Category: Prompts

  • What if? Prompt #178

    What if you start from reality and then use “worst case scenario” to do some writing?

    Here’s how it could work: Recall a time when you desperately wanted something. Could be a good grade on a test, or a good health check-up, or the biopsy comes back negative, or a divorce, or the cute guy/girl to notice you, or a good job, or any job.

    Just choose a moment when you really wanted something. Now, shift . . . as you write about this desire, this longing. . . the narrator becomes a character in a story. We’re no longer talking about “you.” We’re focusing on A Character Who Wants Something.

    Down the rabbit holeNext, as you write, throw in some curve balls, some roadblocks. Give that character an obstacle to overcome. . . the worst case scenario. What is the worst thing that could happen?

    For example, the character fails an important test, doesn’t get into college, can’t get a job, becomes homeless. . . keep going. . . what is the worst thing that happens?

    Or, the biopsy comes back negative. It’s cancer. Lots of doctor appointments. Sleepless nights. The character feels betrayed by his/her body. Lots of decisions. Surgery? Chemotherapy? Radiation? Keep going. What happens?

    What if He wants a divorce, but She doesn’t. There are children involved. The divorce happens. He happily dances off into the sunset. What if She falls apart? She can’t function. Can’t get up in the morning. Gives her children cereal for dinner with orange juice because there is no milk. What if she sinks lower and lower and then . . . what happens?

    Prompt: Start with something real, creating a character who has a problem, a need, a desire. Then. . . what if?

    Inspired from July/August 2015 issue of Poets & Writers magazine, “Preparing for the Worst,” by Benjamin Percy.

    Marlene C

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  • Write a note . . . Prompt #177

    Hand & PenToday’s writing prompt: Write a note to someone alive or not, to someone currently in your life or from your past. Start with one of these lines:

    I forgive you . . .

    I love you . . .

    I will always remember . . .

    This is a note you may or may never send.

    You can write about something that happened to you, something that happened to someone else or write from your fictional character’s point of view.

    You can also write to a “thing” . . . to a body part, to something mechanical, to any Thing that was meaningful.

    Just write.

    Marlene C

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  • Random word freewrite, using sensory detail . . . Prompt #176

    Use these words in your freewrite: cook, chant, winter, smear, blue. Try to incorporate sensory detail.

    You know the five senses: see, hear, feel, smell, taste . . . and that elusive sixth sense.

    The sixth sense is known by various perceptions: common sense, telepathy, intuition, imagination, psychic ability and proprioception (the ability to sense stimuli arising within the body regarding position, motion, and equilibrium).

    Proprioception is further intriguing with this definition: The unconscious perception of movement and spatial orientation arising from stimuli within the body itself. In humans, these stimuli are detected by nerves within the body itself, as well as by the semicircular canals of the inner ear.

    Example of proprioception: Right now I know my ankles are crossed under my blankets.  (Thank you, Kathy, for this example).

    Sensory detail word peopleWikipedia definition of sixth sense: a supposed intuitive faculty giving awareness not explicable in terms of normal perception. “Some sixth sense told him he was not alone.”

    Thank you to my Facebook Friends for helping with the definition for the sixth sense. . . Karen, Kathy, Sarah, Rich, Katie, Terry, Ransom, Brian, Robin, Jordan, Elizabeth, Ginger and many more . . . many thanks!

    Marlene C

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  • The Sadness of Ice Cream . . . . Prompt #175

    Today’s writing prompt is a poem. You can write on the theme or mood of the poem, or a line, or a word. Write whatever comes up for you.

    The Sadness of Ice Cream by Ron Salisbury

    The emperor had his and  I’ve had mine,  home churned

    on the fourth of July, spoon after spoon after she called,

    gelato in Ravenna, Neapolitan–chocolate was the best–

    pints, bars,  Liz  Topps  said next summer let’s eat lots,

    plopped  a  spoonful  of  Rocky  Road  on her bare belly.

    No more, my doctor says.   Cholesterol, blood pressure.

    Besides, right at the beginning, first cone, bite, spoonful

    licked off the belly,  we  begin  to measure how much is

    left not how much there was. The sadness of ice cream.

    Miss Desert Inn. Salisbury.180Ron Salisbury is a writer who has integrated his poetry with his business life for decades.

    Now, three wives deep, four children long, and assorted careers past, he continues to study, publish and write in San Diego.  His new book, Miss Desert Inn. is being published this fall by Main Street Press, Charlotte, NC

    Marlene C

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  • Awards . . . Prompt #174

    You deserve an awardYou can write on this prompt from your point of view or from someone else’s point of view. You can also write as your fictional character would respond.

    Write about an award you have received. Perhaps a certificate, a leather/letter jacket in high school, lapel pins, crowns, diplomas, trophies.

    Is there an award you didn’t receive and thought you should have?  Did your fictional character deserve an award and didn’t get it?  How did he/she respond?

    Writing Prompt: Awards

    Marlene C

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  • One Year From Now . . . Prompt #173

    Writing Prompts OvalToday’s writing prompt: One year from now . .

    Write whatever pops up for you. No thinking, no judging, no editor on shoulder . . . just write!

    Marlene C

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  • More random words Prompt #173

    LolaWhat can you write, using these words:

    whisper, eternity, soar, frantic, thousand, chain, live, lie

    Post your freewrite on The Write Spot Blog.

    Marlene C

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  • Favorite summer activity. Prompt #172

    Summer Bee.Sandy Baker yardWhat is your favorite summer activity?

    You can write about what you like to do now or a favorite activity when you were younger.  If you are writing fiction, what does your fictional character like to do in the summer?

    Writing Prompt:  Favorite thing to do in the summer.

    Marlene C

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  • Memory is a trickster . . . Prompt #170

    Today’s prompt is inspired by Your Mythic Journey by Sam Keen and Anne Valley-Fox.

    “We love the present tense. Be here now. Yesterday is gone and best forgotten: our tradition is to have no tradition. We aren’t Europeans buried in ancient tombs and cathedrals and medieval ruins. We were born yesterday and we will be young forever. Over thirty is over the bridge. Age embarrasses us; remembrance is a function of senility. We exile the aged to Sun City leper colonies so they won’t impair our illusion of endless summer.

    But history is not so easily dismissed. Repressed memories, national or personal won’t stay down. To be alive is to have a past. Our only choice is whether we will repress or re-create the past. Childhood may be distant, but it is never quite lost; as full-gown men and women we carry tiny laughing and whimpering children around inside us. We either repress the past and continue to fight its wars with new personnel or we invite it into awareness so that we may see how it has shaped the present.

    The moment you begin to tell your stories you may find that memory is a trickster who picks and chooses scenes. What happened to you in the past has yet to be determined. Ninety-nine times you tell the story of the way you were whipped for stealing apples you didn’t steal. Then in the hundredth telling, you remember that you did steal them and the whole scene changes. Your memories of what happened to you in 1953 will be different in 1975, and again in the year 2000.”

    Getting ready to write

    Get comfortable. Rotate your head in a circle. Now rotate the other direction. Roll your shoulders. Now the other direction. Take a deep breath in. Hold. Whoosh it out. Take deep breaths as you write.

    Go back to a time when you were little… 6 or 7 or 9.

    A time when the world was still fresh to you. Filled with new sights, adventures and exploring.

    Think of a first time experience, whether it was the first time you sat on cool grass, or sat on Santa’s lap, or splashed in a river, or decorated a tree, sat on a warm rock, or ate watermelon, or candy.

    Think of a first time experience.

    What do you see?

    What do you hear?

    What do you smell?

    How do you feel?

    Prompt: Write about a first time experience.

    And when you’re ready, here’s another prompt. Write whatever comes up for you.

    Prompt: This is what really happened . . .

    red apple

     

    Marlene C

  • What I like and don’t like . . . Prompt #169

    I facilitate writing workshops in Petaluma, CA called Jumpstart. We use prompts  to spark our imagination. For this type of free-writing, you can respond from your personal experience or from someone else’s personal experience.

    You can write as your fictional character would respond to the prompt. You can use these prompts to get deeper into your fictional character’s mind.

    The idea for this prompt is inspired by the poem, “What I Like and Don’t Like,” by Philip Schultz.

    Writing Prompts Oval

    Marlene C

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