Today, spend 10 minutes free-writing every stereotypically bad line of dialogue you can think of. These could be genre-inspired (think of the worst examples of the romance, horror, fantasy, or adventure genres, for example), from TV, from novels, from movies… Use anything you’d like. Then spend a few minutes thinking about why you consider these to be ‘bad dialogue’ and how you’d go about fixing them up, replacing them, or changing the scene to make it better.

If you can’t think of specific lines, try to remember a scene from a book or movie and read or watch that scene before doing the latter half of this exercise.

This exercise inspired by The Secret Scroll.

I apologize for the length of time between posts; it’s been a crazy month! Anniversaries; endoscopies; cooking and planting; furniture shopping; reading like crazy; T-shirt redesigning like crazy… time flies! So today, let’s play with the concept of absence. Imagine that you (or one of your fictional characters) has been absent from home, friends, and family for some time with no word. As far as those people are concerned, the absence has been unexplained. They might have at least known that you planned to go away for a while, or they might have reported you missing.

Write the scene in which you or your character returns home.

This morning I got to thinking about gender roles in some books. So today, I’m going to suggest that you grab a sheet of paper and a pen, set a timer for 10-20 minutes, and write about gender roles in your own writing.

Let this take you wherever it happens to go. You might start out writing about a recent story you penned, and end up describing an unusual character you want to create for your next book. You might start out describing a character you aren’t sure how to write, and end up ranting about someone else’s depiction of gender roles. Go wherever it leads.

got loot?

Today, I’m going to share with you a prompt from the wonderful weekly site Booking Through Thursday, which they call simply ‘writing challenge’ and I’ll call connecting the dots. Here’s what they have to say:

• Pick up the nearest book. (I’m sure you must have one nearby.)
• Turn to page 123.
• What is the first sentence on the page?
• The last sentence on the page?
• Now . . . connect them together….

(And no, you may not transcribe the entire page of the book–that’s cheating!)

Since there seems to be some confusion among participants, here’s a little clarification for my version of this. You can connect the two sentences directly if they seem to go together, or you can invent something to go between them as a connector. If you connect them directly, free-write for a little while speculating as to what tale they might be part of or hint at, or turn them into part of a larger tale. If you invent a connector, try to end up with a full page of writing by the time you’re done (the phrases you borrowed can fall anywhere within that page).

Writers of all people tend to be familiar with the power of ritual in one’s life. After all—that’s one of the reasons behind engaging in writer’s prompts. The familiarity of ritual can help to put one in a particular mindset, go after a certain goal, work on a difficult project or personality trait, etc.

Today, write about a lifelong (or career-long, or the equivalent) ritual that a person uses and how that affects his or her life. If you prefer to write non-fiction, journal about the place of a ritual in your own or a relative or friend’s life. If you prefer to write fiction, create, examine, or explore the place of a ritual in the life of one of your characters.

For a beautiful example, read Jervis’s blog entry The Next Rank, about a ritual that saw him through his years in the military.

Write a brief scene in which both snow and sand make an appearance.

Yes, this prompt really is just that simple. There are dozens of ways to spice it up or restrict it further, however, if that isn’t enough for you. Place limits based on writing time or space. Specify a genre. Specify that both the snow and the sand have to be real parts of an outdoor scene, actual conditions, not represented in some other way. Do whatever you want with it!

Imagine that one of your fictional characters has pulled an old family photo album from a shelf. He retires to a couch to look through it. What does he find? Describe at least one of the photographs—something that surprises him or catches his attention—in detail.

This could be a photo album that belonged to a previous generation, or one from his own childhood. If you don’t tend to write about modern or futuristic worlds, you can substitute some sort of sketch book for a photo album (perhaps a family member possessed some artistic talent and liked to draw other family members or unusual occasions).

As an alternative exercise, look through photo sites on the internet and pick a photograph to represent the one he finds; write about it and how it fits into his life and family.

wanna be my muse?

Today’s prompt is called ‘childhood memories’ and it’s from another Heather over at A Creative Journal:

[S]pend some time writing about a safe place you remember from your childhood. This could be someone’s house or at the top of a tree in your backyard. Once you’ve written that one up, also spend time writing about a scary place you recall from your childhood. This could be a particular house you didn’t like to pass on your way to school or a room in your own house.

I particularly appreciate Other Heather’s reminder to only tackle the scary place if you’re ready for it—smart words! You’ll find quite a few interesting prompts and links at her place, so go visit while you’re at it.

Just a quick thank-you to Meghna for posting a list of great writing prompt sites. I’m adding most of them to the blogroll:

• prompts by number (link fixed now)
• Pumping your muse prompts
• Random logline generator
• Story Spinner Online

Today, go find a prompt from one of these wonderful sites and enjoy! I particularly like the wackiness of the logline generator for silly fun, and the pym prompts for neat photos.

Today, from Freelance Folder’s 7 can’t-miss ways to kick-start the writing habit:

Write nothing but headlines. Sometimes the thought of writing an in-depth article is too much for your brain to deal with after a long day (or at the start of one). Spend 15 or 30 minutes just churning out headlines without worrying about how catchy they sound.

So today, write headlines. You might choose an area to write headlines in beforehand (sports, local news, fashion, parenting, pets, farming, health, science) or just go crazy. Check out the above link for more ideas! Or go on and read more of Freelance Folder for plenty of ideas that span the wider world of freelancing.

Still looking for my muse