August 2013

Friday Links

Nephele Tempest

TGIF! I hope you’ve all had a lovely week, and that you possibly indulged in a bit of fresh writing courtesy of my mini writing challenge. There were some wonderfully enthusiastic folks on Monday, but it’s been quiet since then so I can only assume you’re all busy scribbling.

However, Friday means links, and so here I am with a batch to keep you entertained through the weekend. There’s a bit of this, a bit of that… I hope you enjoy. Have a terrific weekend, and happy writing!

And the Moral of the Story Is…: 30 One-Sentence Lessons from Literature – Some of these are pretty amusing.

Julie Taymor and other creative minds share how they start their incredibly unique works – Presentations and quotes from TED.

Why Stephen King Spends “Months and Even Years” Writing Opening Sentences – The importance of hooking the reader.

Opportunities for Writers: August and September, 2013 – A good round up of contests, call for work, etc.

The Prizewinners 2012/2013 – The Millions provides a ranking of all the prizewinning books of the recent awards season.

Mini Challenge: Day Five

Nephele Tempest

Today is the final day of the mini challenge. I hope you’ve had some fun with the different prompts and that you’ve gotten some good writing done. Don’t forget, these are just meant as jumping off points — ideas to get your mental juices flowing and maybe give you a bit of material to work with going forward.

For the last of the prompts, we’re returning again to character. Where yesterday you built a character based on some of your favorite qualities and back stories, today I’m going to give you a list of characters and ask you to write something about one of them. Try to choose someone unlike the characters you generally write. Stretch a bit and see what you can come up with for someone very unfamiliar. What sort of story can you tell about them?

Pick one or more of the characters/scenarios below and just write. As with all the other prompts, you only need a page or so to start. Maybe you’ll set it aside and it will be no more than an exercise, or maybe you’ll start something that captures your imagination and keep on going. Either way, thanks for playing this week, and happy writing!

Pick a character:

A soldier the night before deployment

A construction worker on the tallest building in the world (in progress). Can be any time period, any building that once (or still) held the title, or a future construct.

Someone who owes money to the mob

A child (ten or younger) who is being bullied at school

An assassin

A fortune teller

Someone on their death bed — you pick their age and what they’re dying of…illness, old age, etc.

A gardener/grounds-keeper on a huge estate

Someone who works in a casino

An athlete who has just sustained a career-ending injury

A dancer facing a casting-couch situation

A mortician

 

Mini Challenge: Day Four

Nephele Tempest

Have you been keeping up with this week’s set of challenges? If so, you should have a few different ideas already buzzing about your brain. Even if you’re too busy to participate right now, you can always file these away for future use, and reuse them again and again whenever you’re looking to mix up your daily writing.

Today is day four, and we’re going to take a slightly different approach. We’ve been focusing on story, plots and settings and genre, and ways to revitalize them or try something new. Instead, we’re going to look at characters today. Who are your absolute favorite characters? Think about the books and films and TV shows you love most, and the characters who really capture your imagination. Who would you like to know? Who would you fall in love with? Who would you readily accompany on their adventures? Are they witty and sarcastic? Honest to a fault? Painfully insecure but determined to carry forth despite that? Do they come from impoverished backgrounds that give them the drive to succeed, or are they from money but lacking a solid emotional upbringing? Are they comfortable in their space and only pushed to action by some catastrophe on their doorstep?

For today’s prompt, I want you to think about the characters you love and what it is that makes you love them. Do you see any patterns? Shared backgrounds or personality traits? If you have a romantic type in real life, do you also have a fictional type? Think of the qualities you most enjoy in a character and make a list. They don’t all have to be from a single character either; in fact, better if they’re not. Then build yourself a character who shares some of those characteristics you adore. Start from scratch, dream up their past, and come up with some present-day moment that can kick them off into a story. Throw a bunch of scenarios at your character and ask yourself “what if?”

As always, you only need write a page or two of your idea, but in this case you’ll probably spend a bit of time beforehand working on your list of character traits. And be sure to save that list! You can probably build quite a few protagonists from it. Happy writing!