My Baby Blog is one month old today. Time to celebrate! I’m doing the Happy Dance!
Prompt: Write about a birthday you loved or one you hated.
Category: Prompts
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Birthday – Prompt #13
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Physical location and action to describe emotional state – Prompt #12
“Setting says something about character, says Rhodes,” in “Location Location” by Elfrieda Abbe, October 2013 issue of The Writer magazine. David Rhodes, author of Driftless and Jewelweed, goes on to say, “A person walking along an empty beach is thinking deeply. . . If a couple sits at a high place overlooking an open valley, they are in love and the future of that love extends before them. A character running through the forest is happy; one lying down is sick or sad. These associations are not hard-fixed symbols, but rather associative colorings that come to life in that split second between emergent images and first thoughts. In stories, such descriptive asides can be used to add depth to the passions and to suggest both strong and ambiguous states of mind.”
Prompt: Put yourself, or your fictional character, in a emotional frame of mind. Write, using physical location and action to describe character’s emotional state. Don’t tell us what his or her emotion is. Write a descriptive scene. Commentators: What emotion do you think writer wants to convey?
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Favorite place from childhood – Prompt #11
Picture a house you grew up in. If you grew up in more than one house, just choose one. It doesn’t matter which one. Stand back from the house, across the street, or across a yard, and look at your house. Notice the size, shape and color of your house.
Walk a little closer. What do you see? Take a look around. Perhaps you notice some trees, or plants, a yard or a fence. Perhaps a sidewalk.
Look at the side of the house that you usually first walked into. Maybe a front door, or a side door, or a back door. Walk towards that door.
Open the door and step inside.
Take a look around. Even though it may have been awhile, this room is so familiar. Walk towards your favorite room in the house. If you don’t have a favorite room in this house, go to your favorite spot. Maybe it’s under a tree, or away from your house. Maybe it’s a friend’s house or a relative’s house. Go to your favorite place from your childhood.
Prompt: Write about your favorite place from your childhood
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Remember when you . . . Prompt #10
The current issue of Writer’s Digest magazine (Nov/Dec 2013) is filled with inspirational prompt ideas. Here’s one, “Start with the statement ‘Remember when you . . . ‘ and dream up something unusual to fill in the blank.”
Or, you can write about something that really happened.
Prompt: Remember when you . . .
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What if . . . Prompt #9
Take any situation from real life, reel life, or from fiction and change the story. Start out with “What if . . . ” and go from there. What if you hadn’t taken that job, moved to that city? What if you had gone a different route? What if Dorothy didn’t follow the yellow brick road? What if the top of the Empire State Building was closed that evening? Change your story to what could have happened. Change the ending to a well-known movie or book or poem. Use your imagination. Go wild. Be quirky. Write freely.
Prompt: What if . . .
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Location, or place as a character – Prompt #8
Prompt: Write about a city . . . where you live now, or used to live, or have visited, or from your imagination. Here are examples from the NaNoWriMo Blog.
It is Sunday in Hamburg. Six o’clock in the morning and everything is quiet. Most people are sleeping peacefully in their beds, but not me. I’ve been awake all night. Waiting for this special moment. I feel tired but push on: there is nothing better than the beauty of a new dawn and the breeze of freedom it holds. Soon, I will go to the one place where people who lived through the night can meet those who are first to welcome the morning.
Entering downtown Montreal is like stepping through a time machine. The old port brings you straight to the 1600s: where architectural elegance usurped function, and everything was made of stone. And these stones have stories to tell—showing the stains of floodwaters from as far back as 1642.
New York: The City That Never Sleeps. It’s a common phrase, but it means a lot more than last calls at 4 a.m. and a 24-hour subway system. This town doesn’t run on one schedule, it runs on over 8 million.
Bodegas, hot dog carts and $1 pizza places line the streets of Midtown Manhattan and the Village, catering to this continual flux of pedestrian traffic. Trains full of 9-to-5ers pour out of Grand Central Station, giving way to tourists, then pre-curtain-call diners, then club-goers and night shift workers, on to the late-night partiers and night owls, until, as dawn breaks, early-shift workers and audition-goers pass through, re-starting the cycle all over again.
Your Turn: Write about a city.
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Your character has a surprise secret – Prompt #7
Fleshing out your character. . . either fictional or someone from real life or a photo.
Have your character do something unexpected . . . something that surprises everyone.
For example, put your conservative character in an improv situation where he/she has to rap or belly dance. Have your wild character volunteer to help with bingo in an assisted facility.
You don’t have to include this in your novel, memoir or biography. Just have fun with writing about a character.
Prompt: Write about your character’s surprise
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Interview character – Prompt #6
Inspired from “Character Profile” by Patrick Scalisi in the November issue of The Writer magazine. Interview your main character or supporting characters.
If you have a fictional character, you can work with that.
If you are writing about something that really happened, you can use those people as your characters.
If neither of those work, use a photo . . . develop a picture into flesh and blood characters.
For your fictional character: Interview him or her as a journalist would. . . but not at the age they are in your story. If they are older . . . interview the younger version of your character. If they are young. . . imagine what they might be like as an older person.
For your real-life person: Same thing. . . have an imaginary interview of him or her. . . you can pick the age. . . younger if you know them as an older person. Older if you know them as a young person (someone from school no longer interact with, for example).
Same with the photo . . . whatever age the person appears to be . . .interview him or her as an older or younger person.
Prompt: Interview character. Main or supporting fictional character. Someone from real life. Or a photo.
Arlene Mandell and Joey, “Scenes from My Life on Hemlock Street,” published by Wordrunner echapbooks
Arlene L. Mandell is a retired English professor, formerly from New Jersey, now living in sunny Santa Rosa, CA
Do you have a photo you would like to post? Contact Marlene: mcullen – at – comcast.net
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I don’t remember – Prompt #5
This is the place to write freely, using the suggested prompts. Write on the prompt for 12-15 minutes.
Today’s Prompt: I don’t remember . . .
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Develop Character . . . Prompt #4
I’ve been thinking about characters lately. If you are going to participate in NaNoWriMo, how about doing some freewrites now, set the stage for the “real” writing in November. And if you aren’t part of NaNoWriMo . . . today’s prompt will work for you, also. If you have a fictional character you work with, put your character in a setting he or she wouldn’t normally be in. For example, put your conservative character in an improv situation where he/she has to rap. Have your wild character volunteer to help with bingo in an assisted facility.
Today’s prompt: See what your character does in unusual situations.
