Writing Challenge Roundup: June
In place of this week’s Wednesday Writing Challenge, Typescript is now offering Writing Challenge Roundups, a compilation posted the last week of each month. Check out the challenges that were offered during the month of June and feel free to share your work or talk about the challenges in the comments section below.
Wednesday Writing Challenge: Character Interview
Typescript will post a new challenge each Wednesday to encourage creativity and inspire conversation. Feel free to talk about the challenge or share your writing results in the comments section below by leaving an excerpt and/or a link to your own site or blog.
The spark of inspiration can be found anywhere you choose to look. From a title of a song to a sketch found on a napkin, from an overheard conversation to a character profile, these stories are waiting to be discovered and told.
Yesterday’s blog post discussed how a character interview, that is, learning more about the character through their likes, dislikes, and backstory, can move a plot forward and create realistic, believable characters. Whether you’re looking to start a new story or to propel another one forward, the character interview can provide the spark of inspiration you’re looking for by adding layers to breathe life into the story.
But what if you’re still looking for that story to tell? What if you don’t have a plot or even a setting in mind, nevermind a character. What then?
Life is made up of stories. And stories involve people. So if plot is what you’re looking for, look no further.
Writers tend to follow a recipe based on generic descriptions when beginning to develop their characters — there’s that girl-next-door with a rebellious streak, that bad boy with the heart of gold. While these might provide the basic identity of a character, finding out who they are and asking why can provide the motivation behind the actions, offering depth and dimension and even propelling a story forward.
Let your characters guide you; listen to their story.
After all, it’s theirs to tell.
Challenge: Use the questions below as a starting point to begin your character interview and spark a new short story or, as a greater challenge, a poem.
(Hints: Try to refrain from answering the questions as yourself. Instead, answer as your character would, be creative and use whatever first comes to mind.)
What is your favorite board game?
What is your preferred method of travel?
What was your favorite subject in school?
What is your evening routine?
What’s your favorite snack food?
What kind of car do you drive?
What’s in your refrigerator?
What was your favorite cartoon as a child?
Who would you call in an emergency?
What do you receive in the mail?
What’s on your bookshelf?
What’s the last place you were in?
What’s a nickname from your childhood?
What’s your favorite letter, word, phrase?
No commentsWednesday Writing Challenge: Dr. Seuss
Typescript will post a new challenge each Wednesday to encourage creativity and inspire conversation. Feel free to talk about the challenge or share your writing results in the comments section below by leaving an excerpt and/or a link to your own site or blog.
The spark of inspiration can be found anywhere you choose to look. From a title of a song to a sketch found on a napkin, from an overheard conversation to a children’s book full of rhyme, these stories are waiting to be discovered and told.
Children’s book authors seem to be storytellers and poets all rolled into one, manipulating language and using sound to tell a story on the most basic of levels, for their prime audience. However, even in simplicity, there are lessons to be taught, experiences to be valued, and wisdom to be gained among those barnyard stories and fairytales. Whether in the titles of the books themselves or in the prose, there is thought and inspiration to be found among the rhythm and the rhyme.
Theodor Seuss Geisel is best known for his collection of rhyming children’s books, which he wrote under the pen name Dr. Seuss. The Cat in the Hat, One Fish, Two Fish, How the Grinch Stole Christmas and Oh, The Places You’ll Go are some of his most popular titles, though his writing is widely recognized for his whimsical tales and notable rhymes. While these books might be aimed at children, and while his penchant for making up words and colorful characters may, at first glance, seem a deterrent, there are lines that stand out for their poetics and themes that can inspire a new fictional world…
Challenge: Use one of the following prompts from Seuss’ stories to create a new short story or poem (additional challenge: use one of the following prompts as the beginning line of dialogue):
“I speak for the trees, for the trees have no tongues.” – The Lorax
“This”, cried the Mayor, “is your town’s darkest hour” – Horton Hears a Who!
“I saw it on Mulberry Street” – And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street
“The sun did not shine.” – The Cat in the Hat
“And suppose that you lived/In that forest in France” – Did I Ever Tell You How Lucky You Are?
“[Life's] a great balancing act” – Oh, The Places You’ll Go
Wednesday Writing Challenge: Word Play II
Typescript posts a new challenge each Wednesday to encourage creativity and inspire conversation. Feel free to talk about the challenge or share your writing results in the comments section below by leaving an excerpt and/or a link to your own site or blog.
The spark of inspiration can be found anywhere you choose to look. From a title of a song to a sketch found on a napkin, from an overheard conversation to a jumble of words, these stories are waiting to be discovered and told.
Last month, after finding over 300 spam comments in my blog folder containing gibberish in an attempt to sell links and prescription drugs, I discovered that, upon closer look, there was inspiration hidden in these seemingly incoherent strings of words.
What emerged was the Wednesday Writing Challenge: Word Play, where writers had a bit of fun and let their imaginations wander, sparking creativity, igniting something magical…
With spam comments filling up the folder once more, we’re ready for Word Play: Take Two. What inspiration will you find this second round?
One of the most fascinating aspects of writing is the ability to manipulate words and language to convey your intended meaning. Words have so many meanings within their own definitions, and coupling them with others can produce something not entirely expected but altogether magical. There are a thousand ways to describe an object, person, or place, and so, too, are there thousands of stories just waiting to be plucked out of the imagination and put to paper. Sometimes all we need to create that initial spark of inspiration is a word (or three)…
Challenge: Use one of the following couplings of words to create a new story or poem
(Note: many of these have had minor alterations to make a little bit more sense):
Sometimes there she reported
Celtic line faded photograph
With sky always needed
The secret happy girl
He forgot haste
Generate continuous young flowers
Then introduce museum pieces
Who wants the world
Hidden chambers devour time
Satellite recorded a curious kind
Jealous of the early the prisoner
The subway was but rocks and rolled
Here are cities darkened
Gravity means unruffled
One place was interconnected
Sometimes knowledge is more sociable
Bonus: String a collection of words together to create your own prompt!
2 commentsWriting Challenge Roundup: May
In place of this week’s Wednesday Writing Challenge, Typescript now offers Writing Challenge Roundups, a compilation posted the last week of each month. Check out the challenges that were offered during the month of May and feel free to share your work or talk about the challenges in the comments section below.
Wednesday Writing Challenge: Book Titles
Typescript posts a new challenge each Wednesday to encourage creativity and inspire conversation. Feel free to talk about the challenge or share your writing results in the comments section below by leaving an excerpt and/or a link to your own site or blog.
The spark of inspiration can be found anywhere you choose to look. From a title of a song to a sketch found on a napkin, from an overheard conversation to a title of a book, these stories are waiting to be discovered and told.
It’s no secret that people tend to judge books by their covers. The titles and the cover art are what grab a reader’s attention, makes them reach for the book on the shelf and open up to the first page, entices them to discover the world and words within.
Book titles create that initial peak in curiosity as they hint to the reader the journey in which they’re about to take part. However, sometimes the story can be found within the title itself. The title often holds significant meaning for the book, but often can spark inspiration and get those wheels turning for your own story. It asks questions that keeps you wondering: who is the old man and what is his connection to the sea? Who is this survivor, what did they survive, and are they the only one? What’s being carried, for what reason, and who are “they?”
Pay close attention to the titles, judge those books by their cover, and let them spark ideas for setting, character, and plot in your own stories.
Challenge: Use one or more of the titles below as a prompt for a new short story or poem. Know the story already? Try putting your own twist on it.
Special thanks to Julie Rickards for her “To Kill A Mockingbird” recommendation! What titles and/or cover art intrigue and inspire you?
4 commentsWednesday Writing Challenge: Word Play
Typescript posts a new challenge each Wednesday to encourage creativity and inspire conversation. Feel free to talk about the challenge or share your writing results in the comments section below by leaving an excerpt and/or a link to your own site or blog.
The spark of inspiration can be found anywhere you choose to look. From a title of a song to a sketch found on a napkin, from an overheard conversation to a jumble of words, these stories are waiting to be discovered and told.
I know this seems a little unconventional, but maybe this is proof that inspiration really does come from everywhere…
I had well over three hundred spam comments in my blog folder this weekend. Usually I hit the Delete All button, but I’ve managed to miss some wayward posts before and thought I would take a quick peek to make sure potentially valid comments didn’t slip through the cracks. As I skimmed the posts, I found myself intrigued by these spam comments — the first few words read like the beginning of a story before spouting off in a nonsensical diatribe of random words selling links and generic drugs.
But those few words caught my attention, sparking interest, sparking something.
One of the most fascinating aspects of writing is the ability to manipulate words and language to convey your intended meaning. Words have so many meanings within their own definitions, and coupling them with others can produce something not entirely expected but altogether magical. There are a thousand ways to describe an object, person, or place, and so, too, are there thousands of stories just waiting to be plucked out of the imagination and put to paper. Sometimes all we need to create that initial spark of inspiration is a word (or two)…
Challenge: Use one of the following couplings of words to create a new story or poem
(Note: many of these have had minor alterations to make a little bit more sense):
Bianca walked in on a conspiracy
Their love could follow moonstones
Nicolai came to the gate forty years, looked doubtful
The chameleon cried
Chapel spirits can a jury decide
Millie departed, her passion crushed
Jaime finally wanted you
Hell existed always
They remained men (in a world where the soul hesitated)
Rains hesitated, wiping their feet
Fate meddled, not budging, harassing them
Stars kept remember seeing, analyzing those
Perhaps when just a tear was such assurance
Hardly enough responded
Danny thought of freedom before marriage, without responsibilities
Music restores him pain
Question once a dream is born
Bonus: String a collection of words together to create your own prompt!
5 commentsWednesday Writing Challenge: Emily Dickinson
Typescript posts a new challenge each Wednesday to encourage creativity and inspire conversation. Feel free to talk about the challenge or share your writing results in the comments section below by leaving an excerpt and/or a link to your own site or blog.
The spark of inspiration can be found anywhere you choose to look. From a title of a song to a sketch found on a napkin, from an overheard conversation to a line of poetry, these stories are waiting to be discovered and told.
Writers have a relationship with words that is undeniable. They are able to manipulate language to bring characters to life, unveil emotion, and offer the reader experiences through the comfort of a story. Poets weave that same magic, with meaning given to every single word. So often, there are lines that stand out and speak to the reader, that linger long after the poem has been read. These are words of wisdom and thought nestled in stanzas full of style and imagery and, sometimes, even a little bit of unconventional punctuation.
Emily Dickinson was a 19th century American Poet best known for titles such as “Hope is the Thing With Feathers,” “Because I Could Not Stop for Death,” and “Heart, We Will Forget Him” (ironically, her original poetry lacked titles). Having lived a fairly secluded and private life, Dickinson published few works throughout her lifetime, though her collection of nearly 1800 poems was published posthumously beginning in 1890. Dickinson’s writing style is easily recognizable and is marked by short lines, the personification of nature and abstract thought, and unconventional capitalization and use of dashes; however, her imagery and subject matter can also be easily distinguished and attributed.
Emily Dickinson is one of my favorite poets for her writing on the subjects of life, death, and love, as I often find simple messages of wisdom and inspiration tucked between those notorious dashes and capital letters. What meaning will they spark for you?
Challenge: Use one of the following prompts from Dickinson’s poetry to create a new short story or poem:
“the Heaven we chase”
“I know that he exists somewhere, in silence.”
“he lived where dreams were born”
“the hands still hug the tardy glass”
“lead the wandering sails”
“I should have been too saved”
“I years had been from home”
“a door just opened on a street”
“ashes denote that fire was”
“I know a place where summer strives”
Talk-back: What’s your writing style?
5 commentsWriting Challenge Roundup: April
In place of this week’s Wednesday Writing Challenge, Typescript will be offering a Writing Challenge Roundups, a compilation posted the last week of each month. Check out the challenges that were offered during the month of April and feel free to share your work or talk about the challenges in the comments section below.
Wednesday Writing Challenge: PostSecret
Typescript posts a new challenge each Wednesday to encourage creativity and inspire conversation. Feel free to talk about the challenge or share your writing results in the comments section below by leaving an excerpt and/or a link to your own site or blog.
The spark of inspiration can be found anywhere you choose to look. From a title of a song to a sketch found on a napkin, from an overheard conversation to a simple photograph, these stories are waiting to be discovered and told.
“Shhh…I have a secret.”
What is so compelling about secrets and why the longing to share them? What sparks that curiosity in us, that need to know? Is it the desire to discover something previously unspoken? Is it the unknown, the allure of something forbidden, that heightens intrigue before the words are said? Or perhaps it’s merely an attempt at communicating and relating to another human being through shared confession.
Writers seem to have an insatiable curiosity — a desire to know and understand the world and those in it — that tends to transfer to the page. We want our readers to connect with and relate to our characters and their situations, and yet we still need to maintain that intrigue, to hook them, draw them in, and keep them reading until the very last word. We want our readers to discover our characters and this world we’ve created throughout the story, uncovering pieces bit by bit so that the readers become more involved and characters’ motives become better understood. Whether it be through hopes and dreams or unveiling a bit of their life experience, readers develop a relationship with our characters because of the ability to relate to them. And if there’s one thing we can all relate to, it’s secrets.
Because everyone has a secret.
And every secret tells a story.
PostSecret is billed as a “community mail art project” wherein individuals submit their secrets (or confessions, thoughts, or dreams) on a homemade postcard. A selection is then chosen for display on their website each week. Thousands of postcards have been submitted, with the anonymity of the project most likely playing a factor in the appeal.
However, what is personally most intriguing are the thousands of individuals behind these postcards. If every person has a secret and every secret tells a story, then there are thousands of stories just waiting to be told.
What story will you tell?
Challenge: Use one or more of the images below, selected from previous PostSecret posts, as a prompt for a new short story or poem.
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