The Writing Reader
Currently viewing the tag: "give it a twist"
“The one clear thing I can say about Wednesday, the worst and most amazing day of my life, is this: it started out beautifully.” -Rajesh Parameswaran, I Am an Executioner: Love Stories
Writing Prompt: Use the first line of the week to start a story or scene, or as the inspiration for a poem.
Journaling Prompt: Write about a day that started out well and then surprised you.
Art Prompt: Morning
Photo Credit: rolfekolbe on Flickr
I record these words for a posterity that will not exist. -Zachary Jernigan, Pairs, Asimov’s Science FictionAug 2011
Writing Prompt: Write a story, scene or poem inspired by the quote above.
Journaling Prompt: Write the journal entry you would want to leave as your last entry for your descendents to read.
Art Prompt: End of the World
Photo Credit: John Althouse Cohen on Flickr
We have tried to understand the rules by which the door operates. It appears and disappears unexpectedly. When we step through it, we do not know where we will be, or how long we will be there. When it comes back for us, it usually takes us home. But not always. -Theodora Goss, Pug (Asimov’s Science Fiction
Writing Prompt: Take your character on a trip through a door that mysteriously appears out of nowhere.
Journaling Prompt: If you could open a door and walk through it to anywhere, where would you go?
Art Prompt: Door
Photo Credit: Hamed Saber on Flickr
The night that cats were wished away was a hard one full of wine, tears, and spectacle. – Laura Ellen Scott, Death Wishing
Writing Prompt: Using the first line of the week, write a story, scene, or poem.
Journaling Prompt: Have you ever wished that someone or something would disappear?
Art Prompt: Disappearing
Photo Credit: Shezamm on Flickr
This reading surprised me by flipping the idea of dangerous animals into the idea of protectors.
‘Poisonous ‘ plants and creatures can be evoked as protectors, protectors of place. Within a bioregion, they protect the deeper forest and are allies to their ecologies. As allies of human beings, they protect against drowsiness and insensitivity, preventing us from charging through fragile terrain with a heavy foot and blind eye. They teach alertness and respect as we interact with place. They also evoke certain qualities within humans. One can like the jaguar stalk and enjoy the night, blend with the environment and disappear into its body. Protectors teach humans to sing like wolf, to go inside like bear, and to relax like snake. -Joan Halifax, The Fruitful Darkness: A Journey Through Buddhist Practice and Tribal Wisdom
Writing Prompt: Write a scene showing how danger protects your character.
Journaling Prompt: Write about your feelings toward dangerous plants and animals.
Art Prompt: Dangerous protector
Photo Credit: Mike Baird on Flickr
What would happen if something rare, and therefore valuable, all of the sudden became common?
A lovely world indeed is Galgala the golden, where myriads of auriferous microorganisms excrete atoms of gold as metabolic waste. It is everywhere on this planet, the lustrous pretty metal. It turns the rivers and streams to streaks of yellow flame and the seas to shimmering golden mirrors. Huge filters are deployed at the intake valve of Galgala’s reservoirs to strain the silt of dissolved gold from the water supply. The plants of Galgala are turgid in every tissue, leaf and stem and root, with aureous particles. Gold dust, held in suspension in the air, transforms the clouds to golden fleece.
Therefore the once-precious stuff has grievously lost value throughout the galaxy since Galgala was discovered, and on Galgala itself a pound of gold is worth less than a pound of soap. But I understand very little about these economic matters and care even less. Only a miser could fail to rejoice in Galgala’s luminous beauty. We have been here six weeks; we have awakened each morning to the tinkle of golden chimes, we have bathed in the golden rivers and come forth shining, we have wrapped our bodies round with delicate golden chains. -Robert Silverberg, The Travelers
Writing Prompt: Create a story about a valuable commodity that suddenly becomes common. What happens to your world?
Journaling Prompt: What beautiful and/or rare item do you wish were common and why?
Art Prompt: Gold
Photo Credit: miong on Flickr
“When Gregor Samsa awoke from troubled dreams one morning, he found that he had been transformed into an enormous bug.” -Kafka, The Metamorphosis
Writing Prompt: Try a scene where a character undergoes a metamorphosis. He doesn’t have to turn into a bug. He could remain exactly as he is physically, but turn into a young child emotionally (a la Big with Tom Hanks) or develop a super power of hearing what women think (a la Mel Gibson in What Women Want). Or he could swap places with another character (too many movies to mention). Have some fun with your character and see what you can turn him into.
Journaling Prompt: If you could undergo a metamorphosis, what would you want to change into?
Art Prompt: Metamorphosis
Photo Credit: odolphie on Flickr
Science fiction is my favorite genre to read. For one thing, a writer can deal with ethical, moral, and culture issues that often are too touchy to take on in a standard literary form. But more interestingly, science fiction writers must study today’s science and predict the future.
In an essay titled “Futuristics,” Isaac Asimov pointed out that the obvious prediction is not the most interesting one. It was easy to predict the automobile; what was difficult to predict was the traffic jam. It was easy to predict radio; what was difficult was the soap opera. It was easy to predict the income tax; what was difficult was the expense account. Equally, it was easy to predict the cell phone—Dick Tracy had his wrist radio back in the 1930s—but what was difficult to predict is that users would become so attached to them that they would step into traffic or allow their cars to drift out of control….Science fiction might well be considered the literature of unanticipated consequences….In fact, to write an effective science-fiction story, all you need is something that the world thinks is an unmitigated boon and to focus on the unforeseen problems that it might create. -Science Fiction Imagines the Digital Future by James Gunn in Analog Science Fiction and Factmagazine
Writing Prompt: Go to your favorite news site, read a science story, predict an unanticipated consequence that will happen if that science is developed, and write a story about it.
Journaling Prompt: Do you read science fiction? Why or why not?
Art Prompt: Science
Photo Credit: Kraetzsche (busy) on Flickr
It was the day my grandmother exploded. -Iain M. Banks, The Crow Road
Writing Prompt: Use the first line provided and write a story or a scene.
Journaling Prompt: Write about a time one of your relatives got so angry that you were scared.
Art Prompt: Explosion
Photo Credit: Krassy Can Do It on Flickr
Welcome to the Writing Reader
I believe that the most important thing about writing is to HAVE FUN! You can worry about things like commas, point of view, tenses, etc., later. Right now, just start writing!
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