Writing Prompt

Writing Prompt: Unusual Houses

When I was growing up I was obsessed with the Boxcar Children, not the later books when the children were wealthy and supported, but the first book when they were making a life for themselves in an abandoned boxcar. The books where homes were established in churches, barns, buses, boats, and trees all captured my…
Issue Forty Three Writing Prompt

Writing Prompt: The Happy Funeral

There are lots of words people use to describe funerals, although rarely do any of those words have positive connotations. Your challenge today is to write about a funeral. But you can’t use any of the following words: Sad, dour, mad, upset, crying, sobbing, grieving, angry, dark, black, rain, or tombstone. The tone of your…
Issue Forty Two Writing Prompt

Writing Prompt: 50/50

Some writers pepper their books with dialogue, some rarely add any dialogue: Conversations are mostly recapped, and they don’t actually happen live. I love dialogue. You can add wit to an otherwise dull section of the book with dialogue, and you can give a character more dimension through the words they choose to say out…
Issue Forty One Writing Prompt

Writing Prompt: Rear Window

Rear Window is a classic Alfred Hitchcock movie. It stars Jimmy Stewart as a professional photographer stuck in his tiny New York apartment because of an accident. He has very little to do all day, which has turned him into a watcher. The rear window of his apartment faces a courtyard where he can see…
Issue Forty Writing Prompt

Writing Prompt: The Insomniac

Your main character can’t sleep. They can eat, they can talk, they have a job, they are like most other characters, except for one fact: they cannot sleep. Not even a little nap. Maybe they used to be able to sleep, but something has changed, and they can no longer close their eyes and dream….
Issue Thirty Nine Writing Prompt

The Setting is The Story

Setting is the key to many stories. I Capture the Castle by Dodi Smith would not be nearly so powerful if it was set elsewhere. The Great Gatsby would be a completely different story if it took place in the Midwest. So many stories rely on their location to tell the story. This exercise is…
Issue Thirty Eight Writing Prompt

Writing Prompt: No Adjectives

“When you catch an adjective, kill it. No, I don’t mean utterly, but kill most of them–then the rest will be valuable. They weaken when they are close together. They give strength when they are far apart.” Mark Twain An adjective is a describing word. In general, its purpose is to modify the word following…
Issue Thirty Six Writing Prompt

Writing Prompt: The Best First Line

A really silly first line will stop me from reading the rest of the book, and a really good first line will prompt me to take the book up to the cash register. Because of this I have always put a lot of effort into my first lines. A good first line tends to lead…
Issue Thirty Five Writing Prompt

Writing Prompt: The Reader Knows

Most of Shakespeare’s plays hinge on the fact that the audience knows more than the characters. In Romeo and Juliet we know that Juliet is not actually dead, even though Romeo takes his own life believing that she is already dead. In the Twelfth Night we know who is a male pretending to be a…
Issue Thirty Four Writing Prompt

Prompt: Inheritance

If you are writing a novel, you can give the main character a break and use him or her in this writing prompt. If you don’t have any characters at your immediate disposal, create one for this prompt. In this prompt, the main character receives an inheritance, not from a parent but from a wealthy…
Issue Thirty Two Writing Prompt

Writing Prompt: Castaway

  Your main character is stuck on a small island with only three items. You get to decide what three items. They could be deeply practical items like a water filter and a lighter or they can be purely random, unpractical items like lipstick and hairspray. The main character must be alone. There are no…
Issue Thirty One Writing Prompt

Writing Prompt: Bedroom

When I am writing a novel I am constantly trying to get better acquainted with the characters that populate it. Often I will do writing prompts that help me get to know my characters better. These writing exercises never make it into the manuscript, but they help improve the overall quality of the manuscript. Choose…
Issue Thirty Writing Prompt

Writing Prompt: Time Traveler

The writing prompt today is simple. There are no catches, no hitches, no hidden rules. Set a timer for twenty minutes and start writing about your main character, a time traveler. Your main character does not need to travel in time during the story itself, but the face that he or she can travel in…
Issue Twenty Nine Writing Prompt

Writing Prompt: Ghost

In preparation for Halloween the prompt this week is to write a ghost story. We don’t want traditional ghost stories here. We don’t want you to retell the ghost story that your cousin told you around the campfire in ninth grade. Your ghost story must include five of the following ten words: Marriage, lake, cellphone,…
Issue Twenty Eight Writing Prompt

Writing Prompt: Absurd Superpower

As a child I often imagined myself or my characters with superpowers ranging from invisibility to wings. Now that I am an adult I like to play with superpowers that are more unusual, perhaps even deeply impractical. Today’s writing prompt is to write for fifteen minutes about a human being that has a strange ability….
Issue Twenty Seven Uncategorized Writing Prompt

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