Writing Prompt

Writing Prompt: New Space

In 2010 I wrote for an entire month in a museum. Not in a coffee shop or a comfy chair at home, but in an awkward crowded busy museum. Sometimes I wrote standing up. Other times I found an awkward bench to sit on. No matter where I was, art surrounded me. So did a…
Issue Twenty Six Writing Prompt

Writing Prompts: To Be or Not To Be

“To be or not be” is the world’s most famous soliloquy. It is act 3, scene 1 in Hamlet, and it is among the many lines from Shakespeare that are still commonly spoofed in current culture. At the end of this article I have included the entire text of the soliloquy. Today’s prompt is a…
Issue Twenty Five Writing Prompt

Writing Prompt: Four Senses

Most people have five senses: Taste, touch, smell, sight, and hearing. However when we write we tend to focus on only one of those, sight. This exercise is designed to focus on improving the diversity of our senses when it comes to writing. Set a timer for 15 minutes. This is a short exercise. Now…
Issue Twenty Four Writing Prompt

Writing Prompt: Personal Apocalypse

Everyone seems to be thinking about the end times these days.  Apocalyptic and post apocalyptic novels are frequently featured on best sellers lists. Many authors have found new and inventive ways of destroying the world and bringing about a new era. However one of the challenges many authors face in creating these new worlds, is…
Issue Twenty Three Writing Prompt

Editing Exercise: Length Play

This week we are mixing things up a bit. Instead of a writing prompt we are doing an editing exercise. Few writers would claim to enjoy editing, but that does not make it any less important. I personally despise editing, but I think that it is vitally important. When I write, editing is as important…
Issue Twenty Two Writing Prompt

Writing Prompt: A New Perspective

When writers block plagues you during a writing project the best thing to do is shift perspectives. This same trick also works when you want your writing to feel more fresh, or if you want to add another dimension to the text on the page. Unlike most of the writing prompts we post, this one…
Issue Twenty One Uncategorized Writing Prompt

Writing Prompt: Twist Ending

One of the most controversial of all plot moves is the twist ending. A twist ending can make a great book better, as it does in Fight Club or in the short story The Lottery, but it can also ruin a book or movie if written improperly. But it can be fun to write twist…
Issue Twenty Writing Prompt

Writing Prompt: Invasion

You wake up in bed. You hear the sound of a gun being loaded, or a vase being broken, or the door being kicked in. You start writing from the point of being woken up by a strange and dangerous sound. What happens next is up to you. You could be writing from your own…
Issue Nineteen Writing Prompt

What Gail Carson Levine Taught Me About Writing

During my years as a student at Brigham Young University, I occasionally volunteered with the annual speculative fiction symposium—Life, the Universe and Everything. As a committee member, I would help with registration, judge the writing competition and hand out nametags. One year, we ran into an problem: Gail Carson Levine didn’t have anyone who could…
Issue Twenty Special Feature Writing Prompt

Writing Prompt: Character Sketch

Today our prompt is a little different. When writing one often gets stuck with figuring out what a character will do next. The better one knows a character, the easier it is to write what happens next. One of the ways I get a better handle on my characters is to create a cheat sheet….
Issue Eighteen Writing Prompt

Writing Prompt: Circus Time

If you have been writing one book for a long time you can feel stuck in the characters, stifled by the setting, and bogged down by the plot. This is an easy exercise to clear your mind, but it is also a good exercise to try if you are just getting used to a new…
Issue Seventeen Writing Prompt

Writing Prompt: Alternative Biography

When my father was young, long before I was born, he was accepted into Stanford for math. He planned to attend Stanford, but instead stopped at Washington State University and decided to stay after touring the art department. He met my mother in a watercolor class. They have now been married for over 35 years….
Issue Sixteen Writing Prompt

Writing Prompt: Multiple Angles

This exercise involves several steps. The only material you need is a pen (or pencil), a piece of paper, and a timer. Once you have all your materials set up, picture a character in your head. After you have thought about the character for a minute or two, set a timer for five minutes. Write…
Issue Fifteen Writing Prompt

Writing Prompt: Genre Twist

There are writers who always write horror, those who always write romance, and those that jump around a lot from sci-fi to literature and mystery all in the space of one week. But even for those flexible writers there are genres they avoid. I do not like to read or watch horror, so the idea…
Issue Fourteen Writing Prompt

Writing Prompt: A Few Words

When you write you often discover that you favor certain words. Maybe you really like the word red, or metronome, or poem, and those words crop up frequently. You might not notice it when writing fiction, but in poems where the language is more sparse it becomes obvious. This exercise is to write a poem,…
Issue Thirteen Writing Prompt

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