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Inspiration Sources

On By Terry ConnellyIn Uncategorized, Writing prompt1 Comment

Objects hidden in drawers and closets or stuffed on garage shelves can be the inspiration for good stories.

Think about some of the things you have stuffed deep in the back of your closet. Old shoes worn on a hike to the top of Yosemite Falls? A sparkly dress from your high school prom? A pair of pants that you wore when you weighed 100 pounds more than you do now?

The stories these objects would tell are priceless.

Prom night might have been a disaster. Your date showed up late, and instead of wearing a tux, he borrowed a too-big suit from his older cousin. It hangs like a robe and in spots, is shiny from use. He wore his old tennis shoes, scuffed and dirt splotched.  No tie. Wrinkled pink-dyed shirt from when a pair of his sister’s panties went through the white wash.

At the dance, he drank heavily, spiking the punch with a flask he had tucked into his inside pocket. The more he drank, the more uninhibited his unskilled dancing became. He laughed and talked so loudly that everyone in the room heard every word he slurred out.

Or maybe you want to write about that hike. It was a gorgeous spring day with billowing clouds hovering overhead. At first the walk was a gentle climb, but as time passed, the path turned to gravel and the elevation increased. Then you hit a section a switchbacks so sharply pitched that, at each turn, you had to stop to gather breath and strength.

When you finally made it to the top, your view was blocked. A tree/cloud/crowd got in your way. Or maybe you were too afraid of heights to look out. Or maybe you collapsed from exhaustion.

Your task is to go on a search of your house or apartment. Look deep into the darkest corners. Push aside the t-shirts you no longer wear. Find one thing that carries you back into your past.

Hold it. Smell it. Cuddle it. Sit in a chair with it in your lap and feel the fabric. The stiches. The hem. The collar.

If shoes, turn them over and look at the soles. Imagine where they’ve been. The places they’ve carried you to. The troubles they’ve seen.

And then write. Tell the story. If you want, you can stick to the truth, but if you feel inspired, embellish. Add details and dialogue and action, enough to make the story interesting for others to read.

When you finish, reread. Look for areas where you can strengthen the story by subtracting, adding or replacing.

Have fun with this one!

 

Love Poems

On By Terry ConnellyIn Uncategorized, Writing promptLeave a comment

Throughout all of time, love poems have been a popular form of expression whose sole purpose is to entice the desired partner to fall deeply in love with the writer.

These poems express the writer’s most intense feelings, in a way that bares the heart in raw form.

Poems can be written in free verse, meaning that they don’t have to rhyme, but are more of a stream of consciousness. Or poems can rhyme, following patterns established long ago.

It’s up to the writer.

Your task is imagine that your character is in love and wants to write something that will show how much she loves her chosen one.

Don’t worry about rhyme or meter unless that is something that you want to explore. Instead allow the words to flow freely, running down the page like a stream runs bubbling down the creek.

Have fun with this one.

Natural Disasters

On By Terry ConnellyIn Uncategorized, Writing promptLeave a comment

Some believe in a Mother Nature who clearly has a mind of her own. If often feels that way when unforeseen things happen causing great devastation.

For example, yesterday on the news I saw footage of a huge landslide that oozed down a mountain, blocking a major freeway going up the coast of California. I also saw videos of tornadoes and flooding that destroyed countless homes. Then there are the massive fires in Florida.

We could also consider the effects of hurricanes, tsunamis and earthquakes, to name just a few more.

Imagine your character faced with one of these disasters. What would she do? Think? Feel? Would she tremble and cower or take action, stuffing family possessions into the car and bolting away? Would she hide in the bathroom and pray or run down the street, begging for help?

How your character reacts tells us a lot about his personality.

Your task is to first make a list of possible disasters. I would stick to ones you have either experienced firsthand or know a lot about. Try to get at least five things on that list.

Next, narrow it down to the top two that you feel most comfortable writing about. In your mind, place your character in the midst of these two disasters. In which one would her reactions be most viable? Which would allow you to create the most dramatic story?

Once you’ve figured out the disaster, come up with the story line. Where is your character and what is he doing when the disaster is about to hit? What steps does she take when she knows it is coming?

What does he do right before it hits, while it is going on, and then immediately after it ends?

This is the story you will write. When you are finished, reread, looking for places where you can strengthen emotional reactions. Where the setting needs spicing up. Then edit.

Have fun with this one.

Physical Limitations

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While it’s nice to think that our characters have perfectly healthy bodies, it is not necessarily accurate. Throughout life we suffer illnesses, break bones, have accidents that leave scars, and lose teeth.

It is important that our characters reflect human frailty. They have to be real people who experience real downfalls.

Because people with physical limitations populate our earth, we need to consider including them in our stories. Think about how a scene might change if a wheelchair-bound person is a major player. We would have to make sure that our spaces are compliant with the law and so accessible to our character. That means ramps where there are stairs, wide doorways into bathrooms and down halls, and perhaps having an assistant to help with some tasks.

What if it’s a temporary disability such as a broken right arm? How does the character drive,  brush teeth and hair, get dressed, use the restroom?

These are all real-life issues that come into play. Personally, I’ve broken fingers, an arm, and two different legs. Each of those breaks caused difficulties for me. For example, when I broke my ring finger, my wedding band had to be cut off in the emergency room. Not a huge imposition, but it was upsetting to lose my ring.

Your task is to write a story in which one of your characters has a disability. You have to decide whether it is permanent or temporary and how it impacts the character’s life.

Have fun with this one.

The Unexpected

On By Terry ConnellyIn Uncategorized, Writing promptLeave a comment

Life does not always speed along in predictable ways. Things happen that cause our course to change.

So it must be for your characters.

These happenings can be relatively insignificant, such as the restaurant running out of tomatoes. Such tiny things will barely cause a ripple in your character’s life.

What happens, however, when something huge gets in the way of what he wants to do? How will he react?

Imagine a scene in which your character’s plans are thwarted. She intends to do something, but can’t. What will she say and do?

Write that scene, remembering to include emotions. We must be able to feel her angst and confusion. We must experience the situation as strongly as he does.

Draw in your reader.

Have fun with this one.

Physical Descriptions 

On By Terry ConnellyIn Uncategorized1 Comment

Your character might be tall, short or somewhere in between. He might be bald or have a log ponytail. She might have eyes as blue as the sky or brown and deep. 

Body size is important as well, but unless it is relevant to the story, we probably don’t need to know shoe size.

Your task is to think of two characters that you might like to use in a story. Create a column for each. Write a name above each.

Then record the physical description for each. Be as detailed as possible. Don’t just think of the obvious. Include shoulders, width of arms, waist and thighs. Length of legs. And, yes, size of shoes.

Your characters should be very different from each other.

When you are finished, write a short scene in which they interact. Even though you have a complete picture of each, don’t overload the reader with description. Instead find a way to slowly add a detail here and there.

Have fun with this one!

Siblings in Our Stories

On By Terry ConnellyIn Uncategorized, Writing promptLeave a comment

Our characters might have brothers and sisters. If so, we have to define their relationships and how our character feels about the siblings.

For example, in some families, siblings seem to get along marvelously. This has a lot to do with how the parents treated them. If achievements are applauded equally, if discipline is handled fairly, and if comparisons never come up in conversation, then there will be no/little ill will.

In other families, it’s all about competition for parental attention and favor. Sons might be held in higher regard than daughters. Sons might get preferential treatment when it comes to borrowing the car, staying out at night, doing chores around the house. Girls might be subservient, only being able to use the car if the boy doesn’t need it, having restrictions that prohibit socializing at night, and having to clean the entire house, including the boy’s bedroom, before having free time.

Sons might be expected to learn to mow lawns and care for the car, while girls learn to cook, sew and shop.

You have to decide how to handle siblings in your stories.

Your task is to write a scene in which siblings interact with each other and with at least one guardian. This will require some dialogue, some description, some movement/change.

Have fun with this one.

Children in Our Lives

On By Terry ConnellyIn Uncategorized, Writing promptLeave a comment

We cannot live without children. Sure, some choose a life without them in their homes, which is perfectly okay. However, for the future of our world, children must be born, grow up and become contributing adults.

This is true even in our stories. Many times we ignore children in our writing. We don’t mention them, even in passing, and certainly don’t have them impact the way our protagonist behaves.

But what if we did? How would the presence of children impact our main characters? Alter the pace of the story? Change the plot?

This is for you to discover.

Your task is to write a scene in which there is at least one child. Said child can be a newborn, toddler, elementary school age, high school student, or young twenty-something. The child must not be a shadow figure, someone who floats in and out of the scene without interacting with the adults present.

Rather the child must participate in the action. The child might play with something, break something, throw something. Run in and out of the house/apartment/dwelling. Speak to people, if capable of speech. Be touched in some way. Do things, like spill milk, draw, play an instrument.

Interaction with this child will have meaningful impact on the story. For example, it might give added insight into the protagonist’s personality, or cause the adults to choose going to the park where a body is found, or alter vacations plans from lying on the beach in the Caribbean to going to Disneyland for a family adventure.

Have fun with this one.

The Element of Change

On By Terry ConnellyIn Uncategorized, Writing promptLeave a comment

In our everyday lives, things happen. Life is not static, unless you are dead, so when you write, your characters must be doing things.

There are two types of change: external and internal.

In external change, the character moves, either by choice or by necessity. For example, she walks down the hall to change into something more comfortable, or he opens the refrigerator and takes out hamburger he’s going to turn into a meatloaf. She drives down the street, heading to work, keeping an eye out for random dogs, cats or kids that might step into danger. He climbs up four flights of stairs to get to his apartment, carrying a basket of clean laundry.

External change is important as it allows us to see characters in motion, doing things that ordinary, or not so ordinary people do. At the end of a scene involving external change, we expect the character to be in a new, different place.

Internal change is the stuff of emotions. Something happens and your character reacts by getting angry, crying, withdrawing. For example, the teenager wants to go to a school dance, but the parents say no. The teen stomps off, shouting obscenities and slamming doors. She hides in her room crying and pouting, but as time passes, she realizes that she had forgotten that today was her grandmother’s 90th birthday and the family was going to see her. The teen calms down, returns to the family room, and apologizes.

During the course of this scene we have seen anger, rebellion, meditation, thoughtful remorse and apologetic behavior. The teen is a different person than she was at the beginning.

Internal change is the most powerful form of change, for it allows the reader to feel the emotions that the character is experiencing. We see into the character’s mind and heart, feel along with him, and then root for change, which may or may not be the change we would like to see.

External change is the easiest to write, while internal the more challenging.

Your task is to write a scene in which the character experiences both types of change. Don’t worry about the significance of the change. It doesn’t have to be mind-altering or permanent. It needs to be important and we must feel, at the conclusion, that something of significance has occurred.

Have fun with this one!

Sounds Around Us

On By Terry ConnellyIn Uncategorized, Writing promptLeave a comment

This afternoon I went swimming. As I was changing in the locker room, a couple of women were talking a few bays over. I couldn’t hear what they said, but the rhythm of their speech showed excitement.

When I walked out on the pool deck, there was no sound even though there were two men swimming. They were both doing the breast stroke, the quietest stroke of them all. But then I got in the pool, and despite the cap pulled over my ears, I heard the swoosh, swoosh sound of my hands pulling.

A really fast swimmer got in the middle lane. Now there was a pounding as his mighty kick thrust him forward through the water.

Right now I am sitting by my front window. The dog across the street is barking incessantly, an annoying whoop, whoop that does not change in intensity.

Some kids just came home from school. With the beautiful sunshine all around them, they are full of energy. Their high-pitched voices echo through the courtyard.

And now the ice cream truck comes, its annoying repetitive jingle playing over and over in an endless loop.

Your task is to close your eyes and listen. Write about what you hear, as descriptively as possible. Keep at it for at least an hour. Pay attention to the tiniest details. There is no sound too small, too high pitched, too filled with layers upon layers for you to notice.

Do this on a different day, at a different time. Record what you hear. Don’t worry about sight, taste, smell, feel. Only sound.

Return to your journal on a weekend, at night, one week later, a month later, during a different season. Fill your folder with as many distinct sounds as possible.

Why? When you write your next story, you will have an index of sounds for the varied places that you have visited. These sounds are your library.

Have fun with this one!