Writing Prompt: Funeral Home Antics

Something funny is going on at Whitfield's Funeral Home and your character is going to find out what.

Write the scene where your protaganist discovers the funeral home's secret. Aim for 2 pages.

Weekend Writing Prompt

This isn't so much of a writing prompt as it is something to think about. If you have a few minutes today, think about what your character(s) like to eat. What do they crave when they want comfort food? What do they grab out of the fridge or pantry to munch on in the afternoon? What type of dessert do they always choose at restaurants? It's these little details that often help to define real people, and it works for characters too.

Writing Prompt: Train Wreck

I cross a lot of train tracks where I live, but most aren't used during the day so I sail over them without stopping. Sometimes when I'm crossing a track I think, "what if I get hit by a train this time?" That gave me the idea for this prompt.

Your character crosses the same train tracks without thinking every day for work. Today is different. Today he gets hit by a train. What was he thinking about up until that point? What had his day been like so far? Was he in a hurry? Write a short story based on this concept in 500-1000 words.

Writing Tip: Incorporate What You Know and Love

I've often found myself less inclined to write what I know, and more interested in writing the exact opposite. However, as I've learned to incorporate more of the familiar into my writing, I've come to appreciate the value of applying that same advice. Using places, careers, and interests that you know and love has three key advantages:

1. Believability. If it's a place you've been (or lived in), an interest you have, or a career path you're familiar with, your writing will show it and your readers will buy it.

2. Less research. Instead of starting from scratch with something you know nothing about, you can go into your writing with a foundation. You may still need to do research, but you may be more driven to delve into the subject.

3. Enthusiasm. We tend to put more heart into something we're passionate about. So if you use what you know and love, either as a starting place for your writing or to fill in details, your enthusiasm for it will seep through and affect readers.

If you often shy away from including what you know and love in your own writing, try the opposite. Consciously choose settings, careers, or interests that you're familiar with and/or are passionate about. It may take you in unexpected directions and to equally exciting places as the unknown.

Try This>>
Experiment with your work-in-progress or another piece that takes place in unfamiliar territory. Change the setting and place your characters where you currently live, a favorite vacation spot, or another place you know well. Write a new scene in this new setting and see what happens. Are the details more clear? Do you find your writing is less stilted and more free flowing? How does this new environment affect your characters? Aim for 2-3 pages.

Weekend Writing Prompt

If you have 15-20 minutes this weekend, try this prompt:

Your character picks up the phone to make a call and hears someone she knows planning a criminal act. Who's making these plans? And what will your character do about it? Aim for 2-3 pages.

3 Techniques for Developing Well-Rounded Characters

You'd probably agree that one of the biggest challenges in fiction writing is creating dynamic characters. Even with an original plotline and interesting conflicts, if your characters lack development, everything else will fall flat. It's much easier to forgive a faulty plot with dynamic characters than flat characters within a fascinating story. You're less likely to fall into this hole when you know who you're writing.

Getting to know characters is much the same as making friends. How do make friends? By communicating. It's similar with characters. You need to get them talking just like a real person. How do you do that? There are lots of tricks and techniques out there. Here are three that I've found helpful in creating dynamic, exciting characters.

Technique #1: Character Journals

Why It Works: Getting into a character's head by speaking in his/her voice can help smoke out details you may not get otherwise.

How You Do It: Get started by summarizing the story from his/her viewpoint. You want to write how the character would write - not you. If you don't have a story for this character yet, just start with things you already know. Roll with impulses and don't fear rambling; rambling often leads to gems. Perservere when you feel like you're getting nothing; if you keep writing, you will uncover minor and major details that may change everything.

Give It a Whirl: Spend a session writing a journal in the voice of the main character from your work-in-progress. Choose a part of his/her life you'd like to know more about. Start with something you know and work from there, or go with the first thing that comes to mind. Aim for at least two pages.

Technique #2: Interviewing Characters

Why It Works: Asking targeted questions can help you get behind a character's actions to his/her motives.

How You Do It: You ask questions, your character answers. Like character journals, write the answers in the voice of your character. Answer honestly from his/her viewpoint, not your own. It may help to start with basic questions like age and birthplace and to move into questions that pinpoint a character's feelings about an event or the motivations behind one of his/her actions.

Give It a Whirl: Pick one character you want to know more about. Brainstorm for a few minutes, listing all the questions you can think of to ask. Then, spend the rest of your session answering them. Aim for 10 questions.

Technique #3: Daydreaming

Why It Works: Much like freewriting or free associating, daydreaming about your characters and their lives may help you make new connections or expand on ones you've already made.

How You Do It: Just imagine your character(s) at home or work, at a party or off doing their favorite recreational sport. Picture him/her talking to another character. Let them live in your imagination and go about things as you think they would. There's no paper commitment, so you can have them say and do all kinds of things that you might hesitate to put on the page. Let them act out of character just to see what happens.

Give It a Whirl: Choose one character to spend some time with and place them at a party, a typical day at work, or a night alone. What does your character do? How does he/she react to different people and situations? What does he/she wear or drink or think about? Play out these scenarios in your head, and put your epiphanies on paper.

What are your favorite character development techniques?

Illustration credit, Borqje

What Happens Next?

When readers ask this question, all they have to do to get the answer is turn the page. When writers ask this question, much more work is in store to find out. Sometimes you get to a point in a story where you've bled your ideas and have no clue where to go from there. Before you stall or move on to another project, try these two techniques to push your story out of the doldrums.

Go Back to the Original Idea
Sometimes to go forward, it helps to go back to the original concept. What got you to this point in the first place? A character? A scene? A snippet of dialogue? Revisit those first images or pages and try to remember your initial feelings about them. What about the idea drove you to write the story? What kept it moving? If you're not sure, go back and analyze. There is a reason you started telling this story. And that may very well help you to figure out where it needs to go next.

Talk to Your Characters
Nothing happens without the characters. When all else fails, go back to them. Spend some time journaling from their points-of-view, interview them, write scenes and conversations that have nothing to do with the story. Let them live in your imagination. Watch them go about daily life and experience interactions and conflicts outside the main story. Your characters are leading anyway so let who they are and what they do lead you to your next move.

What happens next may not be as far off as it feels. Keep writing, thinking, and imagining and you will unleash the next chapter in your story.

Try This>>
Spend a writing session journaling from the POV of your main character. If you've never tried this, have your character talk about the story to get going. Let him/her ramble. It may take more than a page but stick with it and you will unearth something new and possibly unexpected that may just spark an idea for what happens next.