Writing Prompt – Snowed In

Use the following writing prompt in a ten minute free-write. Set your timer and just write. Do not stop to think about where your story is going. It can be enlightening to see where your sub-conscious takes you.

You are in a log cabin in Alaska. It has been snowing heavily all night and you awake to find yourself snowed in. There is no phone (including your cell phone), no electricity, and no transportation to take you into town. You are alone.

Here are some questions to keep you writing:

• What do you notice about your surroundings? Describe the cabin and the immediate area around it.
• How do you survive until help comes, or do you survive?
• What do you do to pass time?
• What thoughts go through your head? Do you relive memories from your childhood, think of survival movies?
• Do you try to leave the cabin or do you stay in the shelter?
• What brought you to Alaska in the first place? Do you live there or are your vacationing?

Writing Prompt - Dialogue Prompt

911 Writer's Block from WEbook is a fun tool to use as a writing prompt. Click the different buttons for different prompts, such as:

• Characters
• Settings
• Endings
• Kill a character

For this week's writing prompt, I am using option number 4, dialogue, on 911 Writer's Block.

Write a story that uses the following piece of dialogue. It may be an important part of the plot, or it may be a passing comment.

"Trust me. You'll be picking 'em up off the floor before this is over"

Share what you come up with.

Writing Prompt - Natural Disaster

Every place has a type of natural disaster that is common for the area. For your area, it may be wild fires, volcanoes, earthquakes, or hurricanes. Here in Ohio, it is tornados, and tornado season is arriving.

 
by rachel_r's photostream

This week's writing prompt was inspired by a friend who spent Saturday listening to the tornado alarm sound all day when there was not a threat of a tornado.

Think about a type of natural disaster common in  your area and the early warning systems that are in place.

You are having a family get together - maybe a dinner or a birthday celebration - when the alarm sounds. What are the different reactions of your family members. How do the children react? Are they scared or do they calming start doing what they are supposed to do? How do the older people react? Are they jaded from too many false alarms or have they seen enough to know to take them serious? Is anyone likely to step outside to look? How do you react? I know in my family, there is someone for each of these reactions.

Include if there is or is not a real threat, what happens? Do people's demeanor change? Is the person in charge suddenly a quivering mess? Does the whole family pull together?

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Writing Prompt - Pictures from the Web

This is not a new idea, but I have streamlined it to maximize my writing time. Using pictures from the web is my favorite writing prompt exercise, and I use it daily. It helps get me in the right frame of mind and provides great story ideas.

I originally saw the suggestion at About.com's Fiction Writing site.

1. Visit a web site that features photographs. I use Webshots because it has a new feature picture everyday on its Home page. The feature photograph various in style and subject matter, so I have great variety. It also keeps me from wasting time searching sites or magazines for pictures and becoming distracted from the task at hand.
2. Study the picture for no more than one minute. Do not think about what you should write. Instead, study the picture; look at the subject matter; notice the details. What do you feel when you look at it?
3. Set your timer for ten to fifteen minutes. I downloaded a free timer called Cool Timer. It stays on my desktop. It is easy to access and it remains hidden behind my word processing program. I found that I look at a traditional clock and egg-timer too often. It stopped the flow of my writing and distracted me.
4. Start free-writing about the picture. (See Ginny Wiehardt's instructions for freewriting.) Do not pause to think of a story, just write. Let the story happen and if it doesn't happen, do not get discouraged. One day I wrote for nine minutes about how yummy a picture of cinnamon buns looked (I was writing before breakfast). It was not until the last minute that I started writing about the person who got up early to make the cinnamon buns for people to buy. That last minute turned into one of my better story ideas.
5. After the timer goes off, look over what you did. Save the writing even it it does not give you a story idea immediately. I
6. return to my freewriting each month to see if they spark any new ideas. I also include the link to the feature photo that I used, incase I want to look back at it for further inspiration.

Good luck, and remember to enjoy it. If this does not work for you, try something else. Everyone finds their muse in their own way!

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Writing Prompt for 02/25/09

 
Photo taken by Ikke la deg dupere (Norwegian)
Norway

I thought I would add a bit every week for the writers out there. It may be a cliche, but the adage that "writer's write" is true. To continue to developing your craft you should write as much as possible. Using writing prompts helps make this an interesting exercise and helps generate story idea.

Your Prompt
Select someone famous, a celebrity, writer, political figure, musician, etc. Image that person doing your job (even if you are a full time writer) for one day. Some things to consider:

• How does the person interact with your co-works, boss, and customers?
• How does he complete your daily task?
• In what areas does she excel, and where is it a disaster?
• Does he participate in a car pool or in the office football pool?

For example, image Paris Hilton as a short-order cook. Or Gene Simmons as a customer service representative. What would this person's day be like?

Let me know what you come up with.

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Get Your Writing Juices Going

We all need help with writing ideas on occasion. I recently received a great tip from About.com’s Fiction Writing blog. It is called Winter Counts Creative Writing Exercise and comes from Alan Ziegler's The Writing Workshop Note Book.

The exercise requires you to divide your life into segments of five years and then write a few sentences about an event that occurred during the winter for each segment. For more details about the exercise and about Alan Ziegler, check out the blog at About.com.

Here are my Winter Counts. (Yes, I realize that you get a rough estimation of my age from this.) Feel free to share a few of yours! And here is a little tip: If you find yourself stuck, start with the end and work your way back. The key is to start writing.

0-5 years
I remember I had a yellow snow suit. My sister was born, and I received a blue dollhouse for Christmas.

5-10 years
My sister and I pulled the best prank on my parents. My mom made life-size dolls for us one Christmas. One day while my parents were lounging on the couch watching television, I dressed my sister in the doll’s clothes and put her hair in pigtails like the doll. Then I ran to my parents yelling that the dolls had come to life. My sister wobbled into the room like she was a scarecrow. My parents, seeing her out of the corner of their eye, jumped off of the couch yelling. We still laugh over this one.

10-15 years
We lived in an apartment with a sunken driveway that would get terrible snowdrifts. My sister and I loved to dig tunnels and “snow dens.” The world felt a million miles away within the snow. All sounds are muffled and the light has a bluish tint.

15-20 years
I unintentionally spun my car 540° two different times. The first time a guardrail between the road and Portage Lakes stopped me. The second time was at an intersection. I spun, found myself in the opposite lane, so I just kept going.

20-25 years
I enjoyed building miniature snowmen on my boyfriend’s car. At the time I was living in an apartment with him. I went to school during the mornings and worked until 8:00 pm. He worked from 11:00 pm to 7:00 am, so we did not see each other much. To let him know I was thinking of him, I built the snowmen when I got home from work.

25-30 years
My daughter had RSV for her first Christmas. She vomited blue, which is worse than pea soup. I did indeed think she was possessed until I remembered that she was drinking blue sports drink since milk made her cough. My mom will always remember that telling of ’Twas the Night Before Christmas!

30-35 years
I saw thirty inches of snow. The snow fell in one day on York, Pennsylvania. The city was shut down for two days while plow trucks were called in from other cities to help dig us out. You think you can imagine thirty inches of snow until you actually see it. You then realize that your imagination wasn’t even close.