Dragon Writing Prompts

For each word or phrase write a sentence about one of your characters, old or new.

A few ways to use this (some tend to generate more than a sentence):

• I’ve used the word to prompt a thought from me about the character.
• I’ve let the character respond to an interviewer’s question containing that word. I didn’t even make up the question. The character “heard” an appropriately probing question, to which they often crafted a lie for the interviewer ;-)
• Brandilyn Collins in Getting into Character suggests acting as a psychologist and have your character respond to probing questions under hypnosis. That could be adapted to this and prevent the character from lying. ;-)
• A list member used the word in a sentence or bit of dialogue that might fit into her current story.

1. Introduction
2. Love
3. Light
4. Dark
5. Seeking Solace
6. Break Away
7. Heaven
8. Innocence
9. Drive
10. Breathe Again
11. Memory
12. Insanity
13. Misfortune
14. Smile
15. Silence
16. Questioning
17. Blood
18. Rainbow
19. Gray
20. Fortitude
21. Vacation
22. Mother Nature
23. Cat
24. No Time
25. Trouble Lurking
26. Tears
27. Foreign
28. Sorrow
29. Happiness
30. Under the Rain
31. Flowers
32. Night
33. Expectations
34. Stars
35. Hold My Hand
36. Precious Treasure
37. Eyes
38. Abandoned
39. Dreams
40. Rated
41. Teamwork
42. Standing Still
43. Dying
44. Two Roads
45. Illusion
46. Family
47. Creation
48. Childhood
49. Stripes
50. Breaking the Rules
51. Sport
52. Deep in Thought
53. Keeping a Secret
54. Tower
55. Waiting
56. Danger Ahead
57. Sacrifice
58. Kick in the Head
59. No Way Out
60. Rejection
61. Fairy Tale
62. Magic
63. Do Not Disturb
64. Multitasking
65. Horror
66. Traps
67. Playing the Melody
68. Hero
69. Annoyance
70. 67%
71. Obsession
72. Mischief Managed
73. I Can’t
74. Are You Challenging Me?
75. Mirror
76. Broken Pieces
77. Test
78. Drink
79. Starvation
80. Words
81. Pen and Paper
82. Can You Hear Me?
83. Heal
84. Out Cold
85. Spiral
86. Seeing Red
87. Food
88. Pain
89. Through the Fire
90. Triangle
91. Drowning
92. All That I Have
93. Give Up
94. Last Hope
95. Advertisement
96. In the Storm
97. Safety First
98. Puzzle
99. Solitude
100. Relaxation

This has been floating around Deviantart for a while, now residing as Variation 1 at 100 Themes Challenge and credited to AngieChild who says she got it elsewhere.

Most people use the themes as art challenges and they’re very cool to see!

“Top 10 things I believe with all my heart and soul.”

Okay, I did promise no self reflection in the prompts! But you don’t need to use it to dig beneath your dirty (or dull) layers ;-) Use it as a way to generate a real, heartfelt list that, with some tweaking, could be used for a character. Start with ten real ones, and then let them flow.

Though some may be weighty or serious, don’t let the prompt limit you. I certainly believe with all my heart and soul that Chocolate Fudge Brownie Ice Cream would beat any other flavor in a wrestling match on my tongue ;-)

When you’re done, look over what you’ve written. Take some directly, tweak some, get inspired by others to go a different direction then craft a character from the variety.

What are these guys thinking? Write a caption or a bit of dialogue.

Come up with a new deck of cards for current times, a fantasy world, a future world, for your own or someone else’s world. J.K. Rowling showed us wizarding chess. What do their cards look like? Who or what is on them? What do Goth cards look like? Klingon? Robot? (They all probably exist! ;-)

You can stick with the standard 52+Joker deck of 4 suits or not. (Not to be practical on you or anything ;-), but I suspect a number close to 52 is easy to shuffle. The 65 cards in Five Crowns is tough! So maybe your characters have larger hands if you decide to have more cards or they have some technique to get around that.)

So, what suits have meaning for your world? Will you use something other than numbers? Do you have a set corresponding to the royals?

From Caffeine for the Creative Mind: 250 Exercises to Wake Up Your Brain by Stefan Mumaw and Wendy Lee Oldfield

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Did you know?

The kings in the French decks represent actual kings? King David (spades), Charlemagne or Charles IV (hearts), Julius Ceasar (diamonds), Alexander the Great (clubs). So do the queens and jacks (knaves).

The Ace of Spades picture is usually much larger for a reason? The cards in Europe were taxed and that’s the card chosen for the tax stamp.

That the ace, which used to be the lowest card, trumps the king probably came about during the French Revolution when the peasants revolted against the king?

There’s way more than you thought to question about playing cards :-)

Use the following homophones in sentences.

toe/tow
pidgin/pigeon
complement/compliment
manner/manor
mane/main
medal/meddle/metal/mettle
principal/principle
vain/vane/vein
pi/pie

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A metaphor turns one thing into another. Start with the statement:

A road is a road for cars.

and see how many roads (and paths and byways) you can come up with that carry something from one place to another.

• An artery is a road for exhausted blood leading back to the heart.
• The internet is a superhighway for spam.
• School is a potholed dull path to college that they’ve been promising to pave for decades.
• A river is snowmelt’s road from mountain to ocean.
• Pretend is a road to anywhere.
• A lecture is a pathway to sleep.

A ritual is a series of actions meant to bring about or prevent an event. A ritual gives a sense of control over the unseen forces shaping our lives. In the past the actions and order were created by shamans. Today, anyone can devise a ritual. (As many sports players and teams do! Like Top 10 Sports Traditions ;-)

Come up with a ritual for some event you (or your characters) would like control over. (It can be a simple prose list or a poetic list.)

Ron Padgett in Handbook of Poetic Forms (where this idea comes from) suggests:

1. Decide what you would like to have occur.
2. Examine all aspects of the subject.
3. Think of actions to illustrate some of these aspects.
4. Write each action down as a command.
5. Number the commands.
6. Let yourself go.

Here’s a Storm Ritual from Alaskan Eskimos who sought to subside a storm.

1. Build a snowman with a big head.
2. Give the snowman’s head a large mouth.
3. Catch salmon, skin the carcasses, freeze them.
4. Hack away at the frozen fish and push the pieces into the snowman’s mouth.
5. Afterward, have a big feast in which all the pieces of fish are eaten.

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More:

This reminds me of the experiments performed by B.F. Skinner. He placed pigeons in boxes and randomly released food. The pigeons eventually began performing whatever random action they had been performing before the food was released, suggesting a type or ritual or superstition.

“One bird was conditioned to turn counter-clockwise about the cage, making two or three turns between reinforcements. Another repeatedly thrust its head into one of the upper corners of the cage. A third developed a ‘tossing’ response, as if placing its head beneath an invisible bar and lifting it repeatedly. Two birds developed a pendulum motion of the head and body, in which the head was extended forward and swung from right to left with a sharp movement followed by a somewhat slower return.”

Bertrand Russell presented the following “conjugation” of an “irregular verb”:

     I am firm.
     You are obstinate.
     He is a pig-headed fool.

Use that pattern to conjugate more “verbs” — actually adjectives! — irregularly, going from flattery to insult. Begin the first with I, the second with you and the last with he or she.

Make up your own or use the following for inspiration:

     concerned
     beautiful
     imaginative
     affectionate

Inspired by The Play of Words: Fun & Games for Language Lovers by Richard Lederer.

Replace the dull verbs with active verbs. Use the 1000 Verbs to Write By list if you need some inspiration. Generate 5-10 sentences for each.

Notice how it changes the feel of the situation and the characters acting in the mini drama.

As a bonus, try changing the noun to see how that affects the sentence’s feel. Give the characters names. Change their sexes or species.

“No,” she said and walked from the room.

He took the book from the bag and sat on the couch.

She touched the object the man had held.

He pulled out the bottle and drank.

She saw him then reacted.

Write a movie review or blurb (like in TV Guide) for one or more of the following movie titles:

• The Stars Fell on Henrietta
• Zombies on Broadway
• Sometimes They Come Back … Again
• Zipperface
• You’ll Like My Mother
• Wrestling Women vs. Aztec Mummy
• Vampire Cop
• Vacuuming Completely Nude in Paradise

(They’re all real movies, by the way, but don’t let that get in the way of your imagination!)

Use all of the words on each line in a sentence. Use any order and feel free to changes tenses and word forms.

Make the sentences evocative of winter.

• stripes — terrific — distant — emperor — barely — horse — blizzard
• valley — slimy — boulder — vanish — ignorance — sly — rust
• modified — laugh — salty — drooled — crusty — attitude — flammable
• wander — slimy — past — crafty — bumpy — dictator — dependable
• luxury — sliding — jerk — stuffy — rainy — visitor — tattered

Big Hairy Audacious Goal … BHAG, pronounced bee-hag.

Indulge your fantasies. Make a list of goals you would set your eye on if time, money, obligations or motivation weren’t a factor. They can be goals that you would set for this year, the next five years, and life goals. Don’t edit! Free yourself :-) You can be fanciful — Become a wizard; Emigrate to Mars — but they should be ideas you can imagine focusing your life on.

Now take one of those goals and create a character who sets out to do it. Put all sorts of obstacles in the characters way but make determination to reach the goal a factor that drives him or her on.

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More:

“Organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful.” — Google BHAG.

Big Hairy Audacious Goal was an idea developed by James Collins and Jerry Porras. They noticed the most successful companies had one clear compelling goal that energized their employees. It gave them something to focus on. People have since adopted BHAGs as life goals.

It’s well after Thanksgiving and there’s still 10 pounds of turkey left and you’re thinking that if you ever see turkey on your plate again there had better not be sharp implements within your reach. For 5-10 minutes brainstorm ideas of what to do with leftover turkey (including the carcass if you’d like.) It doesn’t need to be for eating purposes!

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Random words coming up! Here’s some ideas on how to use them:

• A description of someone or something.
• An advertisement.
• A poem of 3 lines, each using one of the words. Perhaps haiku.
• A longer poem.
• The title of a book, chapter, movie, song.
• An opening paragraph.
• A closing paragraph.
• A cryptic note dropped by someone.
• A headline.
• A snatch of conversation.
• A 15 minute story with beginning, middle and end. Perhaps the first word drives the beginning, the second the middle, the last the end.
• A telegram.
• The subject line of an email.
• The description of a menu item.

If you’re doing a story or poem and want to try to come up with a character or scene first, take a moment before reading on.

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balance
dictate
wander

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The words are from Three Word Wednesday. 3 new words every Wednesday. At the blog if you click on the submissions, you can see the variety of ways people used the words.

A constrained writing prompt landed in my mail box today in Anu Garg’s Wordsmith.org’s Word A Day. And it’s a contest too.

We’ve done lipograms where you’re forbidden to use a letter or letters in each word and anti-lipograms where you must use a letter or letters. (Click Constrained writing over on the right for more.)

A univocalic is a piece of writing that uses only one of the vowels, an example for e is: “Help the peerless letter e perfect sentences.”

CONTEST: Imagine you are a headline writer for a newspaper back in the days when metal type was used. You have run out of all but one of the vowels in the large type size that is used for the headline. What univocalic can you come up with?

If you get stumped for substitute words, try the thesaurus at The Free Dictionary.

Email your univocalic news headlines (real or made-up) to (words at wordsmith.org). Selected entries will be featured in the weekly compilation AWADmail and the best entry will win an autographed copy of Anu Garg’s latest book The Dord, the Diglot, and an Avocado or Two: The Hidden Lives and Strange Origins of Common and Not-So-Common Words.

Deadline is Friday Oct 17.

“Most notably, [Christian Bök’s] 2001 Eunoia , seven years in the making, became Canada’s bestselling poetry book ever — an incredible feat for such explicitly experimental writing. No comforting fluff here; in the main portion, each chapter employs but a single vowel (e.g., “Enfettered, these sentences repress free speech”), a univocalic constraint.” — Ed Park; Crystal Method; Village Voice (New York); Dec 16, 2003.

What if your pet could suddenly talk to you? After you both get past the amazement, it seems your pet has a whole list of things he’s been trying to tell you for years and you’ve been apparently clueless. What’s on the list?

It can be a current pet, a past pet or someone else’s pet you know well. Or, of course, be creative! What would be the demands of a human who had been kept as a pet by some alien family?

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Why did the chicken cross the road?

She’s been doing it for a long time so she must have some mighty compelling reasons. What are they? Come up with as many as you can in the time you give yourself. You don’t need to write punch lines (though you might end up with some!)

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I ran across this on the internet by “Author Unknown” who is nearly as prolific and productive across all genres as “Anonymous”.

A Friend …

Accepts you as you are.
Believes in you.
Calls you just to say “hi.”
Doesn’t give up on you.
Envisions the whole of you (even the unfinished parts).
Forgives your mistakes.
(and it goes on through the alphabet)

Pick any subject and create something similar.

Maybe it’s the subject of the example, but I can hear a teacher say “Write your own version about friends.” Well, if she’s talking in your head too, shush her. You’re not in school. No one’s going to scowl at you if you choose to write about Dog Poop! ;-)

Dog Poop …

Always smells.
Broils on the sidewalk.
Clings to your shoe.
Draws the noses of dogs.

For X, “Author Unknown” wrote both “Xplains things you don’t understand” and “XOXOXOXO”.

You can see a nicely formatted version of “A Friend“.

Create a bestiary. Use each of the following words in the name of the beast or one sentence description of the beast.

amnesiac
bewitches
chamber
disguises
eerie
flickering
graffiti
hypnotized
invisible
journey
karma
laughing
moonbeam
nuzzle
outcast
pilfer
quake
rumble
saccharine
taunt
uneasy
valkyrie
whirl
explode
yammer
zigzag

Anu Garg of Wordsmith.org has been sending out a word a day for 14 years. In celebration this week all the words were not only 14 letters long but defined in 14 letters.

Use them in a story, a paragraph or even a single sentence. :-)

acritochromacy (uh-KRIT-o-kro-muh-see) noun — Color blindness.
tintinnabulate (tin-ti-NAB-yuh-layt) verb intr. — To ring; to tinkle.
tinctumutation (tinkt-myoo-TAY-shuhn) noun — Change of colour.
Brobdingnagian (brob-ding-NAG-ee-uhn) adjective — Of gigantic size.
circumbendibus (sur-kuhm-BEN-duh-buhs) noun — Circumlocution.

Print out the following words in a largish font, cut them up, shuffle them around to create fantasy tabloid headlines like:

Acclaimed Ghoul Eats Mist Enshrouded Monastery
Toothless Pig Dumps Ugly Android

You may need to throw in some prepositions (in, through, on, etc.) to use the places and things. Feel free to add in your own words. There’s also a longer list at Dragon Writing Sticks.

Adjectives

acclaimed
annoying
barbarian
blasphemous
disturbed
enigmatic
foul
fractured
glowing
golden
grotesque
insectoid
mad
massive
mist enshrouded
morbid
oozing
quirky
sapphire
toothless
ugly

Creatures

android
assassin
baby
bunny
dragon
queen
cult hero
dragon hunter
fiend
fortuneteller
ghoul
mouse
musician
pig
priestess
soul
thief
vampire
warlord
witch
worm

Verbs

assaults
avenges
betrays
bewitches
blesses
burns
cheats
completes
corrupts
curses
deceives
destroys
deviates
disguises
dooms
dumps
eats
escapes (from)
exorcises
falls for
fears
hits
imprisons
jealous of
kidnaps
loses
mourns
quests for
rebels against
rejects
resists
rips off
rules
sacrifices
saves
seizes
separates
shoots
silences
smashes
strikes
sues
summons
surrenders
terrorizes
threatens
tortures
traps
tricks
weeps for
yields

Places

abyss
altar
bakery
bones
camera
castle
diary
dungeon
goblet
grave
heaven
island
key
monastery
paradise
ring
runes
space colony
tavern
volcano
well

Use the following “words” in sentences. See what the sound of them inspires. :-)

pimtpo
poortspo
terballs
tonopmac
seyekco
rellatte
rolepsia
etatsnok
ryon
aikaisil
punitif
tedneeg
eruvargr

Merry Christmas! Here’s something to do while you wait for everyone else to get up so you can open your presents :-)

What if the following were acronyms? What would they stand for? They can deal with Christmas or not, you decide.

NOEL
SANTA
SNOW
STAR
ANTICIPATION

And here’s a present for you Star Trek fans: New Star Trek episodes.

Considering everyone’s doing this for free just for love of Star Trek, they aren’t bad. (Try one of the newer ones to begin.) The special effects are quite good and George Takei gets to show off his sword skills in World Enough and Time :-)

Hope your day is a joyous one!

You know those trees with the handprint leaves you write something to be thankful for on? Your favorite Evil Dude (E.D.) has been inspired to create one. Of course he’ll use severed hands instead of construction paper and carve his message with a fresh craft knife rather than use crayon.

So, what’s he thankful for? Make a list.

Happy Thanksgiving!

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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

For each set of 7 words, generate a sentence. To make it extra challenging, use them in order. (Feel free to change tenses and word forms.)

1. gallop crooked siren macabre fluttering shudder vintage
2. torment traveler deftly surprise poem hairy ticket
3. shy skull brash horror release rage journey
4. traitor tranquil raced deadly grumpy rhapsody jagged
5. temple reward tunnel foster sick tournament spotless
6. chocolate harrowing skunk jokes wander artist frightened
7. sequined insectoid shallow daunting pyramid book gorgeous
8. competition ooze foggy flames spiral stranger quickest
9. coward thief scared eyeball screech laugh strange
10. tease shiver ancient twitch squealed absorb liar
11. angel nasty fever visitor dependable modified curved
12. impenetrable fuzzy unusual outstanding microscopic talons typical
13. deep triumphant evaded wings flipped overgrown stripes
14. foolish slobbered idiot adroit acrobat cherish cheater
15. magnetic patrol hidden guess vanish shard crawled
16. teeming dancer thrill transform   mask thirst limber
17. deny dictator sweat swelling worried rust curdling
18. brave checkered sly fierce hobbled underneath fatal
19. beast distant altered ingenious ruined flammable mirror
20. certain clever guard accident screeched spiky slimy

Twenty real weird words. Use each in a sentence, making up your own meanings. (When you’re done, if you want to see the real meanings, click on Comments.)

erinaceous
lamprophony
depone
finnimbrun
floccinaucinihilipilification
inaniloquent
limerance
mesonoxian
mungo
nihilarian
nudiustertian
phenakism
pronk
pulveratricious
rastaquouere
scopperloit
selcouth
tyrotoxism
widdiful
zabernism

(Words from 20 Weird English Words.)

Describe each of the following with something you’d find in a kitchen. For example:

“His face looked as though someone had smushed it in with a cast iron skillet.”

You can use “like” phrases for each if you wish, but push the imagery, like:

“.. leaning on the table with fists like potato mashers, ready to mash in Donnel’s face.”

It can be a paragraph describing one person, or random phrases and sentences.

If you get stuck, try brainstorming a list of kitchen items.

hands
feet
eyes
hair
voice
clothing
fingers
feet
neck
butt
chest
scent
ears
legs
elbows
knees

“All the life’s wisdom can be found in anagrams. Anagrams never lie.” — Anu Garg

Well I hope the lived/devil anagrams are lying but the Weekly World News keeps reminding us that Elvis does indeed live.

Anu Garg sends out A Word A Day newsletter through Wordsmith.org. He also has the Internet Anagram Server there.

The best anagrams come from phrases and names, like:

Sopranos ends = Snoops snared
Gas prices highest = These piggish cars
Claude Monet, Self Portrait = Coloured paints flatter me
William Shakespeare, The Bard of Avon = He, of silken phrase, at a live drama. Bow.

(There are more at the Anagram Server above and, well, all over the internet!)

But here are some (mostly) one word anagrams. Use each pair in a sentence.

squeak - quakes
ashman - shaman
heroes - reshoe
froth - forth
lived - devil
listen - silent
funeral - real fun
regal - glare
heart - earth
cold - clod
kiss - skis
dog - god
wrong - grown
mashed - shamed
ganged - nagged
mating - taming
wolves - vowels
paging - gaping
thorn - north
Elvis - lives

Use the following nouns as verbs in sentences. To up the challenge, use them all in the same paragraph.

ninja
purple
paradise
bubble
soul
cavern
moss
dagger
sage
blood

(Hint, to turn them into verbs try adding -ed.)

Write your memoir in 6 words and submit it to Smith magazine for potential inclusion in a book to be published in 2008 by HarperCollins.

Legend has it that Ernest Hemingway was once challenged to write a story in six words. The result was “For sale: baby shoes, never used.”

Since SMITH [magazine] celebrates the personal side of storytelling, our twist on this classic concept is the six-word memoir–the short, short true story of your life.

It could be the title of your autobiography, or maybe your epitaph. Shorter than haiku and meatier that a one-liner, it truly makes you take stock of who you are. Try it.

Here are some examples from the website:

Barrister, barista, what’s the diff, Mom?
– Abigail Moorhouse

“What? Lemony Snicket? Lemony Snicket? What?”
– Daniel Handler

“My spiritual path is 100 proof.”
– John House

“He wore dresses. This caused messes.”
– Josh Kilmer-Purcell

“Yes to every date, met mate.”
– Maria Dahvana Headley

“Shy Jersey kid, overcompensating ever since.”
– Ariel Kaminer

“Take a left turn, then fly.”
– Hillary Carlip

“Haunting dad, spotlight mom, retrieving marriage.”
– Nell Casey

“Big hair, big heart, big hurry.”
– Larry Smith

Eight thousand orgasms. Only one baby.
– Neal Pollack

I still make coffee for two.
– Zak Nelson

“On the seventh word, he rested.”
– Stephen J. Dubner