt to drive it.
 
4. let the prompt inspire the scenario and run with it.
 
5. use it for whatever you want!

To use your time most efficiently, try Dr. Wicked's Write or Die. Use the default settings (normal and strict). Set the length of time. Click Write!

In the interest of full disclosure, these are all song titles. I make no claim to toiling my brain over a new phrase each day ;-) I wanted something with an emotional ring to it but was easy and quick. Hopefully you'll quickly forget I mentioned they're song titles. My tastes range from Metallica to Rory Gallagher so it's unlikely anyone has a similar collection on their iPod ;-)

They're all speculative fiction friendly. Some, like titles from Judas Priest and Rob Zombie, pretty much can't be anything else!

"When I examine myself ..."

Nursing a grudge

Back! With a new router with lots of pretty green lights indicating it's alive. :-) So, on with the prompts ...

---

Literally. Your character is literally nursing a grudge. The grudge can be the emotion in physical form. It can be a specific grudge. It can be a creature named a grudge. Or someone named Grudge.

For some reason it needs some healing attention. Is it an easy patient? Is it grumpy and demanding?

Or is that nursing as in breastfeeding? Maybe it's a baby grudge and your character is it's mommy. Or wet nurse or other caretaker.

Whatever comes to mind, run with it and see where it takes you.

Back sooooon!

My router has passed on. I didn't even know it was sick! :-P

A new router has been routed from the safety of the warehouse and is en route, scheduled for arrival sometime on Tuesday so be back then!

Joyce

Oceanside groomer

I was maybe in my teens when I suddenly realized that suitcase actually came from suit and case. It struck me as outrageously funny that I hadn't realized something so obvious before! ;-)

For each of the following compound words substitute synonyms for its component words. You can shoot for the same meaning or be more freeform and see what happens. You may come up with a word that means the opposite. :-)

So, if the word were beachcomber you might change it to shoresearcher or shorebrusher or oceansidegroomer or coastdetangler.

aircraft
ballroom
cowboy
dimwit
earthquake
frostbite
globetrotter
highway
ironclad
jellyfish
knothole
lawsuit
mastermind
nightfall
outlaw
pancake
quicksilver
raincoat
scarecrow
tattletale
underwear
vainglory
wallflower
xylophone <-- fudging a bit for x, though it's a compound in Greek!
yearbook
zookeeper

"It is good to have ..."

Lost in translation

Your character is visiting a foreign land and speaks just a few words of the native language (and some they may not pronounce correctly or only think they know). The person they're trying to talk to speaks just a few words of your character's language.

Write the ensuing scene. They may be working in the foreign land (and their interpreter hasn't shown up). Or trying to get somewhere. Or buying something in a store, ordering in a restaurant. Trying to arrange a wedding or a coup.

Choices, choices

"Before every point at the United States Open, the server will turn to a ball person and request a ball. Or two. Or three, maybe four. ... It is a long-held tennis ritual, the choosing of the balls, a process built at least as much in superstition as in science. ... Whether there is truly an appreciable difference is debatable, but the process of choosing the ball offers glimpses into the psyche of the players. ... Andy Roddick ... sometimes looks at several balls resting on his racket, like a chef holding an omelet pan, looking for the sleekest one that might go an extra mile per hour. ... If nothing else, the few seconds it takes to choose a ball can buy players time to exhale from the previous point and focus on the next."


Describe someone choosing in a ritualized manner. Life is in the details and glimpses into the rituals a character uses to soothe himself can bring the character to life.

It can be arrows for a battle. Ingredients for a spell on one they hold a grudge against. Paper and pen for a letter. Outfit for a speech. Salvaged parts to repair a robot. Ax for an execution. Eggs for the queen's omelet. (The details may reveal more about the cook than her need to create something perfect for the queen. Or maybe she hates the queen but still needs to turn out a perfect omelet to keep her job and continue with her plot.)

(The above quote is from A Ritual With Roots in Science and Superstition.)

"First drafts are ..."

Brouhaha

"Oxfam killed my bookshop!" The brouhaha began after The Salisbury Journal called on Marc Harrison, 42, a ponytailed former Roman Catholic priest who, until this summer when he could no longer pay his mortgage, ran the [second-hand bookshop] Ellwood Books on Winchester Street, a modest commercial strip just beyond the center of town.

Oxfam is the internationally renowned organization dedicated to "fighting poverty and famine, providing emergency relief, combating climate change and discrimination". And, apparently and mysteriously, second-hand booksellers with bearded collies named Mitchell.


The ponytailed ex-Catholic priest caught my attention first, but there are several surprising elements that seem begging for a story. Treat it as a slice of quirky life or throw in international terrorist plots if you wish. England makes me think of Doctor Who so maybe Oxfam is really some alien cover! :-)

Inspired by Beleaguered Bookseller Knows Whom to Blame: Oxfam in the NY Times. (You may need to register to see the article.)