A month of NaNo prompts
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:
22. Your POV character hears a song and it evokes strong memories full of emotion and sensory detail.
Previous prompts:
- Describe your point of view (POV) character’s current emotional state and how it affects him or her from head to toe.
- Describe the shoes of the next character that walks into the scene and what they remind the POV character of.
- 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.
- Relate something in your current scene to a toy from your POV character’s childhood.
- 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!)
- It starts raining (or stops raining). Describe the emotions *and* memories this evokes in your POV character.
- In the next conversation, describe something the character is doing as they speak each line of dialogue.
- 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 …
- Describe your POV character’s inner state in terms of one of the seasons, that is, the seasons that are relevant to your story.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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 …
- 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).
- 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?
- 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!
- 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.
- If the current situation continues, how does your POV character envision himself and the important players in his life in the future.
- 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.
- Rather than expand, synopsize. Someone new enters your story, or your character needs to relate what’s been happening since the beginning of the story on a post card or Tweet. Make each word count for dozens.








