Grandfather [writing prompt]
Write about grandfathers.
Write for fifteen minutes. When you’re finished, post your practice in the comments section.
And if you post, please be sure to give feedback to a few other writers.
99 Ways to Tell a Story
Have you ever thought of writing the same story in a hundred different ways? Sounds crazy?
This is exactly what Raymond Queneau did in his Exercises in Style, back in 1947. He tells a simple, unremarkable story (more like flash fiction) 99 times, trying out different styles, from ode to mathematical depictions.
Middle School Memories [writing prompt]
Practice
Throughout your high school or middle school careers you probably made many memories. Turn those memories into writing.
Remember that first kiss, or when you flunked a math test, or tried to make the best senior prank possible? Write about that!
Write for fifteen minutes, and when you’re finished, post your practice in the comments section.
What Does Letter Writing Teach Us
When is the last time you wrote or received a letter? Not a bill or a sales letter, a real letter from a person who cares about you.
A survey has found that one child in ten has never even written a letter, and the trend continues to grow with lightning speed. Letters are becoming obsolete, just like typewriters, tapes, records and many other things. However, there will always be the nostalgic types who hold on to them as a matter of principle and love. Who’s a better fit for the picture of these sentimental souls than writers?
Internet Nomads [writing prompt]
PRACTICE
There’s a class of people being formed today who make their living from the internet, giving them freedom to travel around the world, sometimes with their whole family. What would their life be like? What would be the specific challenges of their lifestyle?
Write about Internet Nomads.
Write for fifteen minutes, and when you’re finished, post your practice in the comments section.
Why Empathy is the Key to Story
To write fiction, you must develop your capacity be empathetic. In fact, you could argue that empathy is synonymous with story.
Don’t believe me? Plug the word story for empathy into this list of definitions for empathy that I found on Wikipedia:
[Empathy] is what happens to us when we leave our own bodies…and find ourselves either momentarily or for a longer period of time in the mind of the other. We observe reality through her eyes, feel her emotions, share in her pain. –Khen Lampert
