The Writing Workshop

Writing Prompt: Reverse Your Own Gender

What would your life be like if you were born the opposite sex?

It's an interesting question, especially in the light of recent anti-women comments like Rush Limbaugh calling an advocate for free and available birth control a slut on his radio program. It's a clear sign that we do not yet live in a post-gender world.

Rewrite your own life story by changing your gender.

The goal here is to avoid obvious traps of gender bias or stereotypes. If you're a guy who loves football, still love football. If you're a girl who trades stocks for a living, still trade stocks for a living. The only thing you want to change is your gender.

Imagine the differences in the ways your parents raised you. Would you have still gone to the same college? Which activities would you have done in high school? What kind of person are you going to date now?

The best part of this story is that the origin of it doesn't have to be explicit. In fact, it's best if it's not. Don't make this about gender. Make this about revealing another part of you. Same personality. Just a different body to hold it in.

Writing Prompt: Power to the Shippers

There's this thing called fanfiction, wherein an amateur author writes a story using the characters from their favorite books, TV shows, etc. and then publishes them online. It's generally considered a form of flattery, doesn't make much money, and thus, isn't penalized under copyright law, even though it technically should be. Sometimes, that fanfiction develops into something else - the Random House bestseller Fifty Shades of Grey (as of this posting, the book is over on the Amazon's Most Wished For list in the sidebar) started life as a Twilight fanfiction.

There's also this great internet meme called "shipping" (a derivative of relationship), wherein fans of a particular show or book or comic wish for a particular relationship that doesn't quite exist in that world's reality. For example, people might ship Wolverine and Storm, Heathcliff and Nelly Dean, or there's even something called Wincest, the pairing of Supernatural's Winchester brothers, Sam and Dean.

Write a fanfiction story in which you ship a pair of characters that are normally not paired up. Then change the names and setting to create an original work.

Imitation is the finest form of flattery, people.

Writing Prompt: Making the Most out of Gibberish

Writers write for different reasons: some of us love a good story, others like the wordplay. For some, it's the rhythm of a sentence that drives us, while others need that emotional tug of the heartstrings. But for most of us, it's still about making sense out of black and white blobs on the page.

In today's prompt, we're going to take that literally.

Take a piece of paper and cut it up into small pieces, at least 24 of them. Write down the names of your favorite 4 movies, 4 characters, 4 places to visit, 4 items you'd take with you in case of a fire, 4 great quotes, and 4 flavors of ice cream. Put all the words in a hat. Pull out 4 pieces of paper. These words should combine to be the basis for your story.

For the movie titles, you must use the plot of that movie. For characters, an analogue of that character must appear in your story. For places to visit, that must be your setting. The items must be used (although you don't need the fire), the quotes must be said, and the flavors of ice cream must be tasted (although not necessarily in ice cream form). If you get more than one type (two plots for instance), then you must merge the two together.

Repeat the process to create a new story.

The more crazy your words are, the more exasperating this prompt will be. Fun times!

Writing Prompt & Good Gramar: No Adverbs. Ever.

Adverbs (words that modify verbs, adjectives, or other adverbs and generally - but not always - end in ly) can be a writer's worst enemy. While we use them a lot in daily speak, we don't really need them. And in today's prompt, we can't use them. At all. (Some adverbs in just this paragraph: generally, not, always, really.)

Write a story in which you do not use a single adverb.

Now the question is: How do you do that? Basically, it's this: adverbs, in general, apply emphasis to something (the words "very" and "really" are two of the most commonly used adverbs) or alter the meaning of a verb's use (for example, saying "I happily went to the store" rather than just saying "I went to the store" to add in the joyful factor).

In this prompt, the goal is to find stronger and more specific nouns and active verbs to replace the missing adverbs. Instead of our example above, you could say, "My jubilant self went to the store." It's a type of wordplay that forces most people into more precise diction, which always makes for a great exercise.

Also, what's not to love about a writing prompt and grammar review, all in one?

Writing Prompt: Barber's Adagio for Strings

So this afternoon over at the PFS Book Club, I put up a brand new quote from Alex Ross's The Rest is Noise, about the American Dream and Samuel Barber's Adagio for Strings.

Trust me, even if you're not a musician, you know this piece. It's just about the most beautiful sad music ever written - although Barber apparently didn't hear the piece as sad himself. But that's a discussion for another day, about whether what the author/creator intended is as important what the collective reader/listener sees in it. (My money is on the reader/listener, because there's many of them and only one creator.)

Write a piece inspired by Samuel Barber's Adagio for Strings.

Unlike in the previous prompt, where the assignment was simply to write while listening to Stravinsky's Rite of Spring, this time we've got to actually use Barber's music as your inspiration. While you might not directly tell the reader where the story comes from, there should be some hint of it somewhere in your work.

Here's a YouTube clip featuring the piece:

Writing Prompt: Stravinsky's Rite of Spring

I've been reading Alex Ross's "The Rest is Noise" about the music of the twentieth century. So far my favorite part has been the history of the riot that happened when Igor Stravinsky's Rite of Spring was performed for the first time.

Now, granted, we would be horrified by people's behaviors at performances of classical concerts back then. The people would boo and cheer, just like we do at a popular music concert now. And sometimes, I almost wish we could go back there. It sounds like fun to scream at the top of your lungs for something like Beethoven's "Ode to Joy".

Write a story while listening to The Rite of Spring.

This piece, consisting of four movements, lasts a half hour so you have lots of material to work with. You don't necessarily need to actively listen to the music, but studies have shown that music affects us without our being aware of it. This is why there are things like elevator music - it helps us feel better and keeps us calm.

The Rite of Spring won't be keeping you calm, though. Here's a recording from Youtube below. Just click play and start writing. And if you wanted to know, that's a bassoon in the opening bars.

Writing Prompt: Same Character, 3 Settings

In this prompt, the goal is to show how the same person can act completely different in different settings. You can take this several ways: it could either an alternate world where different choices resulted in different outcomes or it could be the same character at different times in their lives. Or it could be the same person reincarnated throughout history. The goal is to have the character be recognizable but different enough to be interesting.

Choose one character. Place that character in three settings, each as different as possible.

Remember that setting is both time and place. This means that the settings can represent something like the Medieval era, now, and the year 3000. Or it could be physical locations: this is your character in Atlanta, Madrid, and Beijing. Or, even simpler, it could be your character at a bar, in a kitchen, and in a neighbor's backyard.

To make this prompt worthwhile, remember that the differences in the character will be giving hints for theme, as well the choices of setting. Choosing your settings will determine what the story means in the end, because they are one of the main building blocks of storytelling. In my opinion, setting is one of the most overlooked aspects of modern storytelling.

Writing Prompt: Haiku Gymnastics

For the first time in a long time, I'm teaching literature. The course is the second semester of freshmen English, with the first semester focusing only on writing. The lit course covers poetry, drama, and fiction (but also includes an evil research paper that the students are very excited about).

I've decided to add a creative writing component to the class, since what's the point in learning about something if you don't learn how to do it yourself. It would be like learning all about what a hammer can do, without ever trying it out for yourself. Sure, you might hit your thumb but hey, at least you tried. And so I started with the basics: the haiku.

Write 30 haiku poems in less than 10 minutes. If you fail, start over.

No, I did not subject my students to this prompt, because that would have been evil. But for all you all fiction writers, this is a good way to loosen up a different part of your writing brain. Get it thinking about a different part of language, especially if you're not a great wordsmith in general. (I'm not.)

A quick haiku reminder: they are three lines, with a pattern of 5-7-5 syllables. Be careful and make sure your syllables are correct. Here's one of mine:

The students complained

So fiercely. College was not

supposed to be hard.