The Write Spot Blog by Marlene Cullen

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  • Flashbacks . . . Prompt #433

    A flashback is a scene set in a time earlier than the main story.

    Sometimes when you are telling a story, or writing a story, you need to backtrack and tell what happened previously.

    A flashback is a shift in a narrative to an earlier event that interrupts the normal chronological development of a story.

    From Make a Scene by Jordan Rosenfeld: “With flashback, you want to focus on action, information, and character interactions.”

    Flashback can also be thought of as backstory.  

    Use flashbacks to explain, enlighten, and inform.

    An example is What We Keep by Elizabeth Berg. The story takes place during a woman’s travels to meet her sister and mother. We learn what happened thirty-five years prior through flashbacks while the woman travels in space.

    Other examples of using flashback to tell a story:

    To Kill a Mockingbird: The whole story is a flashback told by Scout a few years after the scenes take place. The first sentence of the book indicates the timeframe. “When he was nearly thirteen, my brother Jem got his arm badly broken at the elbow.”

    Saving Private Ryan: The movie starts out with an elderly man walking in a cemetery in Normandy. He then has a flashback of WWII.

    Titanic is told from an elderly lady’s point of view. We move from present time of her telling the story and the resurrection of the ship to what happened years previously.

    Think for a moment about a movie or story you have read where flashbacks are used to tell a story.

    How to incorporate flashbacks into your writing: Use past tense. “She revealed . . .”     “We had just gone to . . .”

    Prompt: What is the most fearless thing you have done?  But . . . here’s the twist. . . start your story in the present time period. Then, go back in time to tell what happened.

    For example: Today, I’m afraid of spiders because of the time . . . 

    OR:

    I know I can accomplish such and such because when I was . . .  

    Go for it! Just write!

  • Ouch. Prompt #434

    Write about someone in your life who is consistently critical of you or what you do, and this could be yourself.

    I recently read a Facebook post by Prince Ea about the four letter word that ends all arguments: Ouch.

    Suggestion: As you write on this prompt, think of what words and actions hurt and add “ouch” to your writing. Frame your situation as experiences that had an “ouch” factor.

    Next, write what you wish you had said, or could have said, to lessen the hurt.

    Next, write a love letter to yourself. List your strengths, your qualities, your capabilities that make you uniquely you. Be generous with yourself. You deserve it.

  • Imaginary Gift . . . Prompt #432

    Give yourself an imaginary gift.

    Fantasize for a moment.

    If money were no object. And time and place were non-issues. . .

    What gift would you give yourself?

  • Five minute writing exercises . . . Prompt #431

    Susan Bono writes.
    Photo by Laurie MacMillan, Sunfield Design

    ~ Write for 5 minutes about something difficult, challenging, or painful.

    It’s only five minutes. Go ahead. Do it now. We’ll wait.

    Humming in the background while writing gets done.

    Quiet while writing gets done.

    Are you still reading?  Write!  Just write. For five minutes.

    After five minutes . . .

    ~ Write for 5 minutes about something comforting, happy, or joyous.

    Yes, you. Now. Just write. Go ahead. We’ll wait.

    Waiting. Waiting. Patiently waiting. I’ll write, too.

    After five minutes . . .

    ~ Write for 5 minutes about images of nature, the natural world.

    Hmm . . . what will you choose from nature to write about?

    Feathers, rocks, trees, birds, rocks, dirt, peach blossoms, river, waterfall, penguins, geese.

    Write whatever comes up for you about nature.

    Shhh. . . Writers are working here. Doing what we do.

    Writing. Just writing. Keep on writing. For five minutes.

    Next . . .

    ~ Spend 15 minutes to write a poem, using words and images from each of the previous writing.

    Can use repetition.

    Doesn’t have to make sense.

    Have fun with this.

    Play with words.

  • An object that “speaks” to you. Prompt #430

    Picture the house or apartment you grew up in. If there was more than one house or apartment, choose one to focus on for this writing.

    Imagine standing outside, looking at the door you usually entered. Stand outside for a moment.

    Walk in and wander until you see a piece of furniture that speaks to you.

    Describe the object.

    Write about the memories and feelings it brings up for you.

    Write until you feel done with this object.

    Another time write about another object from your childhood or adolescence.

  • Secret Anniversary. . . Prompt #429

    From Simple Abundance, by Sarah Ban Breathnach

    From the June 15 page:

    “The Secret Anniversaries of the Heart”

    The holiest of all holidays are those

    Kept by ourselves in silence and apart,

    The secret anniversaries of the heart  . .

     —Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

    This is the traditional month for orange blossoms, lace, and rice, but wedding anniversaries aren’t on my mind. Today I am thinking of singular rites of passage, the secret anniversaries of the heart. These are the anniversaries we never talk about, kept in silence and apart. You might remember a first kiss, while I can’t forget the last time I held my father’s hand.

    I was speaking to a good friend this morning on the telephone. She was enjoying the preparation of a special dinner for a marvelous new man in her life. Last year her marriage of twenty years ended and she says she’s grateful her husband told her he was leaving in late summer, when everything was withering on the vine. She says that she never would have gotten over it if he had left during the holidays. I think I know what she means, but I pray I never find out for sure. As she reminds me, it’s the “feel” of the year that can trigger a secret anniversary of the heart. Another friend recalls the ritual of her mother braiding her hair whenever she walks out into her backyard in the spring and the first lilacs are in bloom. There was always a bouquet of lilacs on her mother’s dressing table.

    Secret anniversaries of the heart are not restricted by the passage of the years.  . . . I need to share what I’ve held in my hart for so many decades but have never expressed. It took a secret anniversary of the heart to remind me that there is always time enough to remember. But there is never time enough to commemorate what we cherish, unless we pause to observe, when they occur, the holiest of all holidays.

    Prompt: Write about a secret anniversary. 

    You can write about your personal experience, someone else’s

     experience, or respond as your fictional character would respond.

  • What writing brings you joy?

    “I write because I believe my words can change the world. Every paragraph, every sentence, every syllable I construct is written with the express intention of changing people and their families. I hope as you read this you are in fact changing and I hope you’ll let your families read this so they can change too.

    Of course I’m kidding.

    I write for cash and because as a child I was told I had excellent penmanship.”

    “What’s the writing that makes you happy? That’s the writing to do.” 

    Doug Ellin, Creator, Executive Producer, “Entourage”

    From September 2005 issue of Writer’s Digest magazine

  • Shhhh . . . Prompt #428

    Today’s writing prompt:

    Opening line from Maxine Hong Kingston, The Woman Warrior: Memoirs of a Girlhood Among Ghosts:

    “You must not tell anyone, my mother said, what I’m about to tell you.”

    Or: You must not tell anyone . . .

    Or: My mother said . . .

  • Cross new thresholds into being creative.

    Today’s Guest Blogger, Creativity Coach, Suzanne Murray, asks:

    DO YOU RESIST ENGAGING YOUR CREATIVITY?

    Suzanne’s thoughtful answer:

    Recently I got a note from one of my writing students saying that she was really enjoying writing when she managed to find the time. The three top reasons that people give for not being able to fully show up, move forward or change some area of their life are, “I don’t have enough time, I don’t have enough money or my health isn’t good enough.”

    On the surface these excuses appear valid and hard to argue with. In truth they always cover up some deeper resistance. When we really want to do something and commit to it we can always manage to find the time, the resources and a way to work around any physical limitations.

    Robert Olen Butler who won the Pulitzer Prize for his collection of short stories A Good Scent from a Strange Mountain worked full time and had a difficult home life so he wrote everyday on the train computing into New York City. J.K. Rowling, author of the Harry Potter books, was a single mother struggling on state aid in Edinburgh Scotland where she sat every day in a local cafe writing the first book in the series that would turn her into a multi-millionaire. These stories point to the reality that you don’t have to have everything together or know exactly what you are doing or how you are going to make something work to begin whatever it is you want to create. Beginning opens you up to new possibilities.

    With my writing coaching clients, I start by asking for a commitment to write a minimum of ten minutes a day. It would seem like everyone could find ten minutes, but if there are some unconscious beliefs and fears around expressing yourself or being creative then you will put it off until the end of the day and then say you are too tired. This is what resistance looks like.

    If you are having trouble showing up to your writing, painting, music or exploring your creativity in some way, stop and get quiet. Take some deep breaths. Ask your deeper or higher self:  what’s in the way? Then just see what comes to you. It may be a memory of your third grade teacher humiliating you in front of the class by criticizing a drawing you did or your father’s refusal to let you take the dance class you so much wanted.

    Such events really can impact the tender, vulnerable, innocent part of us that is our creative self and years later have us not wanting to risk being creative. If something comes up for you, honor your feelings around it. If you feel sad or angry feel those feelings as a way of allowing them to shift and release their hold on you. Then send love to that part of you. 

    We also resist our creativity because it can take us into unknown territory and our mind, which is committed to keeping us safe, will put the brakes on when we veer from the routine. Becoming aware of what’s in the way of your desire to create and being mindful and patience and kind with your self will help you cross new thresholds into being creative and finding time to show up.

    Check out Suzanne’s new website.

    Work with Suzanne Murray:

    Creativity Coaching, Creative Life Coaching, Writing Process Coaching & EFT Sessions

    EFT (Emotional Freedom Techniques)

    Combining Western psychology with Chinese acupressure work together to rewrite subconscious patterns and limiting beliefs that keep us stuck. I’ve had miraculous results and have been working with EFT in new ways that allow us to laser in on the issue and shift it at the core and change your life from the inside out. We often make significant shifts in a single session.
    Sessions are available by phone and Skype.

    CREATIVE LIFE COACHING

    Would you like to live from an expanded place of grace, ease and flow? Would you like to tap the wisdom and power of your heart and soul? We work with soul based ways to let go of limitation and gain clarity of the next steps to living a more joyful, authentic life.

    More about Suzanne Murray.

  • When I was a teenager . . . Prompt # 427

    Today’s writing prompt:  When I was a teenager, I especially loved to . . .

    Or: When I was a teenager, I hated to . . .

    Or, simply: When I was a teenager. . .

    Just start writing and see where it takes you.