I love stories that are inspirational yet have a lot of heartache, because I think that’s what life is. Life is filled with struggles and yet there’s always beauty, and that’s what I get from films. — Ellen DeGeneres, Parade Magazine, March 2, 2014
Photo by Jeff Cullen
Prompt #48 was about how to “Grow Your Character.” Prompt #49 was about setting the mood. Prompt #50 was “The Problem.”
Let’s put them all together and write the scene. If you have freewrites on character, mood and a problem. . . use these elements to write a scene. Or, write a scene, using all new material.
If writing memoir, write what actually happened, as best as remembered. Be sure to include details. Be specific. Not “car,” rather “1966 blue Dodge van.”
“Scenes are capsules in which compelling characters undertake significant actions in a vivid and memorable way that allows the events to feel as though they are happening in real time. When strung together, individual scenes add up to build plots and storylines. — Make A Scene, Crafting a powerful Story One Scene at a Time, by Jordan E. Rosenfeld
In Make A Scene, Jordan includes a recipe for basic ingredients for compelling scenes. If you are looking for an excellent book on how to write, this is it! Click here for my review of Make A Scene.
Prompt #48 was about how to “Grow Your Character.” Prompt #49 was about setting the mood.
Today’s prompt is about “The Problem.” These series of prompts are based on Sheldon Siegel‘s 2011 Writers Forum workshop.
We’re working on how to write suspense, mystery, thriller. If that doesn’t interest you, you can also use these prompts to write memoir.
Write a one-sentence premise. What’s at stake? Why should the reader care?
If we follow along with Prompt #49: Our heroine is about to get into a limo to meet with Monsieur Blanchard. We know her father is concerned about her. We know she wants to look professional for this meeting. That’s about all we know.
Let’s play with this. What if our heroine is a contracted killer? What if she is meeting with Monsieur Blanchard to receive her next assignment? What if she needs the money because her father is in danger of losing their house for failure to pay back taxes? What if Monsieur Blanchard is about to blackmail her? What if she has information to blackmail him? All sorts of possibilities.
Premise: Our heroine, Monique, needs money to pay her father’s bills.
Stake: He could lose the house. She could lose her life.
Care: She will die.
When you are writing thriller, mystery or suspense, Sheldon says to know the enemy. Know who it is and what we’re scared of. Then you can manipulate the reader. Need to feel the enemy. Personified. Fear the murderer.
You can use your list of fears from Prompt #47 to incorporate with your character’s problem. Or you can think about your fears and work one of those into the premise.
Prompt: The problem is . . . Or, The problem was . . .
Note: If you are writing memoir, write what actually happened, as best remembered. Be sure to include details, such as character description and location. When writing about real people, they become “characters” in the story. Use sensory detail such as smell. Use the weather to mirror mood of character and of story.
Photo by Sasha Oaks
Prompt #48 was about how to “Grow Your Character.” We’ll talk about location as character (exterior and interior) in this post and how to set the mood, or the tone of the scene.
Let the reader know right away where the scene is happening, include details such as place, year, season, weather, and perhaps time of day. Not in an information dump, rather, weave in these details.
Furniture tells a lot about a person. Sparse? Elegant? Are there cooking utensils on the kitchen counter? Neat and tidy? Cluttered?
The city (setting) can be a character in the story. Examples: Dashiell Hammett and San Francisco, Lisa Scottoline and Philadelphia.
The Christmas tree in The Nutracker becomes a character as it expands.
As you write details about the setting and location, try to use dialogue and action. Think Casablanca and the Maltese Falcon.
Elements of setting the mood:
Where does this scene take place?
City (real or mythical), urban, suburban, small town, hamlet, metropolis
Time of day
Season
Weather can match mood of story
Furniture
Example of a freewrite, using details to set the mood:
Martha pulled back the Coventry lace curtains, squinting past the newly pruned rose bushes, past the edged lawn and noted the weather. She raised her coat collar high above her ears, and picked up her fur-lined gloves from her bureau. One more look in the mirror to check if her seams were straight. It wouldn’t do to meet Monsieur Blanchard looking like a two-bit whore.
She walked downstairs.
“Good night, Father. Don’t wait up. I’ll be rather late.”
Mr. Edmonton lowered his reading glasses and glanced at his daughter.
“Setting out in this weather, are you?”
“Yes, Father, I have an important client to meet.”
“I don’t like the looks of this. Where are your rubbers? You aren’t dressed appropriately. You’ll catch your death.”
“I’m fine, Father. You worry too much.” She brushed his bald head with her lips and was out the door before he realized a limo had stopped in front of their flat.
Your turn: Write details about setting and location, using dialogue and action.
For more prompts on location:
A place where you find satisfaction. Prompt #25
Physical location and action and to describe emotion state Prompt # 12
Favorite place form childhood. Prompt #11
Location, or place as a character Prompt #8
Photo of hem of Coventry lace curtain
Grow your characters.
For the next three writing prompts, we’re going to build our repertoire, so that we’ll have characters, location and a problem leading us to write a scene.
One step at a time.
First step: Write a brief description of character or characters. If you have a work in progress, use this time to discover something new about your characters. If writing memoir, same thing . . . find a new way to describe character. Include flaw or flaws.
Example: Self-doubt, what would be challenging to character? What does the character fear? What big events molded character? Character’s likes and dislikes. What drives character? How does character react to pressure? Give your character a personality quirk, add internal conflict. These examples are from Sheldon Siegel’s 2011 talk at Writers Forum of Petaluma. Sheldon Siegel is one of my favorite authors.
Need more ideas? Fill in the blanks. Answer these questions for each of your characters.
Character’s name
Nickname
Personality trait character is most proud of.
How did character get this trait?
What do people like least about character?
What habit would character like to change?
If someone looked in character’s bathroom garbage right now, what would they find?
What scent does character like and what does it remind him/her of?
What scares the character?
Answer these questions for each of your characters (whether fictional or real). Real people become “characters” in your story once you start writing about them.
For more prompts about character:
Develop Character, put your character in an unusual situation and see what happens – Prompt #4
Interview Character – Prompt #6
Your Character Has A Surprise Secret – Prompt #7
Make a list of things you fear or have feared.
Using items from your list, write a story, poem or essay.
“Personal essays represent what you think, what you feel . . . your effort to communicate those thoughts and feelings to others . . . What is the point of your essay? Don’t belabor the point too much; let the point grow out of the experience of the essay. It might be true, in fact, that you didn’t even have a point to make when you started writing your essay. Go ahead and write it and see if a point develops.” — Essay.Grammar.com
Listen closely to yourself and dispute the thoughts that don’t serve you – even if those are true. For example, you might think, “Writing a novel is hard. Selling a novel is hard.” Yes, both thoughts are true, but they don’t serve you. The only thought that serves you is, “I’m off to write a novel.” — Eric Maisel, January 2014 issue of The Writer magazine.
Imagine a room full of people, they are looking at a speaker behind a podium. They want to know more about the topic. In a way, they want to be entertained, even though it’s a somber occasion. They are talking about you . . . in the past tense.
Who knows more about you than you? Who best to talk about the essence of you, than you? For today’s prompt, write about you. Provide enough information so the reader or the person in that room has a view of your life. Write about high points, achievements, life markers. Write about what is important to you.
You can make a list in chronological order of events that have shaped you.
You can look up various years and discover what historical events took place in particular years. Write what your life was like during those historical events. Did they affect you?
Today’s prompt: Write about you. We can call it Life Changing Events or The Chronicles of [insert your name here]. Or we can call it your eulogy.
When using prompts for writing, you can answer from your personal experience, or from your fictional or real character’s point of view. Feel free to let your imagination meander.
If you only know where the trolley you got on would take you . . . What trolley did you get on, and where did it take you? What other trolleys were running then? What if you had taken one of them? Not had kids, had kids, chose to live on the Atlantic instead of Pacific, gave up art or gave up law, married him/her or didn’t. Tell us about your trolley.
Prompt: What trolley did you get on?