February Prompts & Challenges

[anastasia517]

Quote of the Month

"The first draft is just you telling yourself the story."  - Terry Prachett

There have been a few people who have mentioned that they would be interested in exercises or prompts to expand their writing.  Because of that, I have decided to compile a few different prompts and self-challenges.  If enough people are interested, I thought that we could keep this up as months pass so we always have something to turn to if we are getting stuck in our actual stories.  Obviously you don't have to do all (or any!) of these, but I thought they might be helpful to people who want to expand their writing, their worlds, or just to think more about their stories wherever they are in the writing process.


Prompts
1) The saddest thing about betrayal is that it never comes from your enemies.

2) Your main character is walking down a foggy pathway.  Write about how they feel, what they notice, and what they are thinking about.  (This would be a great one if you want to practice descriptive language and get into your MC's head.)

3) "Look on the bright side.  At least I'm not..." [insert your own ending here]


Challenges
1) Write 10 things about your main character's past/backstory that will not make it explicitly into your main story.

2) If you have an idea of how your story will end and/or any twists, think of 3 ways you could foreshadow things that happen later in the story that readers may be able to pick up on in re-reads.

3) Sketch out a location that is a major setting in your novel.  This could be as small as somebody's living room (where is the TV, bookshelves, couch? what decor does the character use?) or as large as the main points in your story's city.

[idahome]

I love this! A reminder to plan and write is always a good thing and having somewhere to look beyond my standard story outline will be helpful. Thanks!

[EnchantedSoul]

anastasia517
I'm giving up Social Media for Lent so I won't be around for 40 days. Just letting you know that I didn't fall off the face of the planet. Thank you for rejuvenating the board. I'll be back to catch up.

[mousemelon]

I love these! I'm going to use prompt 2 to help me get going in my re-write!