Category: Friday Fun-Day

Happy Friday the 13th, everyone! Such an odd month to have it in, December. It’s not as though we associate winter with Friday the 13th–that’s more of a fall and Halloween thing. Of course, writers live for unusual combinations. What better way to exercise our writing muscles than to try and make two seemingly mismatched elements fit together cohesively?

That brings us to today’s writing prompt. As always, the prompt itself is fairly straightforward. All you have to do is write a horror short story that takes place in the winter. If you can tie in Christmas or some other winter holiday, even better! In fact, for maximum benefit, I highly recommend incorporating any festive elements that you can and try to twist them to enhance the horror in your story. You could even write it in the form of a rhyming children’s story or Christmas poem, like “A Visit from St. Nicholas”.

Get as disturbed and deranged as you want. Turn white winter snow red, explore the darkest thoughts that arise around this time of year, do whatever you feel it takes to make the most wonderful time of year frightening. You can follow Krampus on his annual journey to beat naughty children, turn Santa into a psychopathic stalker that sees you when you’re sleeping–the only limit is your imagination!

There are several examples of winter horror stories in movie form: Krampus (2015), Elves (1989), even The Abominable Snowman (1957). My personal recommendation for inspiration, though, is this reading of “The Night Before”, a zombie twist on “A Visit from St. Nicholas”, by paranormal investigator John L. Tenney: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RjXQe0fWrRM.

Feel free to share your experiences with this exercise and the resulting short story in the comments. Now, merry writing to all, and to all a good Friday the 13th!

Happy holidays, readers and writers! With all the different cultures and religions celebrating, this time of year can get…hectic, to say the least. Personally, I am not a Scrooge, but I don’t go all-out, either. I like the lights, the decorations, giving and receiving gifts, and some of the movies and TV specials for the various winter holidays. I am not Christian, though, or of any religion at all, and the blatant consumerism is trying at times. However, I do find reason to celebrate around the yuletide season. And you know what really like about this time of year? The folklore.

Every religion, culture, and region has its own set of folklore which goes with wintertime and the associated holidays, distinct yuletide tales which are unique to these peoples and yet have some sort of commonality among them. Each tale and legendary figure has a rich history and its own way of being observed. Some are joyful, some are creepy, and some fall somewhere in between. My personal favorites are Krampus from Germany and La Befana from Italy.

Like fairy tales, these yuletide tales are ripe with potential for retelling. Case and point: all the Krampus movies that have come out in the past few years. Before those, Krampus also made the TV circuit on shows like Grimm and American Dad. To think, Krampus is but the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the winter folklore lesser-known by Americans.

That brings us to today’s writing prompt. To keep with the spirit of the season, I want you to pick a lesser-known winter folklore or figure. Pretty much, anything or anyone except for Santa Claus will work for this exercise, but the more obscure, the better. Don’t limit yourself to Christmas lore, either. Consider exploring the rebellion of the Maccabees, Odin and his association with Yule, etc. It can be from your ancestral celebrations or just from a culture, religion, or region in which you have interest.

Once you choose your winter folklore or figure, write a story, poem, or creative essay based on this yuletide tale/figure. It can be an origin story, a modern retelling, a poem which uses the figure or tale as a metaphor, an essay on the influences it has had on modern celebrations, pretty much anything that you want. The only requirement is that your chosen yuletide folklore or figure features prominently in your work.

Winter can be a stressful, overly-commercial, and sometimes hypocritical time of year, but great writing can come from it, too–remember A Christmas Carol? All you need is a bit of inspiration and time!

TGIF, everyone! Sorry for another week of radio silence and erratic posting; deadlines for my portfolio and essay for grad school are coming up pretty quickly and it’s taking everything in me not to freak out. (Actually, I am freaking out, but that’s another story.) Anyway, this week is also my program’s discussion of Yiyun Li’s The Vagrants, and I think that one of the threads has brought up a very interesting topic: unlovable characters.

Unlovable characters are those whom you absolutely cannot love because they are despicable human beings. Most likely, they’re also mentally disturbed. Think pedophiles, psychopaths, and other deviants. These characters are perhaps the trickiest to write, especially if they aren’t clear-cut villains. To make them real people with real thoughts and emotions, someone with whom the reader can empathize a little without really loving or even liking them, takes a lot of imagination. As disturbing as it is, you have to put yourself in this character’s shoes and bring the good, the bad, and the ugly to your writing.

That’s why I want to focus on unlovable characters for this writing prompt.

The prompt,  as always, is straightforward. Write a scene for a short story or novel from the perspective of an unlovable character. The scene must be written in first person. It can be for an existing WIP, something entirely new that you will pursue, or just a scene to flex your writing muscles. It doesn’t matter so long as it is in first person from the unlovable character’s POV.

The goal is to write an unlovable character who is still relatable and believable as a human being. It must also be clear that they are deviant and what kind of deviant they are. You must get into this person’s head and entirely understand them before writing this scene. Then, while you’re writing the scene, you must be careful to show the humanity in your character while allowing the reader to still hate them for what they do (or have done).

I know this sounds easy. In fact, it sounds like how you should approach any character. However, most of you will find this task…uncomfortable. After all, you’ll be diving into the mind of a deviant, someone whom I assume is not like you, someone whose acts disturb you. I have a hard time with it and should probably do this prompt myself. Still, if you can successfully create a well-rounded unlovable character, you should have few problems with writing other characters realistically.

Did you find this exercise helpful? Do you think it’s possible to write unlovable characters that still seem human? Or do the writer’s morals and bias interfere too much? Leave your thoughts and experiences with this exercise in the comments below!

 

TGIF, readers and writers! For today’s writing prompt, I want to focus on the editing stage of writing. Namely, this prompt will deal with tightening our writing and exercising restraint. It’s time to take a look at our use of adverbs.

Adverbs: writers love them, editors loathe them. When used prudently, they can sharpen the reader’s mental image of a scene. However, writers tend to rely on them a little more than we should. For this writing prompt, we’re going to look at one famous author’s advice for how to use adverbs–or, rather, how to keep from using them.

Mark Twain once gave the following quote:

Substitute “damn” every time you’re inclined to write “very;” your editor will delete it and the writing will be just as it should be.

–Mark Twain

In this exercise, I want you to do what Mark Twain suggests. However, you will not just substitute the word “very.” Instead, you’ll be replacing every use of any adverb.

The exercise, as usual, is simple:

Take one page from your WIP–whether it be a short story, a novel, or even an essay–and every time you use an adverb, replace it with the word “damn.” CAUTION: Remember to save this new version of the page as a new file. Any time you make changes like this, you will want to keep the original. Otherwise, if you realize that you liked it better the first time, you won’t have the original copy to return to.

Once you have replaced all your adverbs, take a break for a few minutes. Watch TV, put in a load of laundry, walk the dog, whatever. Then, after about five or ten minutes, go back to the page you changed. How many times do you use “damn?” Is it scarce? Or do you find it in almost every line?

After noting how often “damn” appears in this version of the page, make a third version in which you remove every appearance of “damn.” Take another quick break, five or ten minutes like before, and then read over this third version. Now that you’ve seen all three versions, what do you think? Were your adverbs justified or superfluous? Is your writing tighter and cleaner without the adverbs, or does it feel choppy and like something’s missing? Or should you find a version in between these, not using quite so many adverbs but not removing all of them?

While many editors–and even acclaimed writers–claim that adverbs and adjectives can be the death of good writing, this is not always the case. Sometimes adverbs are necessary, as are adjectives (but that’s another story). You have to discover for yourself what works best for your writing style. After all, good writers learn the rules; great writers learn them and then break them. This prompt, though, will help you to see adverbs in a new way and learn to not throw them in willy-nilly.

What was your experience with this prompt? Did you learn anything about your writing style? What do you think of Twain’s advice? Are adverbs overused? Leave your thoughts in the comments below!

 

Happy Friday, readers and writers! I’m going to be bringing you another onslaught of book reviews tonight and throughout the weekend. You can look forward to everything from a steamy romance novel to an edge-of-your-seat, fictional account of an Irish immigrant’s experiences while becoming “American.” First, though, I want to start the weekend with a writing prompt. This one, to go with my idiosyncrasies post, focuses on giving characters peculiar habits.

As I said in my previous post, idiosyncrasies (peculiar habits) can give a character depth and add subtext to a scene. This writing prompt is about exploring the possibilities presented by peculiar habits, as well as trying out some out on a few of your characters.

This prompt is a little more complicated than the others. Well, it has more steps. First, make a list of your most prominent characters in your current WIP. I’m not specifying a number because I know that a story can have as little as two characters, and I don’t want to make any assumptions.

Next, take a blank sheet of paper and list out–vertically, not horizontally, since you’ll be cutting these into strips–as many peculiar habits as you can think of. There’s no top limit to how many you can list, but try and come up with at least twice as many habits as characters to allow some chance for variety. If you can’t think of any habits, look around for inspiration: friends, family, that random guy in a suit riding the bus to an interview, etc. You can even look at your own habits! (Or you can ask friends and family if they’ve noticed any about you–I know my family sees more of my idiosyncrasies than I do!)

Then, cut this into strips, fold them up, and put them in some sort of container like a hat. You will then shake the container up and start drawing out slips. The first slip you draw will be the habit given to the first character of your list. The second will be for the second character on your list, and so on.

Finally, bring up a scene in your WIP in which all–or at least multiple–of these characters interact. Be sure to save it in a new file so that you will still have the original. Now, rewrite this scene, but this time try and incorporate the peculiar habits randomly assigned to each character. Make it as organic and subtle as possible, yet also ensure that these habits have purpose. Don’t force them in just to have them, but do incorporate them as best you can.

Have fun with it! And take your time. Some idiosyncrasies, you’ll find, are easier to slip in than others. The trick is making it match your character’s personality and other habits. You’ll be amazed at the layers these idiosyncrasies will add to your characters’ interactions. In the end, if you feel as though the habit doesn’t fit your character, at least you know what doesn’t work. That’s one step closer to finding what does work.

When you’re done, be sure to tell us the results of this prompt in the comments below. Did you find the exercise difficult? Did you learn something new about your characters and their behavior? Do you think it’s all just rubbish? Share your experience with other readers!

Also, if you have an idea for a writing prompt, drop a line in the comments or e-mail me at thewritersscrapbin@gmail.com and maybe it’ll end up as a future Friday Fun-Day Writing Prompt.

 

OK, it’s technically Saturday now, but better late than never, right? Considering everything I’ve been bogged down with lately, I’m just glad to have a writing prompt to bring you. This writing prompt follows up on a topic I discussed earlier this week: perspective.

In the aforementioned post, I talked about choosing a POV. For this exercise, I want to focus mainly on POV still but am going to expand it a little to include perspective overall. (A quick note on POV vs. perspective: POV is the narrative voice, as in first-person, second-person, or third-person narration with many subcategories in between; perspective is more about which character specifically we see the story through, whether that’s in first person or in third person limited.)

Today’s exercise is aimed at helping you choose a POV/perspective for a current work-in-progress. It involves a fair amount of rewriting, but it’s worth it to discover how you should tell your story.

As usual, the prompt itself is simple. Take the first few pages of your latest WIP–five, eight, ten, whatever you think you need to get a good feel for your work–and entirely rewrite it in a new POV or perspective. So, if you’re currently using first person, try third person limited, and vice versa. If you’re currently telling the story through your hero’s eyes, try rewriting it from his/her best friend’s perspective. If you’re really daring, you can try second person or third person omniscient. (The latter is a true beast. I’ve tried it before, and it is not my cup of tea.)

Try to not just switch out “I” for “he/she” or vice versa. Instead, really consider how changing the POV will change the story and your writing. What would these events look through the eyes of a bystander rather than your protagonist’s, or even through another main character’s view? How close should readers get to your characters’ minds if you’re using third person? How would another character tell the story differently from your hero? The possibilities are endless, and this change isn’t as simple as the prompt makes it seem.

Once you’ve finished, read both this new version and the original. Which do you like better? Depending on how you react, you’ll learn one of three things:

1. You had it right the first time;
2. This new perspective works much better;
3. Neither version works for you, so you need to try something else.

No matter what the outcome, you’ll gain some valuable insight into your work. Either your concerns will be put to rest or they will be justified. I’m planning to use this exercise on the WIP I submitted for my most recent Master’s program feedback session. Who knows, my personal tutor might be right; I might be working in the wrong POV.

How did this exercise work out for you? Did you learn something new about your WIP? Your writing style overall? Did you find out that you particularly like or dislike a certain POV? Share your experiences with this writing prompt in the comments below!

 

TGIF, readers and writers! I want to start the weekend off with a writing prompt. I haven’t given you one in a while, so I figured it’s about time I brought that series back. Today’s writing prompt involves learning to see clearly with your eyes closed.

Last May I wrote a post titled “Images in Literature and Plato’s The Cave”. Admittedly, it’s one of my favorite posts thus far. It combines my love of reading and writing with my philosophical inclinations, and it was rather fun for me to write. I want to focus on one particular part of this post for today’s writing prompt, the quote from Charles Simic. In case you haven’t read that post or have forgotten it, here’s the quote again:

There are images made with eyes open and images made with eyes closed. One is about clear sight and the other about similitude.

–Charles Simic

Now, I could reiterate the debate my Master’s classmates and I had about which images are about clear sight and which about similitude. If you want to learn more about the argument, you can visit my “Images in Literature and Plato’s The Cave” post. For this writing prompt, I want you to assume that you make “clear sight” images with your eyes closed and “similitude” images with your eyes closed.

I want you to focus on clear sight images. Writers have a knack for these sorts of images.  Whether we’re poets or prose writers, our images rarely serve as strict similitude. That’s why it is important for us to master clear sight, the ability to create images which are beyond what the objects or people appear to be. That’s what this exercise is about.

As usual, today’s exercise is fairly easy. Go somewhere where you can concentrate. Block out as much external distractions as you can. Once you do that, I want you to close your eyes. Don’t think about anything in particular; just close your eyes. Focus on the first image which appears when you close your eyes. Commit it to your memory, get a feel for it.

Once you have a good feel for the image, open your eyes. Now I want you to write a scene or poem in which you incorporate and describe the image you saw behind your eyes. I don’t want to just know what it looked like; I want you to convey how it made you feel, what it reminded you of, if it felt menacing or benign, etc. Capture the true image of what was behind your eyes, not just what you saw.

You might be able to create a story or full poem out of this exercise, or you might only get some good practice at writing imagery. The important thing is that you discover what it means to create a true image of something and not a similitude. Admittedly, this practice can be rather difficult. You also won’t need to use it for every image in a story. (Poetry, on the other hand, all but requires each image to be a true, clear sight image rather than a similitude.) Once you master the practice, the hard part will be deciding which image is needed when.

How did this exercise go for you? Did you find anything particularly hard about it? What sort of image popped into your head when you closed your eyes? Did you realize anything about how you typically describe images? If so, what? Leave your thoughts in the comments below. You can even leave what you wrote as a result of this exercise!

Do you know of any good writing prompts? Want to share them with your fellow writers? Leave the prompt in the comments or e-mail it to me at thewritersscrapbin@gmail.com and I might incorporate it into a future Friday Fun-day Writing Prompt post.

 

Happy Friday, everyone. The weekend is finally here, but there’s no rest for the weary. I have to do some reading and feedback for my Master’s program as well as finish a book review. Still, I’ve come up with a writing prompt to go along with Implicit: Soul Invictus: writing about your past lives.

I believe in reincarnation but I know that not all of my readers do. However, you can imagine what your past lives might have been like without thinking that they ever really happened. In fact, this exercise isn’t even about “real” past lives; instead, it’s a method of character development using your own quirks.

Many theories of reincarnation argue that past lives can explain some of our stranger behaviors and traits in this life, everything from memories that aren’t ours and knowing things that we should not know to likes and fears that seem, to put it mildly, weird. It’s this aspect of reincarnation that I would like you to focus on with this writing prompt.

Using your quirks as a springboard, imagine what one of your past lives might have been like. Who were you? Which economic class did you belong to? Where did you live? What was your job? How did you die? Write a character bio for this past version of yourself and be as detailed as possible.

Here’s an (incredibly rough) example of how this process might go:

One of my most bizarre traits is that I have an extreme aversion to anyone standing behind me with a knife. Not like a butter knife or a plastic knife but something that is actually sharp. Now that I think about it, forks also fall under that aversion. It doesn’t matter if I trust the person more than I trust myself; I could trust them with my life and I still will feel uncomfortable if they stand behind me with a sharp knife or fork. I even get a tingling in the lower left part of my back when someone stands behind me with a knife or fork.

If those theories of reincarnation are correct, what happened in my past lives that made me develop this aversion? It’s so specific that it can’t just be random, so what could have happened?

I could write that someone stabbed me in a past life in that particular area of my back. Maybe I was a lady or lord in Medieval Europe betrayed by a servant or knight. Maybe I was the victim of a serial killer or I was involved in some sort of crime spree and betrayed by my partner. Hell, maybe I was Julius Caesar.

I would choose one of these routes to take and develop a “past life” character bio based on it. I could elaborate by pursuing my fascination with Russia or alchemy, or I could incorporate my obsession with Tarot cards. The possibilities are endless.

I’m sure you get the idea. After writing the character bio, try and use the character and this “past life” as the basis for a story. Maybe a parallel between your current life and your past lives? You could even just write some historic fiction with this “past life” character at the center. The only limits are your imagination.

How did this exercise turn out for you? Do you know of any writing prompts that could help your fellow writers with character development? Leave your thoughts in the comments below and/or e-mail your prompts to thewritersscrapbin@gmail.com and I’ll make sure to use them in a future Friday Fun-Day post.

 

Happy Friday, everyone! I’ve been waiting anxiously for the weekend and not because I’m going out. I’m still sick, my entire household is sick, I started a longer-term freelance job this week on top of other projects, I’ve had to do a lot for school, and I’m just exhausted. I’d say I’m going to use the weekend to rest but, really, I’m going to be catching up on work I’ve let fall to the wayside. Despite all these time restraints, I was able to come up with a writing prompt for this week: two truths and a lie.

In truth, two truths and a lie isn’t a writing prompt by nature. It’s a game, usually used as an icebreaker in classrooms, at conferences or workshops, etc. It’s still fun and I think that writers, particularly fiction writers, could learn something from it.

Image retrieved from Slide Share

In this game, you have to tell to two truths about yourself and a lie. The trick is that the lie has to be so good that it’s almost indistinguishable from the truths. The other people playing the game then try and guess which of your statements is actually a lie.

Here’s why I think fiction writers could benefit from this game/exercise: we are, in essence, telling lies when we write fiction. Even if we base our work on something or someone we know or that actually existed (ex. historic fiction), we embellish quite a bit. In order to be good fiction writers, we have to be able to tell these “lies” convincingly. Even though readers know (or at least assume) that what they’re reading is fiction, they have to feel as though it can happen. Even fantasy, science fiction, and horror have to be convincing enough that the events seem plausible for the world that you have created.

Two truths and a lie helps strengthen this writing skill. If you can fool other players, you’ll be that much better at getting your readers to suspend disbelief.

Obviously you’ll have to play this game with others. That’s the only way to know if your lie is convincing. So, for this exercise, gather up some friends, family, co-workers, fellow writers, and play. The better the players know you, the bigger the challenge and the more your skills will be sharpened.

You can even leave your two truths and a lie in the comments below for people to guess, or on the Facebook group that accompanies The Writer’s Scrap Bin page, The Cork Board.

Do you have any ideas for writing prompts? Leave them in the comments or e-mail me at thewritersscrapbin@gmail.com for a chance to have them featured in a future Friday Fun-Day post.

 

Designed by Stephanie Hoogstad circa 2011