Tag: StoryADay

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StoryADay May Recap

So writers, how did you do with StoryADay May? I have to say that my first StoryADay experience went much like my first NaNoWriMo experience. I was so enthusiastic at first, churning out stories in those first couple of weeks, but then life began to creep up on me. I went out of town twice, was busy at work, went to my kid’s T-ball games instead of writing. I was so disappointed with myself for “failing” the challenge.

But let’s think about that. At the end of my first failed NaNo experience I still had 15,000 words, a solid start to a novel. I had learned some strategies for fitting writing into my daily routine. And I was eager to try again.

At the end of StoryADay, my scoreboard looks something like this:

  • completed stories: 10
  • stories I made a solid start on: 11
  • story ideas I jotted down for later: 5

StoryADay, like NaNoWriMo, is a great challenge because, even if you fail abysmally, you are still generating new work. You’re still setting a PR for the challenge to try to beat next year. So, whether you wrote one story or 31 stories this month doesn’t really matter. You were a writer!

Now, on to the next challenge!

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StoryADay May – Day 31 – Your Story

Ah, the bittersweet end of a month of storytelling! Whether you finished one story or 31 this month (more later on what “success” means when it comes to these monthly challenges), I hope StoryADay challenged you to write more than you otherwise would have. Our last prompt is, fittingly, all about wrapping up an big project.

Day 31 Prompt: “Write a story about a creative person who has just completed, or is in the throes of completing a massive creative effort. (And yes, this can be autobiographical). You could take us through the manic process of trying to finish up the work. You can show us their post-event hysteria/collapse. You can have them reflecting on the effort. Pay attention to the physicality of it. Go anywhere you want with this. It doesn’t have to be serious. It can be self-indulgent (you’ve earned it!)”

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StoryADay May – Day 30 – A Different Point of View

Hi writers! The second-to-last day of StoryADay May is here! For today’s prompt, we’re going to take something old and make it new again, by switching up the point of view. Have your narrator stand in someone else’s shoes.

Day 30 Prompt: “Take a story that you wrote earlier this month, and tell it from a different point of view.”

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StoryADay May – Day 29 – That Story

Well writers, today’s prompt is a pretty simple one. We’ve all got a story idea we’ve been kicking around for a while. Maybe you’re waiting for time to do the story justice. Maybe you feel like you need to do some research. Maybe you tried to write a version of the story and it just didn’t come out right. Maybe you have an idea for a whole novel that you plan to write “some day.” That’s fine. Give us an outline. Paint the broad strokes. Figure out the plot. Give your story a breath of life. Get it on the page!

Day 29 Prompt: “Write the story that you’ve been hungering to write.”

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StoryADay May – Day 28 – Word Stew

Sometimes a prompt is so specific, so challenging, that it starts working right away. You read it and immediately begin to make connections, scanning the archives of your memory and the dark corners of your imagination to weave a story. Your brain–alchemist, master chef, concoctionist extraordinaire–takes a pinch from here, a snip from there, a tiny drop of this, a sliver of that, and cobbles together a story, nurturing it, letting it steep. Cooking it down to its essence.  Today, writers, we stir up a batch of our own word stew.

Day 28 Prompt: “Your story must include these words; ink, previously, work, breeze, seven, run, delicious, example, spontaneous, barb.”

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StoryADay May – Day 27 – Looking Back

Hi writers, today we’re going to cut right to the chase. Beyond that even, to the aftermath of the chase.  Let’s test our storytelling skills by using them to tell a story in reverse.

Day 27 Prompt: “Start a story that begins with the ending, then immediately jumps back in time, e.g. ‘It all started 12 hours ago.’ … Don’t worry too much about getting this perfect. Feel free to be cheesy. Just have fun. Leave a comment to let us know how you got on!”

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StoryADay May – Day 26 – The Big Sell

Time to peddle your wares, writers! Today’s prompt has your character trying his best to win someone over to his point of view, to close a big deal. They say a sucker’s born every minute, but maybe your character’s target isn’t having it. Give us the back-and-forth.

Day 26 Prompt: “One character is trying to sell something to another character. This could be metaphorical: they are trying to sell them an idea. It could be literal: they’re trying to sell them a car.”

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StoryADay May – Day23 – One Small Thing

Hi writers! Today’s prompt is all about that one telling detail. Make it do double duty, moving the story along while telling us something important about your main character.

Day 23 Prompt: “Choose a detail that only your character would notice in this story. “

I just started reading The Collected Stories of Eudora Welty. Welty is a master of the telling (and odd) detail. In “Lily Daw and the Three Ladies,” an orphan girl who believes she is going to be married lovingly packs her “hope chest,” an old trunk she found somewhere, as the three women from her town who have taken charge of her try to ship her off by train to a home for the feeble-minded. Welty could just say it was an old trunk and leave it at that. She does this instead:

“The trunk was old and lined with yellow and brown paper, with an asterisk pattern showing in darker circles and rings. Mutely the ladies indicated to each other that they did not know where in the world it had come from. It was empty except for two bars of soap and a green washcloth, which Lily was not trying to arrange in the bottom.”

In this little glimpse we get a sense of the sad hopeless surrounding Lily, her wistfulness for normalcy, family traditions she knows others have, for something that belongs just to her. And we get a clearer picture of her mental state, as she arranges and rearranges the old soap and rag in the bottom of the trunk. The asterisk pattern seems utilitarian, almost masculine. This isn’t a young lady’s hope chest at all, but an object transformed by Lily’s imagination.