DIY Writing Prompts

My Favorite Rough Draft Gizmo for Tablets

I am not a fan of Writing Prompts. I am currently amid preparing workshops for beginning fiction writers, and contemplating best approaches. I do not intend to use writing prompts.

It is my belief that fiction writers should learn to create, from the ground up, their stories. This, rather than being fed ideas, to be written in a specific time.

But then. Like others, I did not take creative writing classes, rather read, explored, attended convenient workshops, and studied other works I admired. There are "copycat" writers, but if time is invested in learning, the story depth can be richer. In fiction, one of the most striking helps for me was Dwight Swain’s Techniques of the Selling Writer. Others were 36 Dramatic Situations, Strunk and White’s Elements of Style, 20 Master Plots and How to Build Them, etc. and articles written by others. A conference workshop by Alice Orr almost equaled Swain’s impact on me, as she spoke about Secrets and Lies and Suspense vs Mystery. That workshop opened the door for my suspense. It’s all out there today, so easily to grasp and study. The theory of investing energy--your own--works well in creative fiction. Studying is essential hard work.

Romantic Suspense Covers

Early on in my career, I developed my own Writing Prompts, and continue to use them to generate new work. The first is my Toy Box of Ideas. If an idea for a story came to me, I would keep it in a list to be used later, just a paragraph or two, the essence of the idea. That list of ideas is always at the ready. If I thought of something to add to that particular idea, I would, and stories grow that way.

The second basic is keeping a list of potential titles. Stories can be anchored in a title, growing from it, and I work very hard at turning them. If a phrase comes to me, I store it. Some writers use snapshots or pictures, visuals to generate ideas. Note: I write a variety of fiction, and separate titles into suspect slots.

Revenge, Possession and Escape, Motivations and Needs. Start turning those essentials in a mystery and you’ve got stories, i.e. Revenge for What, Possession of What, Escape from what. Who/What/Why work in fiction, too. I firmly believe that writers staring off into nothingness are really churning stories and that there is no such thing as W.B.

Stay tuned for more writing tips or those already listed here as I work through developing these workshops/presentations…