Dragon Writing Prompts

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Updated every day of Nano. You may need to scroll down to see today’s prompt.

I had a last minute NaNo inspiration that will help me. I tend to skip over description. So for each day of NaNo month I’ll send out a prompt to focus your attention on something you might not ordinarily notice in whatever scene you’re working on. The intent is not to generate great prose but to force you to expand your vision of what’s going on around and inside your characters.

Write at least one paragraph for the day’s prompt:

Today’s prompt:

20. In the current scene, your character picked up some skill she’s using during the course of her life. Reflect on that, particularly the emotional resonance the experience has for your character.

Previous prompts:

1. Describe your point of view (POV) character’s current emotional state and how it affects him or her from head to toe.
2. Describe the shoes of the next character that walks into the scene and what they remind the POV character of.
3. Describe the weather (or environment if weather isn’t relevant to your story) in the scene you’re writing right now. Involve all 5 senses.
4. Relate something in your current scene to a toy from your POV character’s childhood.
5. The current situation to your POV character is [fill in an animal]. Extend the metaphor. What in the situation are the teeth? Why is something like the breath? How does it relate to the sound the character makes? (And whatever else you can come up with. Use all five senses!)
6. It starts raining (or stops raining). Describe the emotions *and* memories this evokes in your POV character.
7. In the next conversation, describe something the character is doing as they speak each line of dialogue.
8. Relate your POV character’s best friend (current or childhood) to one of the characters they’re with right now. Likenesses and differences. Relate both physical traits as well as attitude, temperament, life story …
9. Describe your POV character’s inner state in terms of one of the seasons, that is, the seasons that are relevant to your story.
10. A bug is in your current scene. Use the bug’s actions as a mirror of what’s going on with the situation or inside your POV character.
11. My daughter’s favorite: Food descriptions! For the next meal your character has, describe, obviously, taste and sight and smell, but also texture, presentation, how the colors work together, emotional reactions, physical reactions, memories.
12. My daughter’s favorite: Food descriptions! For the next meal your character has, describe, obviously, taste and sight and smell, but also texture, presentation, how the colors work together, emotional reactions, physical reactions, memories.
13. Something in the current scene transports your POV back to a place they frequently played (playground, tree house, junker car behind the shed, mom’s closet …) Pay particular attention to the resonance of the emotions between the two places.
14. In the next populous area your character visits, sum up their impression with one word. Rather than agonizing over the right word — which wastes valuable NaNo time! — use the first word that comes to mind. Take it as far as you can. How does it relate to the people, buildings, atmosphere, smell, colors, sounds …
15. Relate the current situation the character is in to a game, like chess, dice, Monopoly, dominos, poker. Even if your setting isn’t contemporary it’s likely every culture will have games of chance involving dice-like objects (bones for instance) or strategy board game (like chess or go or parchisi).
16. Describe the next store your POV character visits. How are the proprietor or associate like the store? How do the appearances (dirtiness, cleanliness, order, chaos) relate? The voice and speech mannerisms?
17. Relate your POV character’s current emotional state to a storm. It might be the anticipation of an approaching storm, the middle of the storm, or the relief or aftermath of a storm. Work the metaphor for all it’s worth!
18. Another character is fiddling with an object — jewelry, something in or from their pocket, something they picked up. Use the manipulations as a window in the character’s fluctuating emotional state.
19. If the current situation continues, how does your POV character envision himself and the important players in his life in the future.

NOTE: Don’t link to this post! Blogsome includes the day in the URL and I’ll be updating the date as I add each item to keep it at the top of the blog throughout November. If you’d like a link, use the post at Blogspot: A month of NaNo prompts.

I stumbled across a few tarot spreads designed specifically for writing projects and the need to use them as a NaNo prompt wouldn’t let go! They’re a bit more time consuming than the other prompts but may be less time consuming and more productive than banging your head against the desk as you struggle to figure out what should happen next ;-)

The spreads are all designed by Arwen.

The first is a Goal, Motivation, Conflict spread. She suggests it’s best used during writing after you know your characters and when you’re stuck on where they should go next. (Click on the image for Arwen’s explanation of the layout.)

If your knowledge of tarot extends no further than the ability to place cards on a table, you can draw each of the 7 cards below and it will give you explanations.

Type in a Question like “Who is my character?” or “What is my character’s goal?”, under Deck choose a deck that sounds like it fits your story (obviously you might need to explore them a bit), under Spread choose One card.

If you want to explore the possibilities for your main characters (or it might work for protagonist and antagonist), this spread can be used over and over. It’s called a ladder spread because the top card (7) can become the bottom (2) card of the next set and so on up the ladder as you keep plotting your story out. (Click on the image for Arwen’s explanation of the layout.)

Arwen also designed a Characterization Spread that delves into childhood and other influences on your character.

There are more Tarot Spreads for Writers at the Aeclectic Tarot Forum. Scroll 1/3 of the way down the page (or search for “writer”.)

If using tarot for plotting intrigues you, there’s also Tarot for Writers by Corinne Kenner that gets some great reviews.

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For each of your main characters, including your antagonist, write out how they think at this moment in your story all this will end, who will live, who will die, who will get what they want or what they’ll get instead and what are the consequences? Maybe the bad guy will come up with a better ending that you have planned! ;-)

(If you’re not doing NaNo, use this for a story you never finished.)

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Make a list of the “Top 10 things I wish would just disappear.”

Brainstorm your own list first. (You may find the first batch are predictable so don’t stop at 10, keep going to let the mundane run out.) I suspect you’ll come up with a wider, quirkier variety than you could make up for a character. Poll your friends!

Then try your character’s.

(From Writing Fix.)

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Michael Arnsen keeps popping up like a zombie who just won’t accept a shovel to the head! And as usual time is crunched during NaNo so I’ll totally rip off his delicious list of Twisted Prompts for Nanowrimo Writers to inspire you:

• Unexpectedly kill a character. Have your protagonist hear their dying words…but only partially.
• Take a break and reflect: What element of fiction is the weakest in your book right now: character, setting, dialogue or conflict? Choose one. The next time you hit the keyboard, write three paragraphs of prose dedicated just to that element in some way. And make it DARK.
• The next time you give a description of a character’s physical features, identify a disfigurement. ANYTHING, ranging from an almost imperceptible scar on their brow to giant webbed feet. Expound through dialogue or monologue about what sort of torment that disfigurement causes the character, and how they endure it.
• Notice the teeth.
• Give your viewpoint character permission to have a lengthy flight of fantasy, imagining what they would do if they had psychic powers or dreaming how they might solve the main conflict if they had superhuman powers of some kind.
• Set your next dialogue-driven scene in a foul restaurant. Break up the conversation with intermittent observations of the low hygiene and filthy food. At the end, draw comparisons between the establishment and the novel’s conflict or antagonist.
• Use a banal object in a scene as a makeshift weapon.
• “Goth up” a minor character and give them something morbidly pithy or darkly ominous to say.
• Take your main character’s hostilities and frustrations out on an inconsequential object…but in prose that dramatizes this eruption in an ultraviolent way.
• Treat weather as a monster.
• As you head into your next plot point, ask yourself: “And what could make the outcome even worse?”
• Review your manuscript so far. Seize on an object or image from your description that you mentioned in passing, and bring it back into the picture in an uncannily meaningful way.
• Something strange is hidden under the desk/table/seat. Your protagonist stumbles on it. This is important to a future scene. But keep the discovery a secret for now. You’ll figure out its importance later.
• Make your main character sick. Whether a cold or a contracted disease. Use this sickness in an unexpected way to solve a problem.
• Describe a new character (as they enter the story) in the darkest way you know how, from head to toe. Then make them so nice it’s laughable.
• Introduce your viewpoint character to Insanity.
• Reference a horror movie or book in an explicit/overt/obvious way. Then turn it inside-out.

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(Scroll down for today’s prompts.)

• You know how sometimes an idea will pop into your head while you’re writing something else? It’s an obvious idea and you know you’ll remember it so you slog through the scene and by the end you’ve forgotten what it was?

 

• You know how sometimes you’ll hover over the keyboard, debating which choice to make and you just can’t decide what would work best?

One of the Nanoers at our local kick off party mentioned a technique in Weekend Novelist called:

Writing Down the Page

(I can’t find a description on line so either she misremembered its name or no one else found it nifty, but I’m finding it useful! If anyone knows what it’s called, please let me know!)

It’s a way to capture fleeting ideas and get you writing instead of hovering.

If you use this for your whole NaNo (which I’m doing), you’ll end up with a flowing collection of ideas. Which is a great way to send your internal editor on vacation since you may not be writing complete sentences and you’re deliberately including a range of ideas some of which you know you’ll eventually eliminate.

The important part is: don’t write paragraphs. Hit carriage return after each sentence or snatch of an idea. It’s going to look more like a poem, a long list, than a novel. It’s a free flowing brainstorm. You can put an extra carriage return when you start a new idea and label it with some bold text.

Sometimes a fairly cohesive scene will flow out. (Mine is conforming to scenes and chapters.) Often it will be snatches of dialog. Bits of description. Questions for you to answer. Or half a dozen possibilities of what a character might do and why.

So if you’re stuck, don’t ponder. Write down the problem. Explore it right there in your Nano. Brainstorm a list of possibilities. If an idea for a scene comes up while you’re doing that, write it down right where you are. (You can mark it with xxx to remind yourself to move it and expand it later.)

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What I’ve done with it so far is, at the beginning of each chapter, I explore the character’s desires (wants, objectives, goals). Each scene will have a goal (getting the demon nest rooted out, for example) as well as the character’s greater goal of the novel hovering over them.

Then I explore obstacles (conflicts) I can throw in their way. (I tend to be too nice to my characters! Deliberately brainstorming obstacles keeps me focused on a story’s engine: overcoming difficulties!) Each of these obstacles creates an evolving set of minigoals for the character to achieve (getting away from the annoying coworker, getting shoes that don’t have a broken heel, for example).

Then I write down possible responses to the obstacles and how the character can reveal more of who he is, reveal more of what’s going on in the story, in what he chooses to do and the way he chooses to do it. It helps remind me of the tree I’m writing about rather than getting lost in the foliage of a few thousand individual leaves.

I’m finding it much easier to throw problems and obstacles at a character when I don’t (yet) need to write the scene that gets them out of it!

Use the following idioms as literally as possible without mentioning the original idiom, so “wet blanket” will include a real wet blanket. For Nano you may want to pick just one :-) For others, write a few sentences for as many as you can in 10 minutes, or use one and see where it takes you.

Cry over spilled milk.
Pull the wool over his eyes.
Wet behind the ears.
Wild goose chase.
Sky’s the limit.
With flying colors.
Face the music.
Throw a monkey wrench into the works.
Can’t make heads or tails out of it.
The pen is mightier than the sword.
Third time’s the charm.
On cloud nine.

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Have your character list 5 ways they’re ordinary (for their world, of course!) and 5 ways they’re not ordinary. (Though you don’t need to include it, they picked those particular items out of the totality of who they are for a reason.)

Idea from Charloft where’s there’s a new theme each day for your characters. (A very active community.) There are loads of responses to this particular one. In case the Live Journal community disappears one day, I saved the list.

I also opened an Ordinary and Special topic at the NaNoWriMo forums.

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What’s special or ordinary about the picture? Go to Face Research — Make an Average. Click on several pictures. Click View Average and see what a composite of the pictures is like. (Try all the thin faces, all those with dark hair, all those with long chins, all with large ears ….) I tried to create a girl’s face where race wasn’t easy to pinpoint.

Roll over the post’s image and you can see all the faces, male and female, averaged together. (The sampling of images does contain a large proportion of Caucasians.) Is it a girl or a boy? It would be interesting to see a composite of all 20 yos, 30 yos, etc in the world :-)

What’s interesting is that average isn’t bland but tends toward beauty. So beauty isn’t so extraordinary as it is average!

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Whether you’re gearing up for NaNo or want to try your hand at flash fiction, NaNo liasons have passed on Plot Generator for the beginning of your story and Plot Twists.

Flash fiction are stories less than a 1000 words and come in many varieties with sometimes very specific rules. Some other names are: short-short stories, sudden, postcard, minute, furious, fast, quick, and skinny fiction. Many have websites where you can share the torture of confining your writing by word count:

365 Tomorrows posts a new flash fiction everyday. You may submit your (science fiction based) stories for consideration.

Camille Renshaw provides a good overview of the craft in The Essentials of Micro-Fiction.

Here are a few types of flash fiction with specific limitations:

• pinhead stories (50 words or fewer)
• nanofiction (less than 50)
• 55 word (55 or fewer but must include a setting, character or characters, conflict, resolution, so it’s not, for example, a slice of life piece.) You can read the 2008 winners of the 55-word contest run by New Times magazine for inspiration.
• 69er, 88er, 99er
• microfiction (under 100)
• drabble (100 exactly and its spinoffs: dribble - exactly 50 words, droubble - exactly 200 words) The Drabble Project has some examples from drabble’s beginnings.
• ficleys (64-1024 words but you can continue someone else’s story).

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I should have guessed there would be lists of costumes based on puns on the internet! Once I started gathering, I couldn’t stop. :-) If you’d like to guess what they are, you can reveal the answer by highlighting the line.

Gathered from around the internet, particularly Pun Intended: Costumes with a Punch Line.

• Get a bunch of watches and tie them around your waist, like a belt. Waste of Time
• Pin a bunch of sponges to your clothes. Self-Absorbed
• Wear pale blue and pin cotton batting to it in random places. Carry a small spray bottle filled with water. Partly Cloudy With A Chance of Showers
• Wear all black and attach to your clothes things like chewed up gum, candy wrappers, popcorn, empty paper cups, etc. Floor of a Movie Theatre
• Go as a purple pumpkin. The Grape Pumpkin
• Attach stuffed dogs and cats to an umbrella. Raining Cats and Dogs
• Attach a P to your shirt and paint your eye black. Black-eyed Pea
• Attach 7 Cs to your shirt. (Or do it with 7 friends each wearing a C.) The Seven Seas.
• Don a pig mask, wrap yourself in a blanket. Pig in a Blanket
• Attach arms to a coat. Coat of Arms
• Attach fake hair to your arms, chest and neck, carry a flower pot filled with dirt and a little shovel. Hairy Potter
• Attach a bunch of (small) cereal boxes to your shirt with plastic knives stuck in them. Cereal Killer
• Wear a BIG band-aid on your butt. Pain in the Ass
• Attach a yellow circle to your stomach. Add some devil horns and a pitch fork. Deviled Egg
• Wear a gold outfit, gold accessories, gold hair, carry a shovel. Gold Digger
• Attach a dollar to each ear. Buck-an-Ear
• Strap a doll to your rear-end and sit on it. Babysitter
• Wear a brimmed cap with a leaf (or snowflake) dangling down in front of your face. When someone asks what you are, blow on the leaf (or snowflake). Leaf Blower or Snow Blower
• Carry a quarter and a hammer. If someone asks what your costume is, put the quarter down and pound it with the hammer. Quarter Pounder
• Attach a throw rug to your head. Carry a broom. Swept Under the Rug
• Drench yourself in water and carry around two sticks, a scarf and a carrot. Melted Snowman
• Cut out a large “1″. Cut a hole in the middle of the 1. Attach it to your chest. Hole in One
• Put “Hello my name is…” tags with random names all over your body. Multiple Personalities
• Attach a pack of Tic Tacs to the tip of your shoe. Tic Tac Toe
• Pin men’s underwear to your shirt front. Chest of Drawers
• Dress as a girl. Form a large arrow pointing up with safety pins. Pin Up Girl
• Wear all black, and attach a postage stamp to your chest. Black Mail
• Dress up as a present. Attach a tag that says “From: God, To: Women.” God’s Gift to Women
• Attach large labels that say “Shirt: $30…Jeans: $50…Shoes: $70……Halloween costume that took minimal effort: Priceless. Mastercard Ad
• Glue a poker chip to your shoulder. Chip on Your Shoulder
• Carry a toy aircraft in a basket. Aircraft Carrier
• Write “Go Ceilings!” on the front of your shirt. Add other gear (pom poms, big foam finger, etc.) Cheer! Ceiling Fan
• Tie a computer CD around your neck and carry a lighter. When someone asks what you are, hold the lighter up to the CD. CD burner
• Attach dollars to stars on your shirt (or make dollars into origami stars). Starbucks
• Attach a guitar pick to your pocket. Pick Pocket
• Attach pictures of Robert De Niro all over yourself. Mucho Dinero
• Dress as a man. Tape an “E” on your chest. “E”-male
• Carry fake eye balls. When someone asks you what Halloween costume you’re wearing, drop them on the floor. Eye Drops
• Wear buttons and carry signs that say “Devil is #1″ and “Vote for Satan,” etc.. Devil’s Advocate
• Write the number 3.1415926 on an orange pumpkin shape. Attach it to your shirt. Pumpkin Pie
• Attach some quarters to hairclips, and place in your hair. Headquarters
• Attach an empty M&M candy wrapper to your chest. Eminem the Rapper!
• Attach white trash to yourself. White Trash
• Carry several bags filled with construction paper “B”s. Bee Keeper
• Wear all black clothes. Cut out big, bright numbers and attach them to your clothes. Someone You Can Count On
• Tape a quarter to your back. Quarterback
• Attach a quarter to your back and a dollar to each ear. Quarter back for the Buckaneers
• Wear a nice suit. Attach legal documents all over yourself. Lawsuit
• Carry a stuffed dog. When someone asks about your costume, throw the dog up and catch it. Dog Catcher
• Wear a name tag that says “Susan.” Paint your eyes black. Black-eyed Susan
• Wear a bra on the outside of your shirt and attach the letter “Z” to it. Zebra
• Wear a name tag that says “Johnny”. Cut a circle out of cardboard or plastic, big enough to stand on. When someone asks you what you are, throw the circle on the floor and stand on it. Johnny on the Spot
• Attach a large brown “E” to your chest. Brown-E (Brownie)
• Take two round circles of brown fake fur and attach them to the back of your pants.. “Bear” Bum!
• Attach an empty bag of Wise potato chips to the back of your pants. Wise Ass
• Tape a disposable razor to your back. Razorback
• Wear pink clothes. Add a name tag that says “Floyd.” Pink Floyd
• Dress in normal clothes and carry a sign that says “Strike.” Nudist on Strike
• Attach a nickel to your back. Nickelback
• Wear a large garbage bag over your body. Attach a large letter “T” to the front. Tea Bag
• Make the letter “I” out of cardboard, write “Beauty” on it, and attach it to your shirt. Carry a beer. Beauty is in the Eye of the Beerholder
• Wear a pot on your head. Pot Head
• Put a picture frame around your neck and sign your shirt. Self Portrait
• Carry a small dumbbell. Stare at it intently when asked what you are. Weight Watcher
• Attach a large picture of yourself to the front of your shirt. “Stuck on Myself”
• Wear an extra-large bra over your clothes. Stuff it with jars of spices. Spice Rack
• Attach Smarties candies all over your pants. Smarty Pants
• Dress up as a bug and a lady. Lady Bug
• Attach stuffed animals (and horseshoe magnets) to yourself. Animal Magnetism
• Attach chicks to yourself. Chick Magnet
• Wear a slip with Freud written across the front. Freudian Slip
• Dress as a basketball player. Wear 2 large donuts around your middle. (Even better with 2 people, each wearing a donut.) Dunkin’ Donuts
• Put peas or peapods all over you. “I Come in Peace.”
• Color your neck red. Redneck
• Dress as a bunny and carry a feather duster. Dust Bunny
• Dress as monk and carry chips. Chipmunk
• Attach a bunch of green Ns and Vs all over you. Green with Envy
• Wear scrubs with pepper packets attached. Dr. Pepper
• Dress as a cat. Attach trash you’d find on the street. Kitty Litter
• Dress in black. Attach a strip of yellow tape from right shoulder to right ankle and left shoulder to left ankle. (And a dotted line down the middle if you wish.) Attach a fork to your chest. Fork in the Road
• Dress as a star made out of “rock”. Rock Star
• Dress in a somber suit, attach women’s panties, tucked into pockets. “Undy Taker.”
• Dress as a bat or Batman. Carry a customer service bell. Ding Bat
• Write “Bless You” on your shirt. Wear nose glasses. Blessing in Disguise
• Attach fake thumbs to all your fingers. All Thumbs
• Attach a picture of an anchor to your chest. Anchorman or Anchorwoman
• Drag a picture of the Queen of England or a Queen CD. Drag Queen
• Paint your face white and draw a musical staff and notes on it. Face the Music
• Attach a chick (or picture of a chick) to your hip. Hip Chick
• Dress in shades of green. Attach a bottle of dressing to your side. Mixed Greens with Dressing on the Side
• Attach a pink I to your chest. Pink Eye
• Carry knives, splash yourself with fake blood. Attach a B to your chest. Killer Bee
• Drip fake blood on yourself. Wear a “Mary” name tag. Bloody Mary
• Wear hospital scrubs, under a brown hooded cloak, carry a light saber and a speculum. OB-GYN Kenobi
• Wear an orange toga with a laurel crown. Orange Julius
• Wear bat wings with a baseball uniform. Baseball Bat
• One half of the couple wears an army shirt, and the other half wears army pants. Digestive Tract (upper and lower GI)
• Wear nerdy glasses, a toga, and a pocket protector. Geek Goddess
• Pin socks all over your normal clothes and SMILE. When people ask, flash a manic grin. Ecstatic Cling
• Cut out many pictures of porpoises. Fan them out around your face with a headscarf. All Porpoise Flower
• Get a Scott Baio mask or print out a picture of his face. Dress as a wolf. Beowolf
• Guy dressed in a maid’s costume. Trans-janitor
• Dress as a bee. Attach words to you. When people ask, spell the words. Spelling Bee
• Wear a trench coat. Inside attach lots of flowers. When people ask, look around as though being secretive then flash open the coat. The Secret Garden
• Dress as Gene Simmons of Kiss with a French beret. French Kiss
• Dress as a skeleton. Carry a bell. Dead Ringer
• Hang a Welcome sign around your neck. Wearing Out Your Welcome
• Carry Zs around in a fish or butterfly net. Catching Some Zs
• Dress as a poop with angel wings. Holy Shit
• Dress up as a cow (horns, bell, udder) and angel wings and halo. Holy Cow!
• Wear normal clothing and tell everyone, “I’m a homicidal maniac. We look just like everyone else.”

Come up with a zombie party plan — for real zombies. Invitations (date, time, place). Special instructions for guests (as in bring your own brains, dress). Food. Games.

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For each letter of the alphabet write a sentence that’s ghoulishly alliterative.

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A bit overkill for this ;-) but as I searched for a link for the picture, I found Wikipedia’s List of monsters by culture.

Like Star Wars? Like zombies? Click the picture. :-)

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Create your own comic strip with the Historic Tale Construction Kit. There are people, buildings, animals and text from the Bayeux Tapestry to play with. When you’re done you can submit it to the gallery. (Though I couldn’t get the email or gallery to work. I had to save all the images and paste them together in Photoshop.)

Don’t let the historic images limit you! Googling images for the kit I see several Harry Potter comics. (Like this bit of Harry Potter slash: A Chance Meeting. Note: preview it before you show it to your kids so you’re not surprised by unexpected questions! ;-)

If all the possibilities leave you stuck for a story, begin with the foundation of storytelling: a desire, a want, a need. One of those characters wants something. Other characters will get in the way with desires of their own. One of those desires will triumph. Or not. Maybe a dragon will eat them all ;-)

(Click the image to see mine.)

Two tips:

If you like your backgrounds consistent from panel to panel, line images up with flaws on the fabric.

Sometimes the images misbehave. (At least they did for me in Safari.) Back up to the previous panel then return.

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