Hot Summer Day Writing Prompt

The goal of this prompt is to describe an action or situation for your MC on a hot summer day. Choose a specific setting (beach, school, park, etc) and focus on how the details of the summer day might impact your MC's thoughts or actions/reactions. Is it a lazy summer day? One filled with tension? How do the sensory elements influence the dynamics of your story? Set your timer for 15-30 minutes and write. When you are done, read what you've written and see if you were able to firmly anchor your character in time and place.

A Character Inventory

This week's exercise is to write a character inventory. Start with basic physical characteristics, such as hair and eye color, then go deeper. What are your MC's quirks? Likes and dislikes? Where is he from, who are his parents and what do they do? What about his friends and enemies? A complete character inventory helps to make your MC more real. It helps the writer to add depth when writing a story, and it helps you to stay true to your MC by justifying his words and actions.

Set your timer for 20-30 minutes and try to write a well-thought character inventory.

Twenty-five Words for July 2011

Here are this month's 25 words. The object of the game remains the same: set your timer for 15-30 minutes and try to write a children's story using as many of the words as possible:

Fog
San Francisco
Heart
Noodles
Slurpy
So far away
Forgotten
Crazy
Chinatown
Crashing waves
Pigeons
Flappity-flap
Oh no!
Clang
Bang
Whoops
Sizzle
Starry night
Mistake
Golden Gate Bridge
Telephone
Delicious
Did you see that?
Toys
Cable Car

Person, Place, and a Thing

In this writing prompt, choose one MC from the list below, a setting, and a thing. Set your timer for 15 minutes and write a children's short story that involves all three. Extra points for incorporating a conflict and a resolution.

Person:
1. Boy, age 8, with an almost funny sense of impending doom.
2. Boy, age 6, who loves sports.
3. Girl, age 4, who greets each day with unbridled joy.
4. Girl, age 8, who feels that she has a superpower, but isn't sure what it is yet.

Place:
1. A very proper private school where kids wear uniforms and recess is very orderly...or is it?
2. Home, comfortable wonderful home, which for some reason is not so perfect for harried parents.
3. The neighborhood park. You never know who you're gonna offend.

Thing:
1. A brand-new baseball glove.
2. A red sweatshirt.
3. A cell phone.
4. An unhatched bird's egg.

Open Window Writing exercise

This is an especially fun exercise to do with a group. For this exercise, Imagine your main character looking out a window, either at his school, home or other location where he spends a lot of time. Write about what he sees and how the scene outside his window impacts his emotional state. Does it create a longong, resentment, despair? Write for 15-30 minutes.

If you are doing this as a group exercise, discuss how your intent as a writer may or may not intrude upon what your character sees, and your influence on your character's emotional response.