How to Turn Wikipedia Into a Bottomless Pit of Story Ideas
Did you know that a website you probably use every single day could be the key overcoming your writer's block and unleashing an endless supply of juicy story ideas? Well, you probably had an inkling I'd say something like that based on the title of this post, but it's...
Daily Writing Prompt #33
You move into a new house, and while you're cleaning out one of the closets you find a box on the top shelf. When you pull it down, a baseball card falls off and lands face-up: it’s one of your favorite players of all-time, an old-timer who is still alive. The...
Daily Writing Prompt #32
It's late August, and you pull to a stoplight behind a school bus marked with the name of a school district you’ve never heard of before. As you sit and wait for the light to turn, the back door of the bus opens, and zombie kids hop out and start marching towards your...
What Is Setting in Writing?
Setting is the background against which you tell your story. At its most basic, setting includes the place and time of your tale -- the where and when. But to really nail setting and tap into its power to grip the reader and pull him into your world, you need to dig...
Daily Writing Prompt #31
After a night of camping, you develop a terrible sore throat and decide to go to the local clinic. The doctor comes in, checks you out, and says you have an infection. He gives you a shot and tells you to wait a while before leaving to make sure you don't have a...
50 Twitter #WritingPrompts to Stoke Your Imagination
TOC Ideas ... They're the writer's stock-in-trade. We take the seed of an idea and transform it with our words into a world full of characters and events and other ideas. If we've done our job right, readers are left wanting more and full of their own ideas about what...
Daily Writing Prompt #30
You normally wouldn't pick up anyone so late in the night, but the old man looked so pitiful that you couldn't pass him by. Now you find yourself in a zombie nightmare: do you eat him and take the chance that his aged meat will make you sick, or drop him off and go...
Daily Writing Prompt #29
You go to confessional and tell the priest that you hit a dog on the road. He prescribes a dose of Hail Marys and Our Fathers and sends you on your way. That evening, after a day of church and football games, you walk into your dark house, and the door closes behind...
Can a First-Person Narrator Die?
Let me state right up front ... YES, your first-person narrator can die. Your story is your story, after all, and you can make anything at all happen within the confines of those pages. That said, whether you should kill your first-person narrator is another story....
Daily Writing Prompt #28
You're having dinner with your new girlfriend and her parents. Her mother serves a pot roast that tastes strange and is really tough to chew, but you're polite and don't mention it. After the meal, her father goes to the front door, engages the deadbolt, and turns...
