Dragon Writing Prompts

I’m always on the look out of books that approach a subject in a simple way without dumbing it down. I found this slim volume titled Extraordinary Poetry Writing by Margaret Ryan that’s a gentle but not dumbed down introduction to poetry writing. It’s nicely divided into small chunks with side bars and tips.

“Poems need to be about something.”

An obvious and yet intimidating statement ;-) At least from my time in school, I picked up the idea that you began with a subject and tried to write profound or amusing things about it, as though the poem in its entirety were hidden inside of you and you just needed to find a way to transcribe it. As she goes onto help you see, you begin with something to focus on and then let yourself free associate and explore that idea. Comparisons, contrasts, images, feelings, phrases, lines, memories, words … Then you play with those, finding patterns and interesting ideas that arise from the original subject.

“… it’s not so much the subject of your poem that makes it special. It’s the way you write about that subject — the language you choose, your insights, your point of view.”

As she explains, little to none of that is there at the beginning. You begin with a subject but your exploration uncovers surprising things you didn’t know were inside you :-)

(This is true of prose, too, of course!)

Tip FIle: “Just sit down with a pen you like and a clean sheet of paper, lined or unlined, and start writing. Play with words and images that interest you. Experiment with the music of words and see what happens. Let your subject emerge as you focus on it and it begins to clarify.”

Though some people find a blank sheet of paper intimidating! If you do, mess it up. Put marks on it. Crumple it. Write on the back of an envelope. Or in your writer’s notebook. Whatever will help you feel that you’re not about to begin a finished product. It’s notes. It’s supposed to feel like chicken scratch :-)

“Let your mind wander. Daydream as you write. Cover at least one side of a sheet of paper with ideas, feelings, insights, and items you associate with your topic. Don’t ask yourself ‘Why does an orange make me think of gym class?’ Just write down that it does.”

“Be aware that most poems have more than one subject. There will be the obvious subject, the one that triggered the writing of the poem — a groundhog, a hyacinth in bloom, an encounter with a friend in the hall. Underneath will be another, larger subject that you will most likely discover during the process of writing your poem.

“Because this layer of subject — sometimes called a theme — will reveal itself to you as you compose your poem, you don’t have to worry about working it in.”

Then she goes onto the structure of poetry.

“The first line of a poem is an invitation.”

And, as she has already pointed out, you may not write the first line first. You may not write the first line until the end. You may find it in the middle of the poem.

In the following chapters she discusses first drafts, final drafts (”Where the Ordinary Becomes Extraordinary”), and finally onto 5 poetic forms: haiku, list poems, dramatic monologue, ballads, sonnets.

It’s been a bit since I’ve had time to stumble across an extra that didn’t feel like something to throw onto the list just because it’s the end of the week ;-)

Right now I’m reading Immediate Fiction by Jerry Cleaver.

He gets into *how* to fix story problems. In the introduction he describes how the writing instructors he encountered focused on telling him his writing was wrong and that a writer needed to feel when writing was right. He kept asking *how*? Over the years he did manage to find a process that helps.

When a scene or a story isn’t working, he says, look to your five tools. (Really six if conflict is broken down.) The first are the Big Three, Want, Obstacle, Action, without which a story is going no where.

Conflict (Want + Obstacle)
Action

Resolution
Emotion
Showing

When analyzing a story, first ask yourself

• “Who wants what?” If no one wants anything, that’s your problem.

• “What’s the obstacle?” If there is no obstacle (it can be the character, others, a big mountain) you have no conflict and no dramatic tension to move the story.
• “What’s the character doing (action) to overcome the obstacle and fulfill his want?”

That’s not, of course, the totality of writing. But if you can’t figure out why a story isn’t working, Want, Obstacle, Action is the place to begin.

While he does repeat himself. Over and over. A lot ;-) It’s a more practical writing book than most. (It’s based on the workshops he teaches so may account for the repetition which probably comes across in person as emphasis for the evening’s writing exercises than it does in a book.) He’s not saying anything new so much as the way he’s saying it: as a set of writing tools to analyze your own writing with.

The one section that made me sit up is his analysis of why writing is so hard sometimes. It’s because we need to make the characters do the opposite of what we naturally do in real life: work hard to *avoid* conflict. And I realized avoiding conflict is what my characters do a lot ;-) They do what makes sense. But what a story needs, what makes the readers turn pages, is forcing the character to plunge head first into conflict. The characters *needs* to upset his life to get to his goal.

“Ask yourself how you get along in society, how you survive when you’re out in the world. By making as much trouble as possible every change you get? No, you survive by avoiding conflict, by playing it safe, by being careful, by dong the exact opposite of what you ned to do to write exciting stories.

“Writing compelling stories goes against the grain of all our socialized, civilized training. Creating fiction is an antisocial act. …. If you take the easy way out, which yo will be prone to do, consciously or unconsciously, because of your civilized nature and your affection for your character, if you take that easy way, you character will not act in a compelling way, your story will sag, and the reader will leave. So you must be cruel to your characters. It’s the only way.”

(Of course there’s cruelty and there’s character revealing cruelty! Running over a child’s puppy is cruel. What you want are more obstacles in the character’s path. Obstacles that challenge and illuminate in a way that makes sense in your story.)

When Google displayed “How to kill your darlings without remorse“* in a search I thought the page might be about killing off your characters, which I have a hard time doing! It turned out to be about deleting favorite passages you’ve written that don’t move the story forward. Ah, that’s hard too! I do find it easier if I let the bit live in the story for a while, read it several times, until it loses it’s specialness and then I can move it off to my “Cut stuff” file, which she calls a “Dead Darlings” file :-)

Novelists don’t always know where their stories are headed. In fact, some of us never know. One way of writing is to imagine a good ending and then work out how to get your characters there. Another way (my way), is to hang on for dear life while your characters take you where they will.

Yes, this is the fun part of writing for me. The problem is that often the characters want you to tell parts of their lives that don’t have much to do with the story! “Let me tell you this funny thing that happened to me …” So, you let them ramble. You get to know them a little better. Then you quietly delete it later. ;-)

They say a sculptor views a block of marble, imagines a statue, and then chips away every bit of stone that isn’t the statue, thus revealing the work of art. That’s how I write. My “block of marble” is the first draft of my story, which tends to be at least thirty percent and often fifty percent longer than the 55,000 words my editor wants. But that’s fine. I take that draft and patiently chip away everything that isn’t my story. I am a ruthless scene-killer, an unremorseful conversation condenser, a wild-eyed wielder of the Delete key. I used to save some of the better quality material that I cut, just in case I wanted it later. But I never did want it, so I no longer save it. There’s plenty more good stuff where that came from. If I change my mind and want to reinsert a deleted scene, I just write it again and make it even better than last time.

Is it a waste of my time to write so much more than I know I’m going to use? No, because all writing is practice for more and better writing.

I tend to think of myself as a very mundane writer, with mundane ideas, so when I come up with something that sparks my interest, it feels like it will never happen again. So how could I delete it? But she’s right, as she says in another post. The more ideas you come up with, the more ideas you have. Often it doesn’t feel like it! Often it feels like the well has dried up and you’ve used up your last idea. But the more you stretch your imagination, the stronger it gets.

“Killing your darlings” is what many writers call deleting paragraphs, scenes, and even chapters that they’ve spent hours creating–all for nothing, they often believe. But a writer who can’t stomach killing any of her darlings is not focusing on the big picture: her story as a whole. You may hate cutting scenes that are hilarious or poignant or suspenseful, but to be a good writer, you must do exactly that. If anything that you’ve written, no matter how beautifully, doesn’t move your story along, it will bog your story down. By saving your “darlings,” you might be killing your story.

Here’s a writing tip some of you might be able to use: After finishing your first draft, find the highlighting tool in your word processor and then start reading, using the highlighter to indicate all of the sentences, paragraphs, and scenes that are absolutely essential to your story. (I use a yellow highlighter to remind myself that those parts of the story are “golden.”) When you finish, delete everything that isn’t highlighted. Save it in a Dead Darlings file if that makes you feel better, but I predict that after a while you’ll stop bothering with that.

Now you’re left with nothing but story. Your manuscript is still in very rough form, but there’s not a boring bit in there because you’ve taken all of the irrelevant stuff out. Now you’re ready to revise and polish. I go through many drafts on a book, so I do a highlighting pass after finishing my first draft, then do it again when I’m nearly finished with the manuscript. After some more tweaking and polishing, I use the highlighting tool a third and final time. When the manuscript is all golden, I’m finished. (Two notes: First, the highlighter is invaluable to me because except during that first pass, I’m not starting at Page One and progressing to the end of the manuscript. I jump around, working on whatever scenes and chapters I’m in the mood to work on. The highlighting tells me what I’ve finished and what still needs to be looked at. And second, on the last highlighting run I’m just deleting words and sentences, not whole paragraphs and scenes. It’s all pretty painless by that time.)

I love every part of the writing process, but bringing a story home–making that final pass with my yellow highlighter and assuring myself that every sentence, paragraph, scene, and chapter is “golden” satisfies my writer’s heart on the deepest level. This is the best that’s in me–at least until my editor points out something that I’ve missed!

Brenda Coulter, writer of inspirational romance books.

Here’s a whole year’s worth of writing prompts from 2007 at Toasted Cheese.

Here’s a sample:

He was thankful to be himself again.
You redefine the word ego.
He lifted the corner of the pink chenille bedspread.
She might some day kill a man.
A romantic, futuristic mystery.

While they’re conventional, not specifically geared to speculative fiction, they’re easily adaptable and avoid the introspective type of prompt that irks me ;-)

(Hmmm! Sounds like I like to avoid looking inside! ;-) Either that or I think there are way more inspiring ideas than my best birthday party and the most uplifting experience I’ve had.)

There’s also a monthly calendar where she posts this year’s writing prompts that are collected in a list as they’re posted. The prompts actually go back to 2002 and some more extensive exercises stretch back to 2001 in the archives.

Creative writing often generates flabby writing. That’s okay! You *should* be sending your editor on vacation while the creativity flows. Getting out the ideas is way more important than proper grammar.

Ah, but afterward, when it comes time to edit, how do you get out the flab? Check out Autocrit.

Paste in up to 800 words and click Analyze. Autocrit returns with a check list of weak words. If you click on the check box it highlights the words in the text you pasted. Here’s a list of weak words it identifies:

could
feel/feeling/felt
generic descriptions
had
have
hear/heard
initial conjunction
initial ing
it/there
just/then
knew/know
look
ly adverbs
maybe
see/saw
smell/taste
that
was/were
watch/notice/observe

Fixing them is another story, of course! But just knowing they’re there can help with your editing. (Initial ing, Initial conjunction, it/there, just/then ;-)

(They also offer a subscription with more critique and some free courses and writing articles.)

I used to do these every Friday, but with time less free, I’ll try once a month.

If you don’t already own one, buy yourself a New Year’s gift of a small digital camera. Keep it with you and capture a quirky house, something that makes you smile, the uniqueness of a particular season so when you need to write a vision of snow in the middle of summer, there it will be! :-)

.
.
.
.
.

It’s been quite some time since I posted a writer’s notebook idea and the beginning of the year seems like as good a time as any for anyone seeking a new writing habit.

A writer’s notebook is a place to capture ideas, bits of conversation, observations, dreams, words that capture your attention, favorite phrases, passages that you would love to have written …. anything and everything.

There are several ideas here at the blog.

Keep several notebooks. Keep a dream journal by your bed. Keep a small notebook in your purse or glove compartment. Keep one near where you read. Start a blog or a file on your desktop to capture bits that fly by you on the internet. (Though the physical process of writing by keyboard and perhaps even more so by hand helps you internalize the words.)

Today, visit a cemetery, preferably an old one. Try a non-Christian one. I visited Albuquerque several years ago and was captivated by the colorful shrines on the graves (many of them still decorated for Christmas). (Click the picture to enlarge it.) Here in Boston it’s winter and the graves and headstones are covered with snow. Capture names and sayings. Notice the groupings. Once several generations would share the same plot but how often is that true in newer cemeteries? If it’s winter, have people been visiting? Why do you think they would brave the cold?

Monica Wood, author of Pocket Muse: Ideas and Inspirations for Writing and Pocket Muse: Endless Inspiration, both of which are full of ideas and pictures to inspire, has been gathering writing tips since 2000 at her website.

Here’s a sampling to get you inspired to click the link :-)

• For the “cruelest month,” [April] write about an act of cruelty that yields the opposite of the intended outcome.

• If you’re feeling anything like me today, the words are coming very hard. Try a word-association game with yourself to get the creative flow back. Start with an ordinary word: “tree.” Then start associating like crazy until you come up with something that interests you. Tree, bird, sky, plane, hijacking. Try it again, with “road.” Road, asphalt, steam, engine, battery, assault. I’ve just talked myself back into writing.
• Think of two objects that are seemingly unconnected — a house for sale and a model plane; a storm drain and an office window; a mantel clock and a yellow slicker — and make a connection. Any connection at all, no matter how vague, will get something going.
• A good scene–in fiction or nonfiction–contains layers. In other words, more than one thing is going on, no matter how straightforward the scene might appear. To find those layers, keep asking yourself, “What else?” For example, you might think the scene you’re writing is about a man discovering his wife’s affair. He’s furious that she’s been unfaithful. What else? He’s a bit smug that his suspicion turned out to be right. What else? He’s disappointed that his wife didn’t choose a more attractive, interesting lover. What else? He’s insulted that his wife didn’t choose a more attractive, interesting lover! What else? He wonders, maybe a little, whether he himself might be unattractive and uninteresting, exactly the sort of man to whom his wife seems to be attracted. What else?
• Why not take advantage of having been forced to listen to forty thousand versions of “The Twelve Days of Christmas” last month? Write something that exploits one of the twelve lines. Begin a scene with nine ladies dancing, or write about somebody who is missing five gold rings. A partridge in a pear tree might be a bit much, but you could make a little hay with twelve guys on drums.
• CRAFT: Some writers have a terrible time with titles, so here’s an extremely subjective primer on choosing titles.

  The best titles, in my view, contain a noun–not an abstract noun like gratitude or restitution, but a muscular, concrete noun like lawn mower or blanket or streetwalker. Often, the noun has a modifier: “The 500-pound Lawn Mower”; “The Last Green Blanket”; “A Streetwalker’s Bible.” In short, pick something that puts a picture in the reader’s head, along with a mystery. Think The Virgin Suicides. Think The Bluest Eye. Think The Sweet Hereafter.

  Verb forms make for uninteresting titles, I think, especially gerunds. “Disappearing” is my worst title ever, to an early short story. Gerunds strike me as too thematic, too calculated to announce the story’s intentions. Titles like “Telling Lies,” “Leaving Home,” “Knowing the Score” (not actual titles, to my knowledge) don’t draw me in. There is no picture to hang onto. Waiting for Godot is terrible, if I may be so bold; The Bald Soprano is great. Verbs can work well, though, if used as an imperative–for example, Come To Me by Amy Bloom; Read This and Tell Me What It Says by Manette Ansay.

  I also love possessives in titles: My first published story was called “Alison’s Hair,” and I still like this awkward, young story, partly for sentimental reasons, but mostly because the title still pleases me. One more thing about titles–often they will come late in the writing process, as a sign that you finally “get” what the story’s about. What a feeling!

Here’s a list of upcoming writing challenges posted at the NaNoWriMo website. On that page there are also “Thoughts on publishing” and “Tips on rewriting.”

I could tie this into writing in a number of ways — they all undoubtedly have stories behind their current appearance for one thing — but I’ll just let The Top 10 Physically Modified People inspire you.

Also check out the list of favorites on the right side like “11 phenomenal images of earth”, “interesting elevators”, “9 creative staircases”, “10 of the best natural phenomena”. The monthly archives take you to a page of summaries. Clicking on a title will take you to the pictures.

.
.

Did your NaNo novel finish the month titled “NaNo 2007″? Except for my first NaNo which was always called Flight, the other two were named at the last moment before I uploaded. If you still need a title, here’s some title naming strategies.

• Use the name of a character, place or significant object
• Name plus some element from the story
• Phrase from the novel
• Line uttered by a character
• Play on words (common in the mystery genre, often indicates a lighter tone) (Tea and Curses, No Time or Treason)
• Play on a recognizable title (War and Pieces, Withering Heights)
• There’s a good brainstorming process to use at Write a Good Book Title and Greatly Increase the Marketability of Your Book!.

  The author suggests writing a paragraph description of your book. From that paragraph list all the nouns and verbs. Then for 5 minutes make combinations of the two. Don’t worry if some don’t make sense together! If you don’t like any of the combinations together, then spend 5 minutes brainstorming words related to your nouns and verbs then repeat making combinations. When you find a verb and noun pair you like, then spend 5 minutes brainstorming phrases using that pair of words.

• Alter phrases, epigrams, cliches, aphorisms, idioms: Cliche Web and CLICHÉS: AVOID THEM LIKE THE PLAGUE
• Use phrases from Shakespeare, Bible, and Nursery rhymes:

  A short Shakespeare list
  A longer Shakespeare list
  More extensive list (with links to sources)
  Several thousand (with links to sources)
  Probably the most extensive (listed by play)

  Bible
  Old Testament extensive (Bartlett’s)
  New Testament extensive (Bartlett’s)

  I want Bartleby’s results to be better displayed, but there’s a wealth of searchable books there (Bartlett’s Quotations, Columbia Encyclopedia, Brewer’s Phrase and Fable, Bullfinch’s Mythology, author’s works in the public domain and loads more.) (The books have nicer formatting. It’s just the engine that searches all the books that returns some ugly results.)

• Be inspired by titles in your genre. The most likely part of your book to be changed by an editor is the title. Readers expect genre titles to conform to a certain feel, that is The Elemental Fire Queen of Goronji probably isn’t a mystery. ;-) Here’s some lists of books:
  

  Fairy tales
  Fantasy novels
  Science fiction
  Horror
  Fictional (not fiction!) books
  Best sellers

  Also try Amazon. Type in some key words from your book and see what Search turns up.

• And finally, here’s a Fantasy Novel Title Generator. You can generate from 1 to 50 titles at a time. Here’s some examples:
  

  Child’s Discord
  Desert of the Shining Stone
  Eladian’s Lady
  Dalisrte’s Emerald
  Demon’s Discord
  Heart, Autumn and Stone
  Hirorte’s Winter
  Mistress of Pride
  Secret Hero of Enijil
  Spell Sea of Ortanor
  Spirit Citadel of Redudiel
  Storm’s Fate
  The Destiny of Quainill
  The Elven Master
  The Faerie Demon
  The Fire of the Citadel
  The Illusion of Hirotanor
  The Iron Faerie
  The Trisimene Winter
  The Legend of Reduldas
  The Night of the Spirit
  The Pillana Master
  The Prophecy of Pilmene
  The Orbar Wizard The Repetidian Sun
  The Rogue and the Master
  The Rune Ruby
  Unholy Heart of Egibar
  Valdiriel’s Spirit
  Winter and Prophecy

Worldbreaker is a collaborative game for creating worlds. There is one rule: Players take turns making simple statements about what the setting IS or ISN’T, or DOES or DOESN’T have. And that’s it. He suggests 2 - 6 or 7 players. (There are also several stipulations at his website to help the players play nice together. )

Probably the best way to explain it is an example. This is from the “Four-Fold War” world:

• stee: 01) The world IS NOT spherical.
• mari: 02) The world HAS magic.
• curi: 03) The world HAS fluctuating gravity.
• stee: 04) The world HAS a wide and diverse biosphere.
• mari: 05) The societies of the world HAVE moved beyond conventional firearms.
• curi: 06) There ARE several random wells of raw magic.
• stee: 07) One society DOES “mine” these wells.
• mari: 08) The forms that magic takes ARE widely varied.
• curi: 09) The planet’s plants and animals ARE capable of using the magic.
• stee: 10) There ARE at least three sentient species of animal.

and it goes on to expand on specific details that develop:

• mari: 89) There IS a group of humanoids who have combined magic with martial arts.
• curi: 90) The Avians DO HAVE a group of warriors who hide feather-shaped razors on their bodies.
• stee: 91) One group of humanlike creatures IS trying to provoke a war.
• mari: 92) The wandering god HAS gotten bored.
• curi: 93) The Plantlikes ARE using their shifting abilities to spy on the Avians and Humanlikes.
• stee: 94) The plantlikes ARE willing to unleash a virus upon the Avians to ensure their survival.
• mari: 95) The AI HAS a body.
• curi: 96) The Ursines HAVE made a pact with their pantheon representative to fight only in self-defense.
• stee: 97) The AI’s body IS a suit of humanlike power armour named Cortana.
• mari: 98) The gods WILL destroy everything if total war erupts.
• curi: 99) The Aquatic race IS preparing to perish if they can’t stop the war.
• all: 100) The setting IS called ‘The Four-Fold War’.

You can see the full “Four-Fold War” world and more examples are at his website where, besides the worlds themselves, you might find an idea or two that might spark your own world.

Seventh Sanctum has a wealth of information for writers and oodles of generators of all sorts. Need a less cliche vampire character? A sword of power? A god or goddess? Legend? Name for a gadet or dark ritual or disease or corporation? They’ve got them and lots lots more.

One is the Writing Challenge Generator. These ideas can be used to drive a story or you can pull out pieces as plot ninjas for a story or your NaNoWriMo project. You can generate 1-10 challenges at a time, with a complexity of 1-5 elements in each (or a random amount). Here are 10 randomly generated writing challenges:

• The story must have a jackal at the beginning. The story must involve an idol in it. A character is optomistic throughout most of the story. During the story, a character is attacked.

• The story must have a drum appear in the middle. A character becomes joyous during the story.
• The story is set during a funeral. The story takes place ten years in the past. The story must involve some musical pipes at the end. A character is lustful throughout most of the story.
• The story ends during a war. During the story, there is a need to ask directions. A character will read someone’s diary.
• The story starts during a riot.
• The story must have a chipmunk at the end. The story must involve a bracelet in it.
• A character will eat a meal, but the action goes terribly wrong. A character becomes enraged during the story. The story must have a barracuda at the end. The story must involve a magical grimoire in it. The story takes place in the late evening.
• A character attacks someone. A character is negative throughout most of the story. During the story, a character becomes pregnant.
• The story ends in a sunken ship. During the story, there is an explosion. A character opens a door, and they aren’t happy with it. During the story, a character finds a pleasant surprise.
• The story ends during a holiday ceremony. The story takes place in the winter. The story must have an elephant at the end. The story must involve a formal outfit in it.

A plot ninja is a person, place, thing, idea that you drop into your plot when you get stuck. Started on the NaNoWriMo forums from the suggestion that every NaNo book should include a ninja jumping out of a wardrobe, they’ve expanded to be anything that pops into someone’s head.

These come from the Take a Prompt, Leave a Prompt folder at the forums.

Cut them up and put them in a bowl to draw out a random idea when you get stuck. If you’re not doing NaNoWriMo, pull out and idea and start writing. When you get stuck, pull out another.

• start your writing with a description of wet feet
• Dreams
• crumpled clothing
• a llama
• pink post-it notes
• three uneaten oranges..
• overhearing a conversation of a tourist and a local
• a pet curled up in a chair
• tumbleweed
• some moldy cheese
• a disgruntled landlord
• an antique quilt
• a picture of a gorgeous man
• an unusual locket
• an unusually detailed, oft-repeated doodle
• a Rubik’s cube
• Your MC gets a headache
• frosted strawberry pop tarts
• old ugly wallpaper on a grandparent’s bedroom wall
• a Halloween bucket full of candy wrappers, with one piece of candy still left at the bottom
• A water proof safe, Full of water, left in the middle of the desert
• a pair of gangly teenagers with braces, making out
• a mannequin
• a battered dart board
• a homemade birdhouse hanging from a street sign
• a one-eyed chicken
• a slimy slug trail
• Finding a stranger in your bathtub
• Getting caught in the rain
• A child with a pink ice cream
• The couple in the apartment next to you having an argument about a mysterious person called ‘Phil’
• the sound of a prom dress being thrown away
• A notorious thief finds a baby in a boat on the Thames
• An unopened love letter from twenty years ago
• A broken doll
• A handful of sugared violets
• An angel on a park bench
• And a duke box
• a soggy cardboard box that has sat out in the rain all night
• a perfectly round rock with an X drawn across it in crayon
• Three people from the same office thrown together under canvas for one night. It’s raining. There’s no booze. There’s only two sleeping bags
• one woman who sits next to you on the bus with her ipod turned so loud you can hear Christmas Carols, and it’s still November
• A motorcyclist zooming by, wearing a helmet cam and a microphone
• two people walking down the street wearing a horse costume
• a piece of broken, dusty yellow-orange glass
• a camera with everything intact except the film, which is melted
• a row of empty seats with one in the middle occupied. Then another person comes along and takes a seat right next to that person, instead of an empty one further down
• a book in a foreign language with the covers ripped off, found in a public place
• a necklace with the cord snapped, beads bouncing every which way on a tile floor
• A lone operator working by herself all night in a deserted building
• A homemade lasagna falling as the cook is knocked over by a large Rhodesian Ridgeback (breed of dog)
• One very expensive hairless cat (cannot remember the breed) being held for ransom
• 2 people dressed up for Halloween — one as Santa Claus, the other as the Easter Bunny
• A pet dog with a phobia of anything smaller than him!
• a chewed up pen in the parking lot (you decide whether it still works or not)
• a book in a foreign language with the covers ripped off, found in a public place
• a cell phone that fell into a toilet
• weapons, elements of battle
• The sound of sobbing coming from the attic
• someone finding out there is no water coming out of the tap on a given day (while they wanted to take a shower, for example)
• Several strands of hair stuck together with sticky tape
• Highlighters that have run out, but smell nice
• A cracked, glass statue
• a candy bar wrapper
• a broken timepiece
• a teddy bear with (detachable) bunny ears
• a puddle of water on the floor
• a penguin where it doesn’t belong (say, in a house)
• A painting of a snowboarder, with a dinosaur hidden within the background
• a goldfish swimming in the toilet
• A palm tree oasis in the middle of the desert
• an old Underwood typewriter with the ribbon stuck somewhere between black and red
• a three legged cat, (you decide how he lost his leg, or if we even know)
• a bloody razor blade found in a public restroom
• A smell which reminds your MC of their mother’s home cooking
• A dusty trilby lying abandoned on the pavement, and no one else around
• A frog that squeezes under a gap in the door when it’s raining
• A wallet filled with money in an empty car park
• a purse - shaped necklace that can open and close
• a lighted train rushing by at twilight
• a pizza delivery guy delivering a pre-paid pizza to the wrong address
• a pair of mismatched flip flops
• a set of four spoons, all bent out of shape
• a maroon moose that sings Christmas carols. (can be a stuffed moose, if you like)
• the landscape of Cocoa Puffs…go nuts
• the moon as a consolation prize
• a broken doll
• Mindscape
• A doll missing one of its limbs
• The dog barks at midnight
• A shoe impression was left in the tomato
• A platinum ring found in the bottom of a bargain bin in a music store
• three rusty lug-nuts
• an old gas lamppost
• a throbbing headache
• a thrift store shopping spree
• a dollar bill with writing on it
• pumpkin pie
• An ornate clock on a wall
• the futility of sweeping potato chips off the side of a mountain
• A paperclip lost in the septic tank
• a half-finished crossword left on the train, that must be returned
• a cold, clear mountain stream
• a Chinese pagoda
• a shovel stuck into a mound of dirt
• a mislabeled lollipop–it’s a flavor you don’t like or weren’t expecting
• a plastic green dinosaur whose head is a staple remover
• A pangolin
• A moderately rainy day
• A flamethrower
• Miniature Robots
• three old batteries and a change purse
• an unexpected strip of duct tape
• a strangely addictive song
• a purple permanent marker
• a barrel of monkeys
• a field full of talking flowers
• Three glow-in-the-dark Troll dolls
• Whenever I think of Paris, I think of..
• Fur-dyed poodles! (either pink or blue or green… I’ll leave that up to you)
• a forgotten sock
• watching TV from a safe position behind the sofa
• a Mysterious Stranger (abbreviated sometimes to AMS)
• a strange cloud formation
• the sound of a baby crying, or laughing
• a facial expression completely at odds with what a character is saying
• an extreme temperature change, you decide how or why
• a dead body, killed with that shovel (the traveling shovel of death)
• a case of identify theft
• the feeling you get when you are in the house on your own, and you could almost swear that there is someone behind you, and it gives you a weird burst of speed, and you run into the next room, slamming the door
  1,000 baby turtles gone missing
• An egg that cracks open and nothing is inside
• A horse named Albert with OCD
• A girl named Doug
• A one hundred on a test that you paid the teacher to get
• The smell of the keyboard
• Ten chickens that have no idea that they are chickens
• ginger beer
• a fight/action scene at a zoo
• the last leaf on a tree
• Dwarf tossing
• a rescued turtle
• a British phone booth found anywhere except the UK
• three gold star stickers
• a mallard duck
• A cape
• a pitcher of eggnog
• a pair of mismatched curtains
• an experience that fills the MC with both joy and fear
• a dozen cigarette ends floating in a wine glass
• a man wearing fingerless gloves
• a dead shark
• a house with peppermint-themed interior decor
• a villain who loves pie
• a broken computer on a doorstep
• a trophy tarnished with age
• a ceiling full of mold
• a cry for forgiveness
• twenty ancient unopened jars of apricot jam
• a blue stuffed elephant named Trunky
• your MC suddenly finds him/herself in possession of a prized racehorse
• A very wet dog on the couch
• A cozy fire on the hearth
• a Dixieland jazz band
• A funeral where everybody’s laughing and cheering about how the deceased will not be missed
• A black kitten named Matt
• a broken wine glass
• a repair bill
• a half empty Coca-Cola
• an old grandfather clock set to the wrong time
• the making of a salad
• a very old bloodhound
• hot peppermint tea with little mini biscotti from a boxful bought at Shoprite
• two blue ballet shoes and a claddagh ring (which have a relation to one another, a tied significance)
• a pair of fairy wings
• a stove timer that always adds five minutes onto the time inputted
• an unjust accusation
• the scent of freshly baked bread
• the taste of a lie
• a red haired girl with one blue and one green eye
• an ingrown toenail
• squirrels in the attic
• A flower pot getting thrown off a roof
• a dog kennel that washes up on shore
• a TV show involving robots
• a river without any fish
• a baby with colic
• the number 7
• a roaring fire
• a burning bush
• a dead rose in a vase
• a frozen pond with the ice broken in the center
• An impromptu dancing lesson
• A parakeet that can only say, “Schpedoinkle!”
• A single glove found lying on the sidewalk
• A car catching on fire
• a white tank top
• ceramic dwarves
• blue highlighted hair
• a nightgown in a washing machine
• a cat sitting on feet
• the ending of a video game
• multi-hue eyed girl!
• an illicit affair
• A horse named Albert
• A purple spotted toad
• A grandmother who thinks that she is a fish
• needing badly to go to the bathroom in the middle of a meeting
• a plastic carnation painted green with nail polish
• A red wedding dress
• Afternoon nap when it’s raining outside
• A purse filled with brown leaves
• Tangles headphone cables
• The salt cap falling off while salting a dish, and all the salt falling in
• A train ride
• Getting pizza for the mixed herb packets
• Playing cards all night
• another character’s perspective
• voices in the attic
• “I can’t sit still.”
• an over-enthusiastic nude photographer
• a pair of papier mâché clawed hands
• a midnight snowfall
• a selection of brightly coloured boxes in an empty room/house
• a light-up, plug-in, green gnome
• a well-preserved dinosaur skeleton
• a missing iguana
• gypsy dancing bears
• your character’s reaction to running over something on the road
• someone wearing mismatched socks
• a niggling memory that you can ALMOST remember, but not quite
• “Of course I’m fine. I’m more than fine. Who wouldn’t be with someone like you landing on me??”
• a messed up judicial system causing an arrest and detainment in jail
• fine, realistic costume jewelry
• a rickety, creaking white gate that gives someone away
• a spy who catches a bad cold at just the wrong time
• A hair ribbon flying with the wind
• a nearly-empty jar of peanut butter
• No two snowflakes are alike
• the lifetime of a $5 bill
• A toad under a rock
• a fake potted plant
• a vast array of staples
• an umbrella left in the park on a sunny day
• a strange light in the sky
• a sudden burst of laughter
• a knife with a dull, nicked blade
• Mug shot, toe tag and broken bridge
• blowing up an air mattress with a hair dryer
• a car stuck in mud
• A cat lying in the sunlight
• Odd eyes
• An unpainted dollhouse
• The last book in a series
• A dusty globe of Saturn
• The sound of thinking
• a consistent beeping noise
• a nightmare about a horse
• an earthquake
• celebration of a feast
• performing a ritual
• MC must taste chocolate, cacao, or similar substance
• a music box that won’t open
• glass figurines
• a plastic lizard
• purple nail polish

Need some plotting help for your NaNo or other project?

Teresa Nielsen Hayden, editor at Tor Books, gave a lecture on “Stupid Plotting Tricks” at the Viable Paradise Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers’ Workshop. Part of the lecture was way to use the cliches from the evil overlord lists: The Evil Overlord Devises a Plot From her lecture:

Start with some principles:

• A plot doesn’t have to be new. It just has to be new to the reader.
• In fact, it doesn’t even have to be new to the reader. It just has to get past him. (It helps if the story’s moving fast and there’s lots of other interesting stuff going on.)
• A plot device that’s been used a thousand times may be a cliche, but it’s also a trick that works. That’s why it keeps getting used.
• Several half-baked ideas can often be combined into one fully-cooked one.
• If you have one plot presented three ways, you have three plots. If you have three plots presented one way, you have one plot. (I stole this principle from Jim Macdonald’s lecture on how to really generate plots, which is much better than my lecture on stupid plot tricks.)
• Steal from the best.
• Looked at from this angle, the Internet’s various lovingly-compiled cliche lists are a treasury of useful plot devices. The instructions that follow are one way to use them.

And she goes on to describe generating numbers to pick ideas from the list but in the paragraph below that is a little tiny “here” that will generate some for you. Here’s some generated ones:

---

Advice for the Evil Overlord:

If my Legions of Terror are defeated in a battle, I will quietly withdraw and regroup instead of launching a haphazard mission to assassinate the hero.

Advice for the Hero:

I will never allow fashion sense to prevent me from carrying whatever is useful or needful for the Heroic Struggle.

Advice for the Bad Auxiliary Character (Evil Overlord’s Wicked but Beautiful Daughter):

If you have siblings, do not trust them. They’ll only use you shamelessly. Of course if they’re stupid enough to trust you, use them shamelessly.

Advice for the Good Auxiliary Character (Innocent Bystander):

Do not split up to search for the monster.

Further Evil (Advice on Ultimate Weapons/Spells):

I will also refrain from using the Ultimate Weapon for simply offing the Hero. If it’s really the UW, the Hero’s efforts will come to naught anyway.

Murphy’s Laws of Combat:

• The most delicate component will be dropped.
• Success occurs when no one is looking; failure occurs when the General is watching.
• Everything goes wrong at once.

---

Also funny, but not included in her generator are “Things We Learned at the Movies”. Here’s the full list that’s she’s drawing from Evil Overlord Lists (including Murphy’s Laws of Combat and Things We Learned at the Movies).

Cut up the following words and put them in a bowl. For NaNo writers, when you get stuck, pull out one of the words and use that in the next sentence you write. If they don’t make sense, edit them out later. :-) The point is to get your thoughts moving. (Though it’s really cool when a random word sparks a neat idea.)

If you’re not doing NaNo, include one random word in each sentence you write for the next 10 to 15 minutes.

ensorcled
bear hug
scandal
natural
flimsy
arresting tale
fuschia
volcano
superfluous
juniper
clone
absorb
emerald
weeping
tumble weed
brown sugar
thief
obscure
overprotective
serene
rivalry
tradition
black satin
lace
destroyed
caprice
emblazon
bash
dysfunctional
aflame
requiem
kookie
fried
awesome
unruly
apathetic
flit
hidden
damnation
frosted
holiday
nightsong
resistant
flying dagger
out cast
heirloom rose
crunch
ridiculous
entropy
improvise
babble
condemn
wimple
dead of night
plot
lucky
doomed
magenta jewel
spring frost
evil spirit
jabberwocky
seasoned
core
plunder
recognition
pride
ambitious
skeleton crew
glamorous
lifeless
oppression
religious
plead
humorous
superficial
gourmet
nobility
stargaze
sandy
mook
scorch
cream
machete
blackberry
wake
slumber
attitude
black ink
train station
era
abandoned
tower
grandiose
avoid
mercurial
manitcore
vestige
silver wing
guardian
dominant
disguise

Interview a character or characters from your NaNo novel or from a stalled piece with characters you liked.

It can be a group interview with questions each character answers. It can be an interview with a single character. I’ve done interviews with characters who are plucked from the current situation they’re in. I’ve done interviews with characters after they’ve died who reflect back on the period the story takes place in. I’ve done interviews with characters immediately following the action of the story.

Ask them about their motivations. Ask them the questions you need the answers to. Your characters will tell you things that you didn’t even know about them! You will hear where motivations are weak that need punched up.

Here are some ideas:

• How do you feel about [another character]?
• What are your thoughts on the events that led up to the crisis?
• Why did you feel you needed to [whatever event triggered a turning point in the book]?
• If there is one thing you could have changed, what would it be?
• Why do you hate your sister?
• Tell me about the time you ended up in jail. How did that come about?
• You recently received a death threat. How seriously are you taking this?
• Looking back on the situation, what would you have done differently?
• Are you pleased with the way the situation is being/was handled?
• If you could kill someone with impunity, who would it be?

Some things we’ve learned from past NaNos:

From me: It’s okay to leave scenes unfinished. The linear one-thing-at-a-time part of me is rankled but it needs to shut up so I can write. If a scene isn’t working, it’s okay to move onto another. Sometimes later scenes can help finish out a previous scene. But it’s okay if you don’t go back right now. NaNoWriMo doesn’t mean it’s a complete first draft. Some people don’t even finish their books. The goal is just 50,000 words.

It’s okay to call characters and places xxx. ;-) I never had to resort to that before but I have several characters who get mentioned and might play bigger roles but I don’t know enough about them yet to give them good names. So for now they’re xxx.

I like discovering things about my characters. I’ve found myself saying “I didn’t know you had a sister who worshipped you. I didn’t know you had a talent for cooking. I didn’t know you burned out your own magical powers to destroy them.”

From Kat: “Drop frogs and zombies with pink ray guns on people.” (Which more generally can be translated into let wild things happen and see what happens :-)

Making up quirks can create more problems for the characters — which takes more words to take care of. For instance I had two characters walking through the woods so I gave one a really bad sense of direction.

Eating and food are great padding.

Anyone else have NaNo tips from previous attempts?

NaNoWriMo starts today!

Since your novel can go anywhere and doesn’t necessarily need to make sense at this point, use the following phrases to drive your next scene (or scenes).

Or use them in a 10-15 minute writing piece. If a phrase sparks a great idea but you can’t get the phrase in, go with the idea :-) Their purpose is to spark ideas not chain you down.

accident of fate
broken rules
callous depravity
delicately invisible
endangered heaven
fake maps
gold daze
hair ball
intended fear
just a sip
kitty corner
lacy lattice
mammoth bones
naked killer
ocean of storms
paint brush
quick cash
rain bows
saffron wonders
tangle wood
unlikely trendy places
vesper dawn
warm fuzzies
excel saga
yesterday’s news
zircon vortex

National Novel Writing Month begins November 1! (Next Thursday.)

If you haven’t heard about NaNoWriMo before, all across the world, people set aside the month of November to try to write a 50,000 word novel in one month. Just 30 days. (Most people participating have jobs or go to school so those are not excuses!)

Yes, it’s insane but it’s also a lot of fun :-)

What’s the point? Well, for one thing, to prove to yourself you can do it. For another, to get the experience of writing without editing. That second thing is the most powerful for me: learning to write without asking yourself if it’s good or not. As Chris Baty has said:

The key to NaNoWriMo success is to lower your expectations from ‘best seller’ to ‘would not make someone vomit.’ — Chris Baty

The goal is to produce words. Not great prose. Just words. You can plan ahead of time, think up a plot, but no actual writing of the novel until November 1.

My daughter Kat (16) and I have done it (and completed it! often with minutes to spare ;-) 3 times now and are planning to do it again.

I’ve done it twice with ideas I came up with the night before. Last year I had a handful of random characters about a week before.

Considering the novel I was working on before NaNoWriMo (for ::: cough ::: 20 years) was just 100,000 words of notes, it truly amazed me that a novel could flow out (okay struggle out somedays ;-) of me without a great deal of planning. :-)

The biggest thing separating people from their artistic ambitions is not a lack of talent. It’s the lack of a deadline. — Chris Baty

You don’t have to finish the novel. You just need to produce at least 50,000 words of the novel. No one reads what you’ve written. When you’re done, you upload the file and a machine counts the words. (Apparently it’s very generous about what it considers a word.) If it counts at least 50,000, you win!

What do you win? The satisfaction of having written a novel! :-) (And also a downloadable certificate you can print out and hang on your refrigerator.)

There are several people who have gone on to complete and polish their NaNoWriMo projects and gotten them published. So you never know!

Writing can be more fun if you stop trying to get it perfect on the first go-round. You can get it perfect in the rewrite. The first draft is all about making wonderful messes. — Chris Baty

To produce 50,000 words by the end of November, the minimum you need to write is 1700 words per day. That doesn’t give you much padding for the days the words aren’t flowing and for little things like Thanksgiving, so setting a goal of 2000 words a day gives some generous padding.

Chris Baty, who began the insanity, says in his “No Plot, No Problem” book that it takes most people 1.5 - 2 hours a day. The truth is that it takes as much time as you give it. If you give it all day, it takes all day. (Which it does for Kat and me ;-)

NaNoWriMo has a website (above) with lots of tips and a massive message board with a huge number of tips and ideas and lots and lots of support from people who are also putting themselves through the torture. (There are folders where people are giving away plots and characters for the taking :-) There are regional “write-ins” where NaNoWriMoers gather in coffee shops and Pizza Huts to write together to encourage each other.

If you want to participate, go to the website and register. I think you don’t have to register until you’re ready to upload but if you do register you can post on the boards.

I’ll be posting tips and such throughout the month (that can also be used as stand alone writing prompts).

Here’s a fun test. Is the dancer rotating right (clockwise) or left (counterclockwise)?

Left vs Right Brain: Test for creativity or logic (also here if that one disappears).

They say if she’s rotating right you’re using the right side of your brain, the artistic side. If she’s rotating left you’re using the left side of your brain, the logical side. I don’t know if that’s true or not, but it’s a cool effect anyway!

For me she’s usually rotating left, but sometimes she goes right. Which does conform to the engineer and artist parts in me. My daughter can make it switch back and for as she looks at it. I can’t! When I look at it I can’t imagine how it could possibly go other other way, even though it might switch directions next time I look at it :-)

What does that have to do with writing? Writing draws on both logic (left brain) and creativity (right brain). Stories need to make sense, be logical. They also need to be surprising. It’s a balance. When structuring a story, some writers feel more comfortable relying on the logical side, some on the creative side. That’s why some writing advisors will say you must plan your novel before beginning and others say planning will stifle creativity. The truth is whatever you find works for you. Play around with planning and not planning and you’ll find the balance that works for you. (And the balance may change for different projects.)

With National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) coming up next month, you’ll have a great opportunity to experience letting your right brain take the driver’s seat. :-) (More on NaNoWriMo later.)

There are also right brain and left brain writing prompts. Right brain prompts often present random ideas and let your brain find connections. Left brain prompts often begin with a structure and let your brain use that as a foundation to play with ideas.

The WritingFix has a nice collection of right brain and left brain prompts. It used to be easy to navigate but someone “fixed” the layout and now it just makes your eyes hurt. (It also used to be easier to ignore the teacherly advice on how various exercises tie into the “important stuff” the kids are “supposed” to be learning from the exercise.) But here are some links (that link, at least as I’m writing this, to the pages with the more readable “unfixed” layout, with a nice navigation on the left.) I’ve used several of these as prompts here over the years.

Right brain writing prompts:

Word Games with Serendipity

Story Starters for Writers

Great Sentence Creators

Who/What/When/Where Game

Visual Sparks for Writers

Right-Brained Poetry Prompts

Alliterative Sparks for Writers

Miscellaneous Right-Brained Writing Prompts

Left brain writing prompts:

Start and Stop Game

Imitating Written Structures

Step-by-Step Mini Writers’ Workshops

List Writes

Playing with Language

Structured Paragraphs

Left-Brained Poetry Prompts

Sausage Sentences (old prompt but “new improved” page layout)

Go to your refrigerator and write down 10 random or oddest items in there. Write the introductory paragraphs of a character who only has those items in his or her refrigerator.

(Alternatively, go to the grocery store and go hog weird wild to choose 10 items.)

.
.
.

First lines of course! They come first for readers, though not necessarily for writers. It might even be the last line you write once you’ve written the story and know what it’s all about.

The first line should create the need to know more. It sets up questions in the readers mind. Why? How did that happen? Who did it?

Here’s the American Book Review’s List of 100 best first lines from novels.

But even more grabbing to my mind, since I read genre fiction rather than literary fiction, are these collected by Allan Rousselle on his blog. (I like that idea of collecting a particular author’s first lines. I’ll have to try it!)

He also wrote an essay about First Lines.

There are also several great first lines at the post at the bottom of the page at Bibliobibuli.

Use these as writing prompts or examples of great first lines to inspire you.

Robert Heinlein

From Beyond This Horizon, his first published novel:

Their problems were solved: the poor they no longer had with them; the sick, the lame, the halt, and the blind were historic memories; the ancient casues of war no longer obtained; they had more freedom than Man has ever enjoyed. All of them should have been happy –

From The Day After Tomorrow:

“What the hell goes on here?”

From “Waldo”:

The act was billed as ballet tap — which does not describe it.

From “Magic, Inc.”:

“Whose spells are you using, buddy?”

From “The Roads Must Roll”:

“Who makes the roads roll?”

From “Requiem”:

On a high hill in Samoa there is a grave.

From “The Long Watch”:

Johnny Dahlquist blew smoke at the Geiger counter.

From “The Green Hills of Earth”:

This is the story of Rhysling, the blind singer of the Spaceways — but not the official version.

From The Puppet Masters:

Were they truly intelligent?

From “Jerry Was a Man”:

Don’t blame the Martians.

From The Door Into Summer:

One winter shortly before the Six Weeks War my tomcat, Petronius the Arbiter, and I lived in an old farmhouse in Connecticut.

From Have Space Suit — Will Travel:

You see, I had this space suit.

From “The Year of the Jackpot”:

At first Potiphar Breen did not notice the girl who was undressing.

From “The Unpleasant Profession of Jonathan Hoag”:

“Is it blood, doctor?”

From Stranger in a Strange Land:

Once upon a time there was a Martian named Valentine Michael Smith.

From Time Enough for Love:

History has the relation to truth that theology has to religion — ie, none to speak of.

From The Number of the Beast:

“He’s a Mad Scientist and I’m his Beautiful Daughter.”

From The Cat Who Walks Through Walls:

“We need you to kill a man.”

From To Sail Beyond the Sunset:

I woke up in bed with a man and a cat. The man was a stranger; the cat was not.

And lastly, a first line that certainly makes *me* want to read more, from “It’s Great to be Back!”:

“Hurry up, Allan!”

Stephen King

From Rage:

The morning I got it on was nice; a nice May morning.

From ‘Salem’s Lot:

Almost everyone thought the man and the boy were father and son.

From The Shining:

Jack Torrance thought: Officious little prick.

From “Night Surf”:

After the guy was dead and the smell of his burning flesh was on the air, we all went back down to the beach.

From “The Mangler”:

Officer Hunton got to the laundry just as the ambulance was leaving — slowly, with no sirens or flashing lights.

From “Trucks”:

The guy’s name was Snodgrass and I could see him getting ready to do something crazy.

From “The Ledge”:

“Go on,” Cressner said again. “Look in the bag.”

From “The Lawnmower Man”:

In previous years, Harold Parkette had always taken pride in his lawn.

From Cujo:

Once upon a time, not so long ago, a monster came to the small town of Castle Rock, Maine.

From “Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption”:

There’s a guy like me in every state and federal prison in America, I guess — I’m the guy who can get it for you.

From Christine:

This is the story of a lover’s triangle, I suppose you’d say — Arnie Cunningham, Leigh Cabot, and, of course, Christine.

From “The Mist”:

This is what happened.

From It:

The terror, which would not end for another twenty-eight years — if it ever did end — began, so far as I know or can tell, with a boat made from a sheet of newspaper floating down a gutter swollen with rain.

From The Dark Tower:

The man in black fled across the desert, and the gunslinger followed.

From “Secret Window, Secret Garden”:

“You stole my story,” the man on the doorstep said.

From “The Library Police”:

Everything, Sam Peebles decided later, was the fault of the goddamned acrobat.

From “Dolan’s Cadillac”:

I waited and watched for seven years.

From “The Doctor’s Case”:

I believe there was only one occasion upon which I actually solved a crime before my slightly fabulous friend, Mr. Sherlock Holmes.

From “Why We’re in Vietnam”:

When someone dies, you think about the past.

From “L.T.’s Theory of Pets”:

My friend L.T. hardly ever talks about how his wife disappeared, or how she’s probably dead, just another victim of the axe man, but he likes to tell the story of how she walked out on him.

I was searching for a weekly tip and came across a page on creating characters. It’s a pretty good page actually but one piece of advice made me realize why so many character questionnaires feel flat to me: it’s because the questions ask what rather than why.

The author suggest reverse engineering a character. Go through a favorite book and write down the characteristics of your favorite characters. Write questions that would prompt the descriptions as a response. Then use those questions to interview your own character: create three response for each question.

One of the responses was, “Hagrid is a large man, so big he must be part giant.” A very interesting answer! But the question the article’s author came up with is, “What is this character’s physical size?” Um, large? It just doesn’t lead your mind down interesting paths.

But a question like “Why are you the size you are?” can bring out rich details from a character’s past. “Because I’m half giant,” is a much more interesting answer than “Really big.” Though “15 feet.” or however large Hagrid is, is intriguing, it obviously leads to “Why are you 15 feet tall.” Might as well begin with the why!

The page is Creating Characters from Scratch.

The reverse engineering process is described towards the end of the article.

Like the Fantasy Novelists Exam and Grand list of overused science fiction clichés and The Grand List of Console Role Playing Game Cliches here is:

The Not-So-Grand List of Overused Fantasy Clichés
by Teresa Dietzinger (and contributors)

“Inspired by John Van Sickle’s Grand list of Overused Science Fiction Clichés, which is a writer’s guide to ideas and plot devices in Science Fiction which might have been a good idea at one point but, to quote Van Sickle, “have become hackneyed from overuse by the unimaginative,” unquote. I have sought to create a similar list for ideas and plot devices pertaining specifically to the Fantasy genre, (although I have decided I will not rate the cliches or try to categorize them. Suffice to say, this is simply a list of characterizations, ideas, and plot elements which have a tendency to crop up in Fantasy Fiction