Monthly challenges for writers.
Yay, good old fashioned story-starting prompts this week!
Day 22 Prompt: “Your character wakes up in a space they don’t recognize. They could wake up in a white van, a locked room, or anywhere that is completely different form their everyday. This gives you the opportunity to explore your character in interesting ways. There may be other people inside the space, outside the space, interacting with them, or not.”
Hi writers! Ready to make some fake news? Today’s StoryADay prompt invites you to write a story with all the energy of up-to-the-minute reporting. Don’t forget the who, what, where, when, and why.
Day 21 Prompt: “Write a story as a news report. This could be a TV report with a panel of pundits yelling at each other, a reporter on the street, the voice of a producer in your anchor’s ear… Or, this could be a traditional newspaper report.”
Hello storytellers! We’re going to change course from yesterday, where our narrators told a story directly to the reader. Today our readers will need to put on their detective hats and piece the story together from a series of documents.
Day 20 Prompt: Write an epistolary–a story told through a collection of documents.
A series of letters is the classic example, but also think about diary entries, e-mails, texts, the case file of a detective, prosecutor, or lab technician, a call center log, you name it. This is great for telling a story from the points of view of more than one character.
Hello raconteurs! Today we switch from dialogue to monologue, writing a story from the first person point of view. Remember, the “I” in your story doesn’t have to be you. Maybe your narrator is an extremely unreliable person. Maybe he or she is going to take us back in time a bit (“it all started the week after finals, my freshman year of college …”). Maybe the “I” in your story is a fly on the wall, giving us a first-hand account of a famous event. Or of a completely fictional event.
Day 19 Prompt: “Tell A Story ‘Direct To Camera.’ This is probably going to be in first person. Write as if you’re writing to your best friend, or talking directly to a police officer, or relaying this to a room of strangers.”
For inspiration and ideas for opening your story, check out some of the true (though I suspect in some cases embellished) stories at The Moth.
Hi storytellers! After focusing in on dialogue on Day 16, now we’re going to zoom in even tighter, on just one side of a conversation. Here’s your daily prompt.
Day 18 Prompt: “Write a story today in which the reader only hears one side of the conversation. This could be a telephone conversation, a text conversation, a series of social media updates, a series of letters, whatever.”
Julie at StoryADay gives a couple of good examples: the old Bob Newhart “telephone” comedy routines, and Neil Gaiman’s story “Orange,” which unfolds as answers to a series of police interrogation questions that are not a part of the story. For further inspiration, simply look around. Instead of giving that rude guy speaking loudly into a cell phone on your morning commute the evil eye, you just might grab a notebook and thank him.
Hello writers! Today’s story prompt takes a cue from a classic poetic form.
Day 17 Prompt: Write a “sonnet story”–a story in 14 sentences.
As you may recall from Day 24 of NaPoWriMo, there’s quite a bit more to an actual sonnet, which is measured in lines, not sentences. But we’re writing prose here, so no need to worry about meter or rhyme. Like writing a 100-word story, this is an extreme limitation that will force us to consider what the essential parts of a story are and how directly they can be set on the page.
For an added challenge, you might also want to borrow from the thematic structure of a sonnet.
Petrarchan (Italian) sonnets, for example typically start with 8 lines setting out a proposition/problem/question, followed by a turn, or “volta,” in the ninth line, signaling a transition to the corresponding answer or resolution.
In Shakespearean sonnets, the volta usually comes in the last two lines, which summarize the theme of the poem or give a new insight on that theme.
We are charging past the StoryADay halfway point and full steam ahead writers! I hope you had fun writing a list story yesterday. “My Day in Band Names,” is a loose accounting of my day, told through band names I thought of as I went about my day. Not exactly fiction, but a technique I could use equally to describe a fictional character’s day.
Today’s prompt asks us to exercise two important skills: (1) revealing a story through conversation and (2) giving each speaker a unique and recognizable voice. Try experimenting with characters whose voices are unlike your own.
Day 16 Prompt: “Write a Story completely in dialogue.” The reader should be able to keep the speakers straight without dialogue attributions (e.g., “he said,” “she said,” “they exclaimed”).
Hi writers! Ready to launch a third week of story writing? Today’s prompt is a fun one that I have been wanting to try: a list story. The story is implied, from just the items on the list. And you can use the list later as the framework for a more expanded story, a collection of stories, or even chapters in a novel.
Day 15 Prompt: “Write a story in the form of a list.”
Julie at StoryADay offers the following suggestions:
And here are a few more from John Dufresne’s “FLASH! Writing the Very Short Story“:
And some additional ideas this gave me:
Happy listing!
[updated]
For my story, I wrote a list of band names that (very loosely) follows the narrative arc of my character’s day–which happens to be a lot like the narrative arc of my own day ; )
My Day in Band Names
100% Arabica
Premium Roast
In Media Res
First Person Plural
Long Story, Short
Downward Dog
Warrior Too
Bring Back the Bees
Now With Whole Grains
Grade-A Pasteurized
Yoda Speak
Lost Light Sabers
Expect Delays
Stand Right, Walk Left
In Case of Emergency
Affogato
Flat White
Self-Promo Day
Friend Request
CTRL + ALT + DEL
GINA Screen
Word of the Day
Heavy-Duty Staples
Fully-Lined Gussets
Close Paren
Dissenting In Part
Cash-Free Facility
Fries With That
Add-On Items
I Am Not a Robot
Two-Day Shipping
The Right Honorable
Flinging Faulkner
Hemingway Hijab
Twink Tank
Halvsies
On All Fours
Boolean Filters
Torpid Response
Cringeworthy
And So It Begins
Taco Tuesday
Swing and a Miss
Mint Waxed Floss
Visibly Diminished
Night Shift Mode
The Optimist’s Daughters
Eudora Welty Said So
It’s Day 14, writers! We are almost halfway there! Today’s StoryADay prompt sets out a framework (M.I.C.E.) for four different types of stories and asks you to choose one.
The letters stand for:
M – Milieu: a story about place; your character arrives in and must negotiate a new place
I – Intrigue/Idea: a question is posed at the beginning of the story that must be answered
C – Character: a character has an internal conflict; resolution of the conflict will change the character
E – Event: external forces change the character’s world; the status quo and a new normal must be established
Day 14 Prompt: “Pick a dominant thread for your story today, based on the MICE categories. Work towards the ending that fits the story type you chose.”
Hi writers! Today’s prompt builds on the fairy tale theme we started yesterday. Instead of a life-changing event happening in the middle of the story, as in “The Ugly Duckling,” we’re going to start off with a life-changing event right at the start. In “Hansel and Gretel,” the story opens with two children about to be abandoned by their famine-struck parents, a poor woodcutter and his wife.
Day 13 Prompt: “Start with a life-changing moment and lead your characters through the story to show us who they become.”
Does your main character lose something? A loved one? A job? A home? Does he learn something that changes the way he looks at the world? If you’re stumped, take a minute to make a “Best and Worst” list. Write down the top 5 best things that could happen to you in your life. And then the 5 worst things. Pick one and let it happen to your character.