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Writing Prompts. Writing prompt. Writer’s Prompt. Wasted dishes, wasted time
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Wasted dishes, wasted time I wonder why that young man is sitting on a table in the lunchroom with a book? First of all its pretty dirty there and probably not a sanitary place for him to hang out. Also, he looks not pleased-kinda aggravated. Maybe he has been interrupted or maybe he was asleep. What does the picture say symbolically? Is the photographer saying something about wasted food and school being the same thing? Is the boy a “container full of food?” Is he “old ideas?” “Food for thought…?” Let’s ask him. -“Hey, what are you doing here?” -“I’m resting. I am tired and washed up ready to move on, so leave me alone…Someone will find me and recycle me or maybe give me new ideas, clean me up…I hope.”
Distractions I’m trying to read but that doughnut over there is just taunting me! I am in detention and am supposed to be doing homework. How much could one bite hurt? I can’t stay focused. I need that doughnut. My book seems far off. The doughnut is the only thing on my mind. I got in a fight with the guy that stole my lunch. That’s why I have detention and I am starved! This little distraction is making my mind do flips. Distractions! My main character in this book seems to fade away…. That doughnut is mine, and oh how it tastes so good! It is the next day and I am in detention again because I got caught taking the doughnut.
Writer’s Prompt Used 1/14/2014
Writer’s response Jan 13, 2014 • Brainstorming notes: • Ducks • Brown water, Joe, stick, moses, the ark, on a trip, to marching up the hill, the last of their kind, the ark to a new world, the tiger, mud, muddy river, meat, poling boat, pushing up hill, tangle of tree limbs, “To Become a Man” • Joe waited tensely his pole holding his pirogue in midstream. The day’s last rays of sunshine were slowly drifting through the trees as the end of day approached. The soft quacking of his flock of white ducks eddied and flowed around him. This was the dangerous time. This was the time that predators like caimans, the fish eagle, or the jaguar would spring into action and snatch some of his flock. This was the killing time. • The mass of ducks was struggling up the high muddy bank like white snow bank mbu up towards the sky. Dozens were waiting in the river at the edge. They were in great danger, as they had to sit and jostle until there was room to get out of the brown murky water. This was the time that caimans would silently come under a duck and pull it down. Joe had seen it hundreds of times. A duck would simply disappear in a swirl of water never to be seen again. He would have to go back to the village and face the angry men who entrusted him with their precious flock. Oh, how he wished he had a gun. With a gun he could shoot the caiman, he could kill the jaguar. He could become a man.
Slapping his pole on the water he hoped to hurry the remaining ducks out of the water and maybe scare any lurking caimans. The last ducks were just getting up the bank when he heard the snapping of branches in the jungle to his left. A blur of yellow and white streamed silently, quickly out of a tangle of broken down tree limbs and seemed to soar into the middle of the flock. Joe stared frozen in fear. • Then the awful sounds crashed down upon him; the terrified flapping of ducks, mixed in with the screaming yowls of a jaguar sweeping his killing paws left and right. The white cloud of ducks was swirling in a collage of red and white and yellow as both ducks and jaguar spun in a frenzy. He could see dozens of ducks flying left and right as the killing paws of the jaguar swept left and right. Like all cats a jaguar sometimes kills for the pleasure of killing. This was such a moment. • Joe poled his boat to the bank screaming as loud as he could in a voice grown bold with anger and frustration. Taking his pole he threw it up the bank at the Jaguar with all his might. He missed cleanly, but the pole did its job distracting the blood driven cat. Stopping, it turned and stared down the hill straight at Joe, its yellow-green eyes, cold, piercing. It took one step towards him…. • (to be continued- fm 2014)
Writer’s Prompt Used 1/15/2014
Student examples • Marchman class-myscansjan2014... Claire copter • Avery class- myscansjan2014…Andrew copter • What do you “see”? • Are there W’s- Who, What, Where, When,… WOWS
Writer’s Prompt 5 1/17/14
I hopped into the ring and what did I see A big ole snake staring back at me His eyes were cold his body was ready But I kept my cool calm and steady He lunged for me teeth ready to rip But I dodged him fast and bit his lip Cole Jones 5-25-10 Response- snake and frog picture
Comparing the two Great Ones • Michael Jordan https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LAr6oAKieHk • Lebron James https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mE295ggKbHU • Summation of the two https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CCqHf9KP3yA
Smoke • Smoke: A Writing Exercise • This writing exercise is derived from a popular turn-of-the-century party game. Throw it in your character creation file for those times you feel stifled by your usual method. • In the game, you pick a famous person. You say, “if I were smoke in this person's pipe, what kind of smoke would I be?” • In our version, substitute your fictional character for the famous person. It's fun, and breaks you out of your normal mindset. • Try these: • 1) If your character was a credit card in a wallet, what kind of credit card would he be? 2) If your character was a kid's bicycle, what kind of bicycle would she be? 3) If he was a house, what kind? 4) If she was a summer cabin, where would she be? 5) If your characters were songs, what songs would they be? • Using this method, create three characters as quickly as you can. Do sketches. Leave stuff blank. It's okay. If you ask yourself why and you're one of those people who needs an answer right away, then answer your question right away – with the first thing that pops into your head. Don't give yourself time to question. Just write it down. • When your three characters are done, close your notebook and put it away. Wait three days before looking at your character sketches again. Then go back and see what they say to you. • Have fun. Play. The holiday season's coming up, so everyone's allowed to play a few games. Playing is still writing, and if playing turns into good writing, so much the better.
Gender Bender • Writing Prompts: Gender Bender • I once finished a long story (which later became a novel) only to discover a serious problem with my characters. It struck me funny that, with so much writing already done, the issue hadn't jumped out at me sooner. • The problem: all the characters were guys. • It was a men's adventure kind of story, right? So what do you need women for? • As it turned out, the story was crying out for a "love interest," a female foil for the testosterone-driven action of the story. As I began to imagine how my story would change, I realized that it would become much richer, much deeper, with the addition of a female character. Subplots and primary plot complications started popping up in my imagination. I knew the whole thing would be completely transformed by that balancing female element. • Now I had a decision to make. Should I introduce a new character ... or transform an existing male character into a woman? • The answer to that question led to the following exercise, which will flex your flexibility muscles, get you thinking outside the box and help you understand how powerful and adaptive your imagination really is. • 1. Take one of the characters in your current story and change their gender. Make a copy of your current draft, and draft changes in the copy, in case you don't like the result. • Ask yourself the following questions: - What would you change about the character besides their gender? Their first name? Eye color? Hair color? Social background? Occupation? What other changes rattle loose because of the gender shift? - Does your new character have the same set of values as before? If there is a value shift, is it directly related to their gender? - How does the shift in gender change the relationship between your characters? • 2. Take a character from one of your favorite stories and change their sex. Would Buffy slay vampires any differently if she were a guy? Would Conan the Barbarian perhaps not be so inclined to chop first and ask questions later if he were female? • Remember, as I've said before, your resistance to a particular writing exercise is a measure of how much you need to do it. If you think it's so ridiculous you won't even consider it, you really need to do it. Why close your mind to any possibility? You're a writer. You can quite literally do anything in your fictional world. • So why do this? Simple: because you can. Remember, in a first draft, there are no rules. Do anything you want. Make your world happen in any way you choose. Be open to these kinds of changes. They may help you salvage stories that would have sunk otherwise.
