Streaming Meemies

NY, Melville Gallery Event

2008-01-08T11:30:00.000-05:00

Copied from Judith Berman's blog:

The New York Review of Science Fiction Readings and the South Street Seaport Museum present

Judith Berman
Michael Swanwick

Tuesday, January 8th -- Doors open 6:30 PM
Free Admission -- $5 donation if possible
South Street Seaport Museum's Melville Gallery
213 Water Street
New York City, NY 10038

---

LINKS:
http://www.hourwolf.com/nyrsf
http://www.southstseaport.org
http://www.nyrsf.com

The Write Way, 14 September 2007

2007-09-14T15:39:00.000-04:00

"And why, oh why, do advertisers assume we all need Detailed Instructions and Consumer Support once we've made the momentous decision to swap some of our hard-earned money in exchange for tea bags, salt and toilet paper?"

Because they want to make us feel loved. That's the sole explanation for it. Business has become far too impersonalized, so they're trying to add a bunch of ungrammatical flavor, just like Mother used to make.

One teabag per person? What if you only have one person, who wants to make a pot of tea for themselves, tuck it into a tea cosy, and write (or otherwise work) all day with breaks here and there for a cup. One tea bag per pot, or per eight cups, would make for a pretty weak pot.

Mummy, Dearest

2007-06-27T10:43:00.000-04:00

The baka thing wouldn't put through my psot twice and I'm now too tired to try to recreate it.

Update: Global Zombie Uprising

2007-06-16T14:29:00.000-04:00

Global Zombie Uprising

                Well, the worst of the crisis appears to be over for now. It's back to life as usual. Oh, if you do not count the pile of undead, er, can you call them corpses, if they were undead to begin with?
                Of course, dealing with zombie remains is problematic. Feral cats and some dogs tend to explore a pile before the piled unliving undead (Yes, I know... :gonk:) can be burnt to cheery little cinders, and we have these mini-outbreaks. For the most part, though, the crisis does appear to have been averted.
                Pity about the Hamptons. At least the Big Duck is still there.
                That concludes my report from the local front.

What's Up With These Zombie, Anyway?

2007-06-14T07:22:00.000-04:00

The last I heard, they were talking about arming monkeys with blow torches and sending them uot to wreak a bit of havoc with them. I'm not so sure that's a good diea, since they'd likely get infected and turn on us.

mikegerber.com: How not to review a book

2007-02-22T11:55:00.000-05:00

mikegerber.com: How not to review a book

BattleLore Reviews

2007-02-22T11:54:00.000-05:00

Board Games with Scott » BGWS 035 - BattleLore

RPGnet: Review of BattleLore

War Of The Worlds eComic

2007-02-22T11:51:00.000-05:00

War Of The Worlds eComic

2006-12-06T20:47:00.000-05:00

Which Avatar Character are You?

Find out @ Distant Horizon.

Random SW #1

2006-09-09T06:06:00.000-04:00

The sound of hooves on the ground approaching the house told Sage that the rider had driven his horse just a tad too much for the poor creature to be comfortable on the stone-ridden ground. You didn't end up friending any of the Danaus without gaining some appreciation of what the poor equines had to go through, in dealing with humans. "Rose, can you go to the stable and ask them to ready a treat and a drink for that poor horse?" he called out.

"Yes, father." She put down the book she had been reading and hurried to the stables. She liked horses in general, rather than having the Danau Talent. She was really a bit too young to display it, but he could sense that it would manifest itself, and soon. He couldn't see what form it would take, though; the Valhoor Talent varied form generation to generation, stronger in some than in others. It was a little weaker in him than in his father. He had no way to know anything about hers, until it manifested; and even then, he could only generalise, rather than know outright.

It had been some generations since the Talent had run at full strength in the Manor.Perhaps it was just as well: the Talent, like any other, had its limits, even at full strength. The Sight, even at full, could only show the future if it happened with the known elements in place. The unknown elements could change the entire, foreseen future.

Rose ran back into the room. Sage hadn't realised that he'd spent that much time in idle thought. "The rider's mad, but the mare's being fed and watered now. The poor thing looked winded, too.. I left the rider by the stables and ran when he started saying some very bad things." She looked at Sage, head cocked to one side, as if to ask 'Have I done well'?

"Thank you. I'll go back and talk to him. You can go back to your reading, now."

Rose flashed him a grateful smile before returning to the study. The fellow must have rattled her greatly, poor child. Ah, well. He steeled himself for the confrontation and walked out towards the stables, and the fellow.

--------------------
I love deadlines. I like the whooshing sound they make as they fly by.
- Douglas Adams

'Passions' on the Sci Fi Channel

2006-02-07T06:46:00.000-05:00

          Starting February 13, with a tentative air time of 9 AM, the Sci Fi Channel will air the soap Passions. When I first saw the commercial for it, I thought it was about time that the soap came to Saopnet, like Days of Our Lives. Then I realized, hey, it's on the Sci Fi channel: so of course I had to look up information on it.
          Although now, I have to wonder why they did not get Port Charles for Sci Fi too.
          For those of you who don't know, Passions started as a supernatural soap (unlike Port Charles, which started playing with the metaphysical element well after its conception). The bulk of the episodes till a couple of years ago feature Josh Ryan Evans, rest his soul. He played Timmy, who played a witch's familiar (a doll). He's the reason I started watching the soap in the first place. I had read an article in Newsday when he played General Tom Thumb on TBS' movie of P. T. Barnum. He played Timmy. The soap was also referenced in one episode that I saw of Buffy the Vampire Slayer too (although I don't recall Timmy ever falling down a well--Spike was watching the show when he was stuck in the bathtub lol). Ooh, his brother was named Timothy... And the character Timmy ended up becoming an angel. Strange...
          Unfortunately, Josh died--strangely enough, when his character died on the show. The plan was for him to come back as an angel. Well, in a sense he still is, although he's not there, because Timmy's referenced a lot. A lot.
          The early episodes aren't just a chance to see Timmy, and Tabitha Lenox. You get to see Doctor Bombay at least once, complete with attractive nurses hanging off his arms, when a spell goes awry and Tabby gets transformed into a mermaid. ;-) I'm not going to reveal the plotline; but I still watch the show.
          Whee! Rotten.com has some sweet things to say about the show. By the way, at the impressionable age of 47 and a half at the time of writing this missive, I can say with some certainty that I'm not a teenager. Now, if I'd been born during leap year... lol. Actress Juliet Mills has played the role of Tabitha Lenox since July 6, 1999.

Dollmakers and avatars

2005-12-10T23:30:00.000-05:00

You know, it sucks that they don't have an avatar or dollmaker where you can futz around with the animals to put together creatures from myth. I need to get a few different gryphons together for a WIP, for easy character reference.

Doll and Avatar Makers

2005-11-28T15:14:00.000-05:00

The Mini-Mizer
Gaia Dream Creator
Otaku Avatar Maker
South Park Character Generator
eLouai's Candy Bar Doll Maker
My Cartoon Dolls
Doll Island
Dollz Mania
http://games.franciscocharrua.com/doll-maker/

Olio of Prompts VI

2005-11-18T20:00:00.000-05:00

♥ Writing Prompt for Today

Though this word has a straightforward meaning (the obvious( there is also a secondary association unrelated to its meaning, just from its first syllable and the usage to which I have seen used by some folks. I leave it open for your interpretation.

Punditry.

♥ Today's writing prompt

I decided a one-word prompt might be nice for variety.

Today's prompt is

PEEWEE

♥ Prompt for Today: Shadows

Whether you're keeping a secret, walking at twilight or having A Dramatic Moment, shadows are a good springboard for writing. Lurking in the shadows waiting to pounce,. hiding in the shoadddws from a bully, the long shadows of early evening or the young shadows in the predawn light, keeping someone "in the dark"...

♥ Writing Prompt for Sunday 26 June 2005

I found inspiration for today's prompt from the subject field of a piece of spam. It's interesting how one phrase can evoke so many diverse random images.

PERMANENT GROWTH

I have no idea what product the spam referenced; the first thing that came to my mind was beard stubble. Some writers have described perpetual five o'clock shadow as a "permanent growth". It could be like The Rosie Greer movie, "The Thing With Two Heads" where the second attached head could be considered a "permanent growth" of sorts. A Google search for permanent growth turns up everything from land mass to hair loss treatments. There are even a few entries for Sunday School. There is, of course, also permanent growth repression as well.

There are still others that I think the Google search missed. Invent your own - it can be a piece of writing ranging from the spiritual to the surreal, the whimsical to the horrific.

♥ Writing Exercise - Fantasy

I borrowed this from Jands at the Topica Wolfrunner's list (which is dead, Jen, as it hasn't had a posting since September 1 of last year and the past few messages sem to be spammage). It seems like a decent enough writer's prompt.

In the dead of night, a cloaked figure leads two mounts into the courtyard to wait by the fountain. What's going on here?

♥ Today's Writing Prompt

"What's the bravest OR stupidest thing you (or your character) ever did?"
From the Daily Prompt
Generator

♥ Prompt for Thursday 23 June 2005: A Muse

Courtesy of the original Writing Fix prompt generator

"A muse inspires you to write. What natural object serves as a muse to you?
Write about someone seeing that object and being inspired to write."

♥ Today's Prompt

I took this straight from part one of today's Newsday, a Long Island
newspaper, because the headline soundedbiguous enough to generate some
very interesting responses:

Battle of the Burn.

♥ Today's Writing Prompt

The writing prompt for today is:

Opalescent storm

Today's prompt was adopted from Eyeblog's Creative Name
Generator.

♥ for Sun 19, 2005 8:48

The writing prompt for today is:

In the cellar.

From Stichomancy on Facade.com:

What quote would work well for a closer on Writing Prompts List?

The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from The Sportsman by Xenophon:

Still up and down, old sinner, must we pace; 'Twill kill us both, this vain, long, wearing race (Kennedy).

[25] See Arrian, xx. 2.

But when they are really close to the hare they will make the matter plain to the huntsman by various signs--the quivering of their bodies backwards and forwards, sterns and all; the ardour meaning business; the rush and emulaton; the hurry-scurry to be first; the patient following-up of the whole pack; at one moment massed together, and at another separated; and once again the steady onward rush. At last they have reached the hare's form, and are in the act to spring upon her. But she on a sudden will start up and bring about her ears the barking

♥ Writing Prompt for 16 June 2005

I pulled this from today's Newsday. It was a caption for an astronomical photograph, a visual alignment of planet and moon:

DANCE WITH JUPITER.

♥ Writing Prompt for 16 2005

Ah, I forgot that I was gonig to look in the newspaper today for prompts. However, the paper has not arrived, so I give you this instead (while I still have use of the computer):

If the moon was made of bleu cheese, how would that affect the rest of the universe?

♥ Writing Prompt for Wednesday 15 June 2005: Dream Catcher

A monster, a cat, a plague o'both your houses!
It is to me that I fortune's pack saddle.
Jacinth.

In the nursery of piety the ghosts test,

aliensThe unusually subdued, Scottish librarian who skyrockets in golden spaceships, and claims to have been abducted by
.
"Think about all the birds you've seen--from songbirds to hunters. Compare
one or more people you know to different types of birds in a piece of
writingDaily Prompt Generator.

I included several prompts, this time out. I know that I have been notoriously bad at updating: but I also thought that if you wanted to combine one of the two, it it strikes a chord within you, then it would be A Very Good Thing. From the Shakespearean Insult Generator to the resident one on Writing Fix, this is a good sample of what's available.

I think that tomorrow, if Terror gives me the change (no more full days of school, you see) I'll try to post something from the newspaper. That is also a good resource for writing prompts and stories.

♥ Writing Prompt for Tue 14, 2005

CHARACTER:
=========

Describe a character without resorting simply to physical descriptions and ignoring personality and character history. (Courtesy of arkiewriter on lj).

♥ Combined Prompt for Monday the 13 (LOL): Women-hating extraterrestrials.

Combined Prompt for Monday the 13 (LOL): Women-hating extraterrestrials.

I hate women because they always know where things are.
James Thurber (1894 - 1961)

Your Character is a(n): alien
Your character's race is: goblins.
Your character's main character trait is their: kindness.
The characters weakness/downfall is/are: chicken soup.
The characters physical appearance is:
height: very tall.
body shape: pudgy.
hair: thick.
eyes: half closed.
scars: on back.

Distinguishing features: gap between two front teeth.
("Borrowed" from http://www.feath.com/idea/idea.htm - )

♥ Today's Writing Prompt

I feel like I'm cheating, but...

You know all the links listed on the intro page for this group? I added a link to Feath's Bookcase. There are writing prompts generators that Feath has on the site, which she's still working on. She moderates or is one of the moderators for musemuggers, a writing prompts challenge community on LiveJournal. Today's prompt is "adopted" from her site:

What power has law where only money rules.
Gaius Petronius (~66 AD)

I figured that, since I ran a bit short myself on ideas lately, that adopting one at least on occasion seems like an excellent notion. The prompt is from the Random Quotes Generator on her site.

♥ Writing Prompt for 08 June: Writer's Group "Notorious"

I received one of those e-newsletters from Writer's Digest and the prompt in it was looking over your old journal entries to inspire a new one. Unfortunately, that also inspired in me a twisted writing prompt.

Who are your three favorite fictional villains/antagonists? Let's say that they each started writing a book and they're looking for a writer's group but, not having found one willing to accept someone of their, er, dubious qualifications, decided to splinter off and form their own group. For example, let's say the three are Godzilla, Freddy Kruger and Chuckie. Trying to keep them as much in character as possible, try to imagine how their group's first meeting would run.

♥ A Cloud of Guilt Hangs over the Horizon

It's been a while since I posted a prompt. Sorry. I actually have two for you now. One is a twist on stereotypes and the other is - well...

1. Men are from Venus, Women are from Mars

Yes, I know it's usually the other way around (at least from the book's title), but not everything fits a nice, neat little label.

The other one's a twist of a well-worn phrase:

"It was a dark and stormy knight".

♥ Writing Prompt for Thu May 26, 2005

This time (since I have been so bad about posting prompts again) I chose today's from the Rider-Waite Tarot. It's a Major Arcana card, X, the Wheel of Fortune. This basically translates to random chance, a bit of unforeseen luck.

Of course, in fiction this "unforeseen luck" can be foreshadowed.

What you write is, of ocurse, your choice, be it poetry or prose, fact or fiction. If you journel then think of an example of random, lucky chance in your life, good or bad; if fiction, then it might well be a plot point. Poets, of course, frequently write about lucky chance so it can't hurt to add another to your folio.

♥ Wed May 25, 2005 12:17 pm prompt: The City

Cities are places of commerce. Lots of people, lots of individual trials and tribulations. In New York City folks pound the pavement looking for work, whether it's on Broadway or in the local pizza parlor.

There are many people in cities as well. Sometimes it's quiet, sometimes thre's a riot.

There's both good and bad, positive and negative, yin nd yang in a city. You can have opposing forces ready to clash or a heartwarming tale of a random act of kindness.

♥ today's Writing Prompt: Human Buttons

A piece of spam prodded this prompt. It's open to several different enterpretations. (Sorry SAM, but political tracts are not the purpose of this list, writing prompts are).

HUMAN BUTTONS.

♥ Today's Prompt: Desire

HA! Anotherbiguous prompt.

Some folks desire chocolate, others crave company. What is your character's desire? Or what comes to your mind when you think about desire?

Olio of Prompts V

2005-11-18T15:46:00.000-05:00

BLOCKED!
You have a situation in mind, but you can't figure out how to get it written?

Does it seem a bit sad and trite? Perhaps it would liven up if you put an element of chaos into what you're writing.

For what I'm writing for National Novel Writing Month, I added a cat to add a type of animal sidekick. This shows some of the characterization for my protagonist. I had the cat offer a rat it had caught for the stew. The protagonist took it in stride, of course--you can't really belong to a cat without knowing some of its eccentricities.

It turns out that I also added several plot points. The rats have turned into agents for my antagonist.

Try adding a random element into what you're writing--animal, mineral, or vegetable. It can add interest, help display character (showing versus telling) and might even enhance your plot.

♥ Writing Prompts Grab Bag

Tuesday:
♥ "Describe yourself through the eyes of someone (real or imagined) of the opposite sex who either loves you or hates you."
(from Cybernetic Engines Writing Prompt Generator
.

Wednesday:
♥ "How often did you wear it? Write about a piece of clothing that was important to you at some time in your life."
* Original WritingFix Prompt
Generator*

Thursday:
"Are there any family heirlooms in your possession? Tell about them and how you came to acquire them."
Imagination Prompt

Friday:
"A Found Poem is created from words or short phrases found in published pieces of writing. We've created an on-line example, using an article about Mark Twain from an encyclopedia. Click the three buttons to create a practice Found Poem on-line...then find your own articles and create Found Poems out of them. Click here to try."
Left-Brained Poetry Prompts

Saturday:
"My favorite childhood memory is..."
Write On! Prompt Generator

Sunday:
Story ideas: The First Words.
Your story starts with the words:
It wasn't a smile, so much as...
Feath's Bookcase .

♥ Writing Prompt for 24 October 2005: The Appointment

Write something about a doctor's appointment. Does anything interesting happen? Do they have to drag a patient in to an appointment, kicking and screaming?

Have fun!

And remember, only seven more days to Hallowe'en, and eight (well, seven and four hours) until the start of National Novel Writing Month

♥ Writer's Prompt for 23 October 2005

I'm borrowing a page from the LiveJournal community musemuggers archives, located here at feath.com. I don't think that Feath will mind our borrowing it for a little while. There are generators on her site as well, for writing prompts and genreless stories, that folks are welcome to use.

♥ Writing Prompt: The Infamous Reluctant Spammer

How many pieces of spam have you received in your email over the past
week? I've received more then I care to think about: though this week
there seems to be a run on pharmaceuticals, rather than erection sets.

Your challenge, should you choose to accept it, is to write a
sympathetic story about a reluctant spammer who hates spam, but has
been driven into the industry for financial reasons. Perhaps a
cultured, refined, educated gentleman (or lady) who, on one hand, has
to resort to spamming in order to make a living; but on the other
hand, detests both spam and spammers.

The typographical errors--accident or intent--I leave to your literary purpose.

♥ From "The Prompts Collection"

This will be my second year with naNoWriMo (I managed to eke through 50,106 words last year) and http://www.livejournal.com/community/nanowarmup/ posted something for "More Character Dev" today:

List 15 simple pleasures. Pick one and write about it.

That's from the generator located at
http://prompts.diary-x.com/journal.cgi?entry=20051010cr and might be a good way to explore your main character(s).

♥ Inspired by the Fantasy Dares topic on the NaNoWriMo.org boards

The writing prompt for today is:

"You want fries with that?"

Relevant posting is above the Bozo Button dare.

♥ Writing Prompt: Panda Research

Yes, I received a piece of spam for a web research/opinion thing called "Panda Research". I had never heard of it before, but I did think that it was someone conducting research on pandas.

In the anime _Ranma 1/2_ there was a character (Ranma's grandfather) who turned into a panda each time he was splashed with cold water. A warm bath or water would of course return him to his normal form.

You could even have a researcher dressed in a panda suit, a la anime.

There are several ways that this could be interpreted. What does "Panda Research" mean to you, and can you build a vignette or a story around it?

♥ Writing Prompt (rising from my unovened sense of humor)

A dark and stormy knight...

♥ And the prompt for today is:

PERFECT MATCH.

I saw that for a piece of spam I screened and deleted from the writer's library. I think it was from a dating service, but I did not check to see if that was the case.

There are many different kinds of matches. One is, of course, with the dating services. Then there are marriage broekrs, another type of matchmaknig for those seeking the "perfect match". If you smoke then you sometimes use matches in place of lighters: and don't get me started on socks, my daughter seems to enjoy wearing pairs so mismatched that they give me a headache.

There are many more applications of this phrase as well. What does "a perfect match" mean to you?

♥ And the prompt for today is:

Write an encyclopedia/zoological entry for the species centaur. Be as
logical and honest as you can, adopting the perspective on a cantaur's
reality. How do they deal with stones in their hooves? How do you think they
sleep?

♥ Today's Prompt:

*perspicacious alacrity of **pulchritude*

--

♥ Crossed Realities

Write a scene or poem where an auto mechanic meets a wizard or witch.

The wizard or witch could be in for broomstick repair, only they end up in
the wrong shop. Te auto mechanic's car breaks down on the road. She or he
does not have the right tools on-hand to effect repairs (the car might be a
loaner, they might be on their way from one palce to another) and so has to
go into a repair shop run by a witch or a wizard.

♥ Non-Verbal Communications

Your prompt today is not only an exercise in characterization but also one in scene generation.

Write about two people having a discussion. One lies, the other is truthful;. What do you think their body language would read like?

You can use more people if you like, but those are the two major players.

♥ Writer's Prompt: I Am Going To Be Evil Today.

I Googled for erymology sites and I'll share the pain with you.

Etymology, you see, deals with word origins. So today's writing prompt is to look up the origins of a word and then write a story around it.

The word I used was "Caravan". I went to Etymology Online and looked it up. You don't have to use the word that I did, but there might be one that's been tasking you for a day or so. Look up the origins of the word. See what sparks from it.

I don't think you'll regret the results.

♥ Today's Prompt: In Vast Emptiness There Is Nothing Holy writers_libr...

I rejected a piece of spam from the library. I did spend a bit of time
looking for an online translator and ran across this free online
translator.
The simple Chinese had the most coherent translation . I edited it to try to
make a bit more English-friendly. Er, how do I know it was spam? Because
there was notation on English on it, saying that the mail was sent because
"U" (meaning the library) was a member of that list.

Well, the writer's library on Yahoo is not a member of the list. If the
person in charge of the spambot had done homework, they would have realized
that the message would not have showed up anyway since the library is set to
text only with no attachments permitted.

Still, the translated and transliterated message seemed as if it would make
for a good writer's prompt. There are several solid images in it. And so,
with little adieu, I present to you the Chiangnan village spam.

#

He knows the Chiangnan village; it's crisscrossing paths between fields. The
alleys bend in circles, the vertical ones difficult enough to recognize in
the daytime, much less in the dark night. He walks the narrow paths, several
times in the field, until both of his feet are muddy.

To afterwards follow into woods, underfoot bumpy, cruel ground.

He is anxious wants to cry, "Daddy, daddy! Mother, mother!" In the calm
night people breathing, several breaths like owl's cries.

The owl once listened. The owl most loved the crowing cock. When it was
killed, the owl soaked the dead cock with its tears. Good taught the owl to
count with difficulty. Nevertheless, the owl does not live its cries; it
lives in the bough that extends. It raises.

He does not dare to move, his heart thump-thump-jumps.

Nothing more happens. He crosses a channel and then sits, finally closing
his eyes, and soon falls asleep.

#

While Googling this I ran across a site for Shao Lin History,
which is where I found the quotation in the subject field. It seemed an
intriguing enough writer's prompt: and there a reasons for most everything
in life, so I was meant to use it for a writer's prompt. ;-) At least, from
a certain point of view.

♥ Today's Prompt

No good effort goes unpunished. ;-)

--

♥ [writesparks lite] Aren't you tired of staring at a blank page writers_libr...

7 Writing Muse Kickers to Fill Up That Blank Page
by Shery Ma Belle Arrieta-Russ

Nothing is more daunting for any writer than having to stare at a blank
sheet of paper.

When we stare at a blank sheet of paper, we often think, "What am I
going to write?" A few minutes later, it becomes, "Oh my goodness, I
can't think of anything to write!" And several minutes later, it turns
into something like, "Write, dangnabit! Write! Write! WRITE!"

Some writers call this writer's block. But I call it the
"Writing-Muse-Needs-A-Kick" syndrome.

And that's exactly what we're going to do with your writing muse gone
truant. We're going to kick her back into gear so you can fill up that
blank page.

Here are 7 writing muse kickers for you to try right now:

1. First Line: Begin a story with "There was once a chance I didn't
take..."

2. Cliche Starter: Weave a story or poem around the cliche, "keep your
powder dry."

3. Power of Metaphor: What does "a string of laughter" make you think of?

4. Proverb Mix: "Beauty breaks the camel's back."

5. Story Words: Use the words "pianist, pencil, high-rise building,
running shoes" in a story.

6. What If? Story: What if you're going to write a story about
betrayal, with a young man as the main character and a locket as the
key object? Set your story on a ranch.

7. Quick Prompt: Write about what you'd say to an uninvited guest.

(c) 2003-2004 Shery Ma Belle Arrieta-Russ

(In case you have a site or e-zine and you wish to use my article,
don't forget to include my resource box.)

=> My resource box: <=

Shery is the creator of WriteSparks! - a software that
generates over 10 *million* Story Sparkers for Writers.
Download WriteSparks! Lite for fr*e - http://writesparks.com
----------

♥ Today's Prompt: First Person, Present Tense

Write an argument. It can be an argument with one's self or with someone or something else. Put your self into the character's head, or write an argument that you might have. the only thing is, it has to be written like it's happening here and now.

Ah, yes - could you imagine arguing with your dog over a walk, if you have one? ;-)

♥ Internal and External Conflicts in Fiction

Plotting Inside and Out.

This is something to think about, something interesting to ponder. The internal versus the external life. The article is on the Long Ridge Writer's Group site. The article is called *

Plotting Inside and Out

Creating Internal and External Conflicts in Fiction

by Mary Rosenblum
*and I thought that you folks might find it interesting.

It's applicable toward scenes too. we have the external events and then we
have the internal reactions to the events. One good example of this I can
think of is Star Wars, episodes 4-6. The story is delineated so that we can
see Luke's internal as well as external journey. He starts off after his
uncle Owen and Aunt Beru are killed wanting revenge, which is his motivation
for beginning Jedi training. The story is as much about the way this
internal position changes (from wanting to fight the Empire to just wanting
to bring his father back to the Light Side) which, incidentally, means the
destruction of the Emperor as an incidental event, a deed accomplished by
his father Anakin, who dies from the attempt. The changes occur over the
movies, from having no family to learning about first his father in movie
two and then his sister in movie three. He's no longer the solitary, tragic
figure from the fist movie who came back to find his family killed by the
stormtroopers.

We can see the external plots too, the destruction of the first Death Star
in movie one, Jedi training (the means) in movie two, drawbacks and
accomplishments along the way.

That's why I like the Star Wars movies. It's a clear story arc, even with
all its faults. There may be formula, but parts of it are not exactly
predictable. This did not necessarily have to follow that, especially at the
end. Star Wars 1-3 didn't have that "feel" to them that 4-6 had, that sense
of completeness that left me satisfied at the end.

Do you have a scene written? Is there some way you can incorporate an
internal reaction/goal as a counterpoint to the external events? The results
might prove rather interesting.

♥ The Juorney writers_libr...

I know it's been very sporadic, but I have been trying to come up with
writing prompts and get computer access to post them.

One interesting exercise is starting from the end of a story and working our
way toward the beginning to see how everything was set up: effect and cause.
If the hero kills the dragon, then how does he kill it? What does he kill it
with? How did h obtain the object that he kills the dragon with? What does
he have to go through to get it? How did he know what he would need to kill
the dragon? Why does he want to kill the dragon in the first place?

All of the above, together, can be reversed to provide an outline for a
story. The story itself can be told in either narrative or poetic form.

Chances are that you've been thinking about stories for a while. Write the
ending of the story. Then think about your hero gets to the end. You don't
have to write the rest of it unless you want to: the important thing here is
thinking about how you could get to the beginning from the end, what would
work, what doesn't work, in the journey.

Enjoy!

♥ After Myriad Computer Problems, Here Are Some Prompts writers_libr...

I'm working on a book right now and it opens with the death of a
character. This is all part of the plot, the "loaded gun". But to set
everything up, you start with an intro scene, the set up to the event, then
move on to the event itself, and the scenes after that are the ones where
your protagonist deals with the event.

This can be written as a story or as a poem. William Shakespeare wrote much
in ballad form, and you can tell a story in poetic form, some of the best
poems work that way too.

The beginning, or "status quo" is the prologue, the calm before the storm,
the event leading up to The Change. Chance is necessary in fiction because
it sets the story in motion: but a few brush strokes to illustrate life
before the change underscores the importance of that change. It's a
technique that's not used in every story, but it can be used to good
advantage, mostly in novellas and novels, but sometimes in shorter works
(one example of the shorter work is Robert Sheckley's story "Pandora's Box
-- Open With Care" from the September 2000 issue of Fantasy & Science
Fiction).

Every writer seems to have some change in mind. What do you think might
happen before the change, as if to highlight and underscore the effects of
the change?

♥ Writing Prompt for the Day

Choose a picture at random. It can be a photograph or a drawing. Based on how s/he is dressed, the expression on their face,any number of things, invent a character summary for them. Name, rank and serial number - er, age, occupation, hobbies and pastimes, that sort of thing. Biography Info for Main Characters at writing-life.com lists questions and other data for a character bio. Have a bit of fun with it and see how it all comes out.

♥ Writing Prompt: Ambiguity

Shed Fat.

That was the subject line of a piece of spam that I deleted. My first
reaction? "I didn't know that sheds could get fat".

Today's e-mail is in such use that spam is a common problem, but there are
some that just hit a giggle button or elicit some other reacting from the
victim - er, recipient, and it is not necessarily the one that the sender
wants to convey.

Your writing prompt for today is to write a silly or ambiguous spam header.

♥ What would you get if you...

We all have our favorite kinds of animals. We all have our favorite kinds
of foods. What do you think that you would get if you combined them? In the
case of the elephant, so the joke goes, we would get either peanut butter
that never forgets or an elephant that sticks to the roof of your mouth.
Personally? I am rather fond of sushi and cats, so would I get a finicky
fish or a furry flounder?
For that matter, what would you get if you crossed an owl and a treacle tart...

♥ Today's Prompt

| Heir Conditioner |

♥ Horoscope Prompt?

I just checked my horoscope on MSN.com. I thought it would make a good
writing prompt.

As none of you know, I am a Virgo (not that I take horoscopes seriously).
Here is the horoscope for today.

Initiate a deep and meaningful conversation with someone you have lost touch
with over the years. It could be that a long and ugly point of contention is
on the brink of resolution. All you need to do now, dear Virgo, is to make
the first move. There is a great deal of heart-felt loving energy in the air
that will help aid you in fostering a sensitive, loving approach. Find a
connection with someone that you didn't know was there before.

For "someone you have lost touch with over they years" you can substitute
your protagonist, or any other character that you need to flesh out. As a
writer you do need a connection to your characters in order to write about
them, or else they come out a bit flat.

And poets, never fret - you can have this conversation with yourself in
prose form too. All of us have some small, buried bit that we are not proud
of, even if it might not seem like much of an issue to another person.
--

♥ It's all in how you see things.

http://www.csicop.org/sb/9912/i-files.html

Other than carnival oddities or illusions, write about something in your
everyday life, taking the perspective that it is like a carnival oddity or
illusion.

♥ Today's Prompt: Alternate History

*Alternate History by The Writers Store Team
Write an alternate history of a significant moment in your life. Think about what could have been if one key moment had been different.

This can apply to your character's history as well. It can be the road not taken, the alternate steps, the "what if?" scenario.

♥ Communication Between Author & Character

One good method for generating ideas and plain old writing is that of the character letter. I have posted three links to this email that I hope will help. Have your character write a letter, either to you or else to another character. What would they say in the letter?
**
A letter game
*(scroll down the page to find the details on it)
*Letter game
The Wonderful World Of Ghost Letters

Olio of Prompts IV

2005-11-18T14:53:00.000-05:00

How's the weather where you are? Write a scene where two characters
are meeting each other, perhaps for the first time: an awkward
situation at best, they may know little about ach other, so have
them talk about the weather.

For that matter, you could even have it evolve into a dispute about
the weather, which might be funny. (I had this image of the woman
going home to mother because of the argument, LOL). Yes, this does
not have to be written man-woman: unless your character is of a,
shall we say, alternate preference and a well meaning but clueless
friend sets them up on a blind date with the opposite sex.

I'll have to write that one myself, LOL--I have just the characters
in mind.)

You know how you wake up when it's almost completely
dark. Maybe your eyes are unfocused when you first
wake up, but you begin to at least make out some
familiar shapes and forms. All colors turn to shades
of black and gray. Maybe you hear the ominous
crickets or *gasp* cicadas, or even croaking frogs.
If you live closer to the highway or in a more urban
area, you might even hear the elevated or the 3:20
run past you.

Anyway, write something about waking up in the dark,
poetry or prose, story or limerick. The style and
content are up to you. Have some fun with it. ;-)

(Do you think 'blind as a bat' means anything to a bat, since they
use sonar rather than vision to 'see' things?)

Have you been writing? If not, why? Write yourself a note excusing
your absence from writing (I'm doing the same thing now), telling
yourself why you haven't been writing.

We're writers. We have no one to answer to but ourselves: that means
we need to write down the reason(s) why we haven't been writing, so
we can forgive ourselves for it. *grin* Writing down the reasons we
haven't been writing not only gets us writing, but it can also give
us some idea on how to fix the problem(s). It's like journaling, you
write down the problem to clarify it to your mind so that you can
better think of ways to fix it.
What kinds of hobbies do you enjoy? Do you collect stamps? What if
you didn't know that you had a rare stamp but someone else found out
about it? If they didn't want you to know how valuable it was, what
lengths do you think s/he would go to, to get it from you? If the
stamp is important to you, perhaps for sentimental reasons...?

What kinds of hobbies do you have, and what do you think could lead
to the sorts of conflict that you enjoy reading about? I know, the
way I'm saying it is kind of lame, but you can write an interesting
story around it if you consider the possibilities.

Write about your interest(s) and what could get in the way, or what
could happen. What are the possibilities that you see for both worst-
and best-case scenarios?

Despite what you might think of the prompt above, there are many
interpretations of alien societies. This is an exercise in seeing
your own world through different eyes, as if you were seeing it for
the first time.

Look at your everyday routine. You do many things as a matter of
course, going through your day. There are many things that you take
for granted because you have always done them, or always been able
to do them.

List the things that you do every day. Now, how would those habits
change if, say, you had forepaws instead of hands? That might change
the way you comb your hair and how you push the buttons on the
remote. (The design of the remote if everyone had claws, for
instance, would likely have inverted switches rather than
extroverted buttons, since claws can reach into such nice little
niches).

You can choose any alterations you prefer; the idea is describing
how you would manage an ordinary day when some new element has been
added to the mix.

Do you have a character who will stoop to anything to get what they
want? Or perhaps lie in order to keep a loved one out of jail, or
worse? Whether ignoble or for a perceived 'just' cause, write
something about someone who lies, or tells a lie. Not just any lie,
say, but perhaps a lie which gets another person in serious trouble,
perhaps even themselves.

I'm not exactly addicted to soap operas, but I do watch 'Passions'.
The show has a witch, that's why. (They've also ripped on such shows
as The Osbournes, The Adams Family, and Bewitched, and even had Dr
Bombay [sp?], the witch's name is Tabitha, and her daughter's name,
the demon-baby, is Endora). ;-) Port Charles had a vampire and it's
in reruns on SoapNet, so I've been catching up on the vampire-
hunting and angels and the storyline. (If I remember right, The
Avatar is the next storyline). Days of Our Lives had the serial
killer storyline and they're going into a rip on The Prisoner right
now--fun! I'll stop watching them when they get too tediously
romantic and sappy, of course. ;-) There's only so much of that
dreck I can stomach.

Soap operas are one source, but you have examples of false witness
and these kinds of things, like the kids who turn in their parents
in 1984, or even in that one episode of South Park which parodied
Logan's Run. In the movie Logan's Run itself (and in the book you
went to Carousel at 21, not 30), the first big lie was saying that
Logan was actually older than he was so that he could do a little
detective work, and then he uncovered the bigger lie about the
outside world and all that, and that there was a world far beyond
the one in which he'd been raised.

Writers essentially tell lies, too--fabrications which make up
interesting stories. They're real enough to us, sometimes we've
lived with these characters for decades before writing them down on
paper.

(Don't forget the Salem Witch Trials--lying about your neighbors for
this reason or that, even with the Spanish Inquisition...)

Whether a simple little thing between a parent and child or a major
thing which could cost lives and reputations, or anywhere in
between, write a story about a lie that may seem harmless enough but
which turns into a major thing or row. A Quest for the Truth can be
an interesting one.

How do you feel when you get a stomachache? What about of someone
you know, who you're face-to-face with, has a stomachache? How would
you describe your own stomachache? What do you notice about someone
else with one?

Some stomachaches make you clutch at your abdomen. Some can actually
make you be sick (like on the carpet or in the porcelain basin).
Some give you the runs (Why do they cal it the runs when you're not
on your feet at all, but instead rather stationary?) and some
actually make you belch at either end. (How many ways can you
describe a fart attack, anyway? LOL--gas can cause quite the
stomachache.) Some are so bad that the layperson can even mistake it
for appendicitis or even labor.

There are many different kinds of stomachaches and many reactions of
different people to those folks who have stomachaches. Have a bit of
fun (or angst) writing something about someone with a stomachache.

I used to have (it may still lurk somewhere hereabouts) a button I
picked up at NorEasCon II which asks the eternal question--more of a
statement, actually--'an elevator that's afraid of heights?'

In the book series for Harry Potter, a major thing which has even
been a plot point, at least in the second book, was Ron Weasley's
fear of spiders.

Indiana Jones had an almost pathological fear of snakes. ;-)

There are things that we fear. I know that two of my greatest
phobias, which I worked hard to overcome and, if not vanquish, at
least reached an understanding with, were a fear of crowds and a
fear of heights. Of course, I'm also a bit claustrophobic and a bit
agoraphobic. I think almost everyone has a fear, for example, of
being buried alive. At one point in my life I also avoided such
things as cracks on a sidewalk (even those parts that were separated
while the concrete was drying which to my mind were more ordered
cracks), black cats crossing my path, spilt salt and walking under
ladders; now, if a black cat crosses my path, I'll try to scritch it
behind the ears and maybe meow at it, I usually don't worry about
cracks on the sidewalks (of course, Mom died a few years back, but
refusal of the curse thing came a decade or two before that event)
and sometimes I'll even go out of my way to walk under a ladder,
unless it looks too unstable and as if it might fall on someone's
head. There's more danger walking on the streets of New York, where
the facades of some buildings are decaying to the point where
concrete topples to the sidewalk from several stories aboveground.

Of course, I'm not talking about the big things that we're all
afraid of, just the little things that are very much like quirks of
personality.

What kind of phobia can you imagine a character of yours having? A
little one, like Ron's fear of spiders, can go a long way and even
provide fodder for a plot point. A vampire who faints at the sight
of blood, a dragon who's afraid of fire (so long as it's a fire-
breathing one), an angel or bird who's afraid of heights (taking
into account the common representation of an angel, translated as
messenger, being this winged, flying creature). If you even want to
be a bit inane, how about a unicorn who fears virgins or a
multibillionaire who suffers from Imposter Syndrome?

We all know the one joke about the person who opened the fortune
cookie whose message reads 'Help! I'm trapped in a fortune cookie
factory!'. We also know that lots of folks put messages in bottles
or attach them to balloons and send them off to see where they will
end their journey.

There are a few possibilities in this to start any genre of story,
not just the mundane. Could you imagine someone concealing a message
in a pot roast or a cherry pie?

Messages themselves can take many forms. I've heard or read, I don't
remember where, that someone put something in a stew or a bowl of
soup (not necessarily paper) where, although they might now be
written down, they send a clear message to the recipient of said
message.

Write yourself down a list of the possibilities that you see in
this, and then have some fun writing a story or scene (even a flash)
about one of the listed possibilities that you've thought up.

For today (even if I'm posting this late) think about a character
that you would like to try to write. Tomorrow, decide where the
story will take place, and make sure that it suits the character's
story (whether it's a place familiar or not to your character is
your decision alone.

Sunday -- well when you decided on your character--who s/he is, et
cetera--and then the setting, you might have had an idea in mind
for what happens; if not, then write down several ideas on a piece
of paper as they occur to you, even if some of them seem either
stupid and/or evil rather than what you would as a rule write.
Free writing that list will, with luck, give you an idea of what you
want to write about.

Remember to plan for conflict! If we make it a conflict with the
environment, for example, one of your silly ideas might be something
like (given an office setting):

* overworked copier
--goes on strike demanding better wages, toner and working hours
--goes postal and starts shooting people (what ammunition? Toner and
paper, probably, maybe little gears)
--Gets delusional and thinks it's Britney Spears and starts trying
to sing (can you imagine it? *shudder*)

That's given an office environment, of course. A cash register might
have a similar list, and there are more possibilities, but you get
the idea. When you've finally reached momentum writing this, just
write the ideas down for five minutes straight, no looking back
till you're done. You can always keep a tape recorder handy to keep
a verbal record of additional ideas while you're looking over what
you've just written. Sometimes, five minutes isn't quite enough
time. ;-)

Then, write a flash piece, or a short story, about the Battle of the
Copier (or the Register's Rebellion, or whatever). You might have
more than a few good ideas and you can always write more, should you
be so inclined--the idea's just to get to writing.

Describe an apple. What does the shape look like? Does it remind you
of anything? Try to describe the taste of the apple--tart, sweet,
the texture. The color, maybe the variety of apple (I remember
eating a crabapple when I was an adolescent, green, tart, with
texture both crunchy and at the same time chewy, what I guess you
would call crisp, it was almost round but more of an oblong shape,
indented at the top where that wick like thing would come out, I
guess that's the vine or whatever you call it part that it hung from
the tree on, and that dimple thing at the bottom, following both
sides of the seedy core at the center. You could eat the top and the
bottom and sometimes even some of the fleshy parts around the seeds,
even if they had this hard, seedcase-y thing around them...)

What's the best way to eat an apple? Peeled, segmented, or just
biting into it?

BTW, why do you think most folks associate apples with the forbidden
fruit in the garden of Eden> Why didn't anyone think it could be,
say, a tomato (which until at some point in the late 19th century,
most folks thought it was poison). A tomato, at least until
recently, was classified as a fruit. If it's a vegetable now but it
was considered a fruit at one point, it could have been a forbidden
fruit, since it didn't taste as sweet as most fruits. It has seeds,
too, but spread throughout rather than at its core, like the ones in
an apple.

Why do folks think of it as an apple and not, say, a tomato, banana,
orange, grapefruit, plum, peach, cherry, pear (which is close in
some respects to the apple, though closer to a potbellied than
spherical shape)? It's just something to ponder.

I'm sorry, but this one is inspired by all the insipid popups that
interfere when you're trying to type in web addresses or something.
Me, I'm a hunt-and-peck typist, not a keyboardist. When that
happens, I'm usually looking at the keyboard and not the monitor if
I have something I feel is important enough to say, and I want to
say it before it slips my mind (lots of stuff does seem to,
nowadays). Anyway, when I realize what's happened, I've already
forgotten what I was trying to say, or else I've forgotten half of it,
or my train of thought has derailed, or Terror (mainly this one)
wants the computer. Grr, it may be her computer, but I pay for the
online, and my own computer refuses to work (you know how
temperamental these computers get, they're geezers when they're two
years old and outdated after a month).

Anyway, what are the ways you handle these popups, this 'visual
spam'? How many ways from Sunday would you like to strangle the
folks responsible for it? *grin* I mean, spam e-mail’s bad enough
without popups.

We need some way to let off the steam. ;-) Who knows, you might even
get a story out of it, like 'The Haunted Popup' or 'The Popup That
Wouldn't Die' or something. Even, if you wrote fanfic of any type or
just want the speculation,, how different sorts of popups would work-
-like, say, in the Max Headroom universe or in Harry Potter's world.
Even in the Star Wars Universe, how do you think a popup would
work? Remember, you have holograms, so even Princess Leia's request
to Obi=Was Kenobi could have turned into an advert.

They say that 'turnabout is fair play'. Do you write poetry as a
rule? Try to write something that you feel would be the opposite of
poetry. Do you like romance? Perhaps the opposite would be fighting
(even though some forms of the romance genre do equate the two, as
in the 'kiss and make up' variety). If you write war stories, then
write an anti-war story.

Hmm... Come to think of it, the anti-poem, the anti-romance, the
anti-humor, the anti-drama... It might be better and more coherent
to add that prefix and then write something about it. For example,
if you like SF, then write an anti-SF piece. That's open to
interpretation, so go with your impression of the antithesis of SF.
What would an anti-poem look like?

Even if you journal, rather than write the other kinds of stuff,
make an anti-journaling entry. Have some fun with it--and sometimes,
trying to write something's opposite (especially when you're stuck
on something you're working on) can give you a better idea of how to
move forward with whatever you're working on.

Please excuse me, I'm going to have a cup of anti-tea now....

LIFE IS WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU'RE MAKING OTHER PLANS

or

THE BEST LAID PLANS....

Speaking of prompts, how's this one?

BEYOND HELP

That's how I feel, sometimes (LOL).

An alternate (and John is familiar with this title) could be

Temple of the Dead Cow

(that's what I call the local Burger King.

You've seen a highway, right? Whether you live by or have driven down them, the critters are inescapable. ;-)

Closing your eyes, ignoring visual cues, how would you describe the highway? What's the traffic like, high or low volume? How does the air taste around it? I've noticed that, depending on the traffic, road and car conditions, you can actually taste as well as smell the exhaust fumes in the air. Do your best to try to write a sensory description of it without using visual cues.

What's your favorite flavor ice cream? Why do you like it? Try to describe it as best you can--flavor, texture, color... Do you get an ice cream headache? I never seen to, but I think I did once. it sort of feels like a band stretched across your head in a way, doesn't it? Brain freeze, gotta gronk it. ;-)

I've taken to making canned soup and adding things to it, treating the canned stuff as sort of a base. I like adding fresh vegetables, but that isn't always possible, so I've used frozen ones. Canned vegetables also work quite well.

If you've ever seen the list for the 37 dramatic situations, that's like a base. You add your own ingredients to the mix to make it into a flavorful soup or stew. I know that copies of the list were available online

The Thirty-six (plus one) Dramatic Situations
http://www.sff.net/people/julia.west/CALLIHOO/ideagen2.htm

I just did a random Google search

I was going to try to write this in a seat-of-my-pants rhyme, but for the purpose of illustration it wouldn't work.

I'm making the assumption that you all listen to songs. I do, too--and like Weird Al or any true filker, I like writing parodies or twists on the songs (for example, Madonna's Like A Virgin and Weird Al's Like a Surgeon, I twisted that around to "Like Ted Sturgeon, though I'm still working on that one. I don't know if you remember the song with the lyrics "rock on to electric avenue" but I twisted that around to "type on to selectric avenue", if you remember Selectric type

Take an aphorism and twist it on its ear. Who knows, maybe you'll be able to use it as a title for a story or poem. For example, you know how folks say that you can't find a needle in a haystack. Then there's the princess and the pea. You can't find a princess in a needle of a pea in a haystack, or a princess in a haystack and a needle in a pea? Well, you know what I mean. Even a princess eating peas who sits in a haystack and finds the needle when she sits on it (ouch). They do say that the buttocks tends to be one of the more sensitive parts of one's body.

An elevator that's afraid of heights? A rabbit afraid of carrots? A sith lord afraid of the dark?

Sometimes, little faults make the characters interesting. A vampire who's afraid of blood, do you think he'd turn veggie? Sap instead of blood? It's still a life stream thing.

Why is the thought of a vampire afraid of, say, bubble gum occurring to me now? Mm, maybe it'll make his teeth stick, or something...

Some folks add a list of words and tell you to use them in a written piece. Maybe I'll break from group tradition and try that. Hmm, let's see, creative use of words and places...

Winnemucca, Nevada
Slots
Rutabagas
Extraterrestrial
Out-of-this-world
submarine
hoagie
lime Ricky
Spiderman
shellfish
gargoyle

Precedent

You have an event. Write about what leads up to the event, with the culmination of the story being the event itself. (I know, copout, LOL).

Write a scene or a poem about a betrayal where a lifelong friend turns
their back on a protagonist.

From the Surrealist Compliment Generator:
:

Fast blinking reveals the true visage of time pieces hidden within your
eyes.

Hm, fast blinking. That could be an eye, a malfunctioning traffic light, the funny blinky light on your VCR when the power dies and then comes back on... Time pieces could be memories, bits of the past, blocks of time, a load of appointments that you're not sure that you will make it all to on time. It can be anything. What does it call to your mind?

Enjoy!

A Grave Endeavor.

Chakra Surgery

Sacred Centers: <Chakra
The word chakra is Sanskrit for wheel or disk and signifies one of seven basic energy centers in the body. Each of these centers correlates to major nerve ganglia branching forth from the spinal column. In addition the chakras also correlate to levels of consciousness, archetypal elements, developmental stages of life, colors, sounds, body functions, and much, much more.

A dark and stormy knight.
(I could not resist that one)

Ides of August

2005-11-18T14:33:00.000-05:00

Ides of August

Et tu, brute?

Nah, that was March, this is August, what they call the "dog days", lord knows why. And why did I just think of Stephen King's "Cujo"? *sigh*

Anyway, dogs and idea--hope that works for you. Otherwise, I remember when my brothers had a can labeled "Campbell's Spider Soup" (you know Mad Magazine, right? This was back in the '60s). What kinds of strange foods are out there, anyway?

For some strange reason, the thought occurred to me to seek the
meaning of the Ides of August. I keep reading all this stuff
like "the Eighth Day of the Ides of August", so I wanted to clarify for folks that the ides seem to fall on either the 13th or the 15, the same as it mentioned on the site of the first link I posted (in the previous message). I do think there might be enough information in these links to give you a few story or poem (or even essay or journal entry) ideas.

http://www.theidesofmarch.com/home.htm

http://astrology.about.com/library/weekly/aa031500a.htm?once=true&

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/special_report/1999/02/99/e-cyclopedia/296942.stm

http://whoosh.org/epguide/ides.html

http://www.aurochs.org/zlib/cgi/date_roman

http://www.medievalgenealogy.org.uk/cal/junsus.htm

http://www.hardydetectiveagency.com/evergreen/idesofaugust/idesintro.htm

http://www.madkane.com/wwwboard/messages/1617.html

http://www.the-privateer.com/gold/week117.html

http://ragz-international.com/battle_of_adrianople_ammianus___.htm

http://www.fellowshipofisis.com/jc/jcaug9.html

http://www.well.com/user/aquarius/seeck.htm

http://www.woso.com/BuenVivir/detalles.asp?bvid=138&cid=4

http://users.erols.com/jesterbear/notes/torches.html

http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/lightfoot/pt1vol2/hippo17.html

http://www.caw.org/greenegg/greenegg_oz.html

http://www.mysticwicks.com/showthread.php?t=6940

http://www.skepticfiles.org/krish/harmconv.htm

http://www.webofoz.org/heritage/Lammas.shtml

http://www.wrh.noaa.gov/hanford/newsletr/fall01/summary.htm

http://www.brown.edu/Research/Catskills_Institute/tanney/bungalow14.html

http://omega.cohums.ohio-state.edu/mailing_lists/CLA-L/2001/08/0555.php

http://p199.ezboard.com/fchurchofthespiritfrm7.showMessage?topicID=60.t opic

Olio of Prompts III

2005-11-18T14:21:00.000-05:00

A "Dear John" Letter

You have a favorite character, be it an historical or contemporary, literature, television, or movie one. Write them a letter (even if, as in the case of a real person) and tell them you like them and they're, if not your favorite, then one of your favorite characters. Antiheroes that you love works, too. Go with the first one that springs to mind.

In a way, that's like analyzing why his or her characterization or persona works for you. If there are things you don't like about the character, list them too, it's like a character analysis. It's almost like a fan letter, but it's a letter, so you can ask them how their family or friends are, how the invention or adventure or life in general is coming along, is Auntie May still working on the farm or has her arthritis worsened...

Yes, comic book characters count, too. Many of them become movie characters anyway, so... LOL.

Pooped Promptress Goes Goth: Funereal Flavor

We all deal with death, in one form or another.
I myself have lost a father, an uncle, two
grandfathers, two grandmothers, two cats... Not to
mention other things. A television dies, a computer
dies... Even, so it has been said, getting a divorce
is like dealing with death. In a way, it is: it's
the death of a life together and the beginning of a
life apart. (Except for my ex, since it was the
beginning of his engagement and subsequent
marriage, LOL)

Anyway, talk about dealing with the death of a loved
one, be they formerly animate or formerly and
currently inanimate. I know that a funeral for a
computer sounds silly, but you could have a lot of
fun writing it as a dark and somber piece--unless
you really and truly did lose a computer that you
dearly loved.

Sometimes, writing about and dealing with death
reflects how we live our lives. Happy writing!

evol tsol

Have you ever lost a love, particularly a great one?
I'm not necessarily talking romance novel-type love
here: the 'lost love' could be a person, yes, but it
could also be a place or thing. A cat lover who
develops a severe, life-threatening allergy to cats
that just will not respond to medication (same with
any pet), someone who loves gambling but has been
blacklisted and banned from all the gambling houses
in Nevada and New Jersey, a person for whom smoking
provides their greatest joy and comfort in life but
lives in a nonsmoking building, works in a
nonsmoking environment AND develops an allergy to
cigarettes (or worse yet, a chocolate lover who....
*sigh* Good thing I'm not allergic to it, LOL). A
stuffed animal that you were so attached and
devoted to that just disappeared one day (your
parents never told you that they threw it out)...

What is the greatest love, the greatest passion in
your life? What if that object d'amour were taken
from you?

Yes, prohibition counts too. ;-)

(I think that for me, it would be writing or
television. They already cancelled Port Charles. *
sniff* Thank ghu for reruns!)

PROMPT response: Synopsis

I've enclosed a few links to synopsis writing here;
there have been a few schools of thought on writing
novel synopses, and it is commonly accepted that you
write them in third person, present tense, so it's like
the action is happening here and now.

Some synopses may read like short stories. They start
with a key phrase or question, something to catch an
editor's eye, then lists your main character(s) and
gives a bare-bones framework of the main plot. Just sit
down for five minutes and write something liek a
synopsis. Let's say, for the sake of argument, that
you write it something like:

Can someone write a novel synopsis in five minutes:

Joe Blow from Idaho
An honest fellow from Hoboken (though with that name,
folks always teased him and he always hated it) has
five minutes to write the synopsis for a novel, but
he's never tried to write anything before in his life.
By day (even if he's on the graveyard shift), he's a
grocery store clerk.

The phone rings and Joe picks it up. It's a call from
his ex-wife and his kids are being held hostage at
K-Mart by some guy who's asking for a rocket to take
him to Mars or something, she's ot quite sure (Say
her name is Jane Doe, when they were married it was
Jane Doe Blow and may have been part of what led to
their divorce)....

Anyway, I think you get the idea. You think of the
basic story that you want to tell, then come up with
a crisis. Joe can have an average of three tries to
resolve the crisis, but it can be anywhere from two
to five, each crisis a bit more intense then the
previous one. The final crisis is what we call
the "black moment" or major point in the story.

I came up with that one just off the top of my head,
maybe being partway silly. Whether or not you plan to
write a book, see if you can write a synopsis for a
book that you might like to write, or something that
you might like to read (if not write). Have a little
fun with it.

LINKS:

Five Steps To Writing A Synopsis (by Vivian Teresa Beck)
The five basic building blocks to writing a synopsis.
http://www.vivianbeck.com/writing/tips/five_steps.htm

How do I write a book synopsis?
Writing a synopsis is sometimes harder than writing a book. Here are
some tips to writing a synopsis that sells.
http://il.essortment.com/synopsiswriteb_rqmx.htm

Lecture Three - Synopsis Overview
Generally, a short, 2-3 page synopsis is included with your query
letter. If the publisher likes this submission, the editor will
request a longer proposal, generally the first three chapters of
your work and sometimes a long, 10-15 page synopsis. As always, this
can vary from house to house so please follow the guidelines/request
of your target publisher.
http://www.canby.com/buzz/syn_lecture_three.htm

Mastering the Dreaded Synopsis - Condensing Your Novel (by Lee
Masterson)
Writing a synopsis is one of the most daunting chores a writer must
face. After spending months lovingly crafting a complex plot,
realizing and nurturing a cast of characters and painstakingly
selecting the right prose for descriptions, how do you then
summarize your masterpiece in just 2 or 3 pages?
http://www.fictionfactor.com/articles/synopsis.html

Outlining Your Script or Story by Thomas B. Sawyer
A synopsis is generally defined as a one-to-four page narrative
description of what happens in your story, told with some sizzle,
since it will likely be used as a selling tool –- to entice an
agent, publisher or producer to take a look at your manuscript.
http://www.writersstore.com/article.php?articles_id=105

WRITING THE SYNOPSIS (FOR FICTION) -- Farris Literary Agency, Inc.
The idea is to simply tell your entire story, from start to finish,
as briefly and succinctly as you can.
http://www.farrisliterary.com/tips%20for%20writers.htm#Synopsis

Writing The Dreaded Synopsis by Carolyn Jewel

http://www.carolynjewel.com/craft/synopsis.shtml
87
From: "Elizabeth Anne Ensley"
Date: Sun May 9, 2004 7:10am
Subject: PROMPT: Prompt

How many words can you get from the word prompt, aside
from romp and prom? Maybe you could write about a romp
at a prom (John, that might not be so hard for you,
knowing what you've told me of yours LOL). Maybe a
virtual prom (pROM?) or a prompt at a virtual prom
(pROMP). Heck, 'morphine' came to my mind, and that
only uses some of the same letters. ;-)

Take five minutes to get as many words as you can,
either from it of anything that comes to mind like my
getting that morphine for some weird reason. Use it
to spark something you can write about--maybe you're
reminded of an event from your own senior prom (I
never had one myself, so I don't). Maybe it happens
to one of your characters.

The most important thing here (and I always stress
htis, don't I?) is to have fun with it, see what you
come up with--even maybe a tribble prom or a lizard
prom, or... or even not a prom at all. ;-)

Subject: imPROMPtu: Ingenuous Response

Here's an extra, since I didn't think I'd be on today: create a
writing prompt.

Why am I asking you to create a writing prompt? Well, don't we all
have some problem area or areas in our writing that give us
problems? Your exercise could reflect that and suggest writing it--
an exercise in thinking outside the box. You know you need to work
on some aspect of your writing: if you were you, how would you
suggest working on it? *grin*

: i m P T O M P T u : Jotting something down

On one Y-list, we had a discussion about jotting something down on
paper when you have an idea. Something about "Boy meets Martian, boy
loses Martian..." Something along those lines. My own jots concern
character plotlines, usually.

This mission, should you choose to accept it *grin*L

1. Today, jot down the "something meets something" or some such
outline. It can just be an arbitrary thing, like "dog meets cat" or
some such, along those lines, I suppose that would be the basic
sketch of an idea.

2. Take a look at the very basic outline you did, and just label it
the elements in it. Give the characters names and some arbitrary
quirks, like "sings in the rain, shower, whatever", drinks coffee
black, enjoys peace, quiet, solitude... If you have two characters,
gfive them each at least one opposite quirk, like noise versus
quiet, party animal versus lone wolf.

3. Write something about a conflict between these two characters
involving the quirks.

You can have any variation of this story. "Man Versus Machine"
essentially makes the machine a character, and "man versus Nature"
personifies nature, like a hurricane, rain, sunshine, earthquake...
You get the idea. I think the earthquake thing might involve more of
a novel outline than a shorter piece, but that’s okay. A story about
sibling rivalry works, too, including the ever-waging Battle For The
Remote.

Sometimes, personality differences lead to conflict, and therein
lies the story. Have some fun with it, and I'll see y'all on Monday.

imPROMPTu: Hunger pangs.

How do you feel when you're really, really hungry? What are the
physical sensations you experience? Does it make your stomach move
around inside and feel as if you have an alien trapped inside,
waiting to tear through the lining and flesh to the world outside?
Does your stomach demand food, perhaps loud enough to be heard
several blocks away? Is your mind focused on the hunger, or can you
pay attention to other things? Does your focus waver from subject to
subject because the tummy keeps distracting you?

Describe a physical hunger. If that stumps you, there are other
types of appetites. I just thought of the food kind because I
haven't had any breakfast yet. *grin*

imPROMPTu: A Day in the Life...

Have you ever read a story where at its beginning the protagonist
woke and at the end they nodded off to sleep? Daily life isn't a
story unless something truly unusual, strange, horrific--different--
happens to the protagonist. A car accident, extraterrestrial
kidnapping and subsequent escape or adaptation to the alien society,
revelation of some kind (divorce, religious/antireligious. free
lunch when you usually didn't have one and what are they up to, and
so forth).

What can you cook up, if you began by letting your protagonist open
their eyes? Where would the day carry them?

Subject: InPROMPTu: Lost

This can relate to late, being lost. There's lost time, lost money,
lost child, lost inspiration, lost status, lost memory (amnesia or
Alzheimer's or even *shudder* a Senior Moment). There are lost
goals, dreams, life, death (like in "Meet Joe Black" or "Death
Takes A Holiday" or even a story about Death having amnesia, so that
would kind of be the LOST lost or the lost LOST), the lost (spilt
*sic*) milk or salt, derailed trains of thought... A missing
Christian could even be referred to as the "lost found" (if you have
ever heard the hymn Amazing Grace you might get that one LOL).

Something's lost. It could be something very important to you, which
would be tragedy; something you THOUGHT was important but you
realize that it's really not, but only after it's lost: something
that's not important to you, but that you find out was really
important ("for want of a nail..."); or else it could be something
that you don't really care about and don't really need, but every
darn thing that oyu see or hear around that particular time reminds
you of it (which borders on comedic lost). there are quite a few
things oyu could do with it, trying to tail an invisible man, even.

At any rate, whether you've lost your direction, your car keys, your
mind... I think you could get a story or sixteen out of it.

Please excuse me. I need to go get a cup of coffee before I start
writing. Enjoy!

Subject: Impromptu Prompt: Overdrive?

"I'm late! I'm late! For a very important date!"

I know, I've only seen the video, haven't read the book yet--but
sometimes you're just late due to circumstances beyond your control.

However, if your character is late, it could lead them straight into
an adventure or story, a string of circumstances which alters their
path. Can you think of any good examples of this in fiction, poetry
or real life?

Good, bad, or indifferent--tardiness happens, as do things
associated with it. At times, it could be advantageous...

Subject: Prompt for 29 April 2004: The Road Not Taken

Do you ever wonder what your life would be like if you had done that
instead of this? What about the opera singer who wanted to sell ice
cream from a truck when he was a child, perhaps because the ice
cream truck made him so happy when it came and for some reason his
life is miserable in the present day. The policeman who wanted to be
a fireman, the housewife who wanted to dance ballet... Heck, we all
have a 'what if', like me moving to Pennsylvania on the spur of the
moment in 1983 and getting married instead of going to Stony Brook
to study astronomy.

For yourself, for your character, think of the road not taken. Where
do you think that either you or your character would be today, if
you had taken that other road? You probably know at least a little
something that you could even extrapolate from your present day life
(like me and my poor eyesight, ROTFLMAO). There would have been
obstacles, of course, but have some fun thinking of ways that
perhaps you could have overcome them--or what you may have ended up
doing, if you started out on that other road and found that for one
reason or another, you couldn't travel that initial path and had to
choose, perhaps, a similar one.

Subject: Writing Prompt for Wednesday 28 April 2003: Reading

Reading might seem like a strange writer's prompt; however, you
might be surprised at the idea you can get from reading newspapers
or magazines, even from books. I'm not talking about plagiarism
here, but "what if". Even if I haven't worked with one particular
what-if scenario yet, the guy who barricaded himself and his family
in the closet and they committed mass suicide because they thought
it was the end of the world (doomsday scenario), even others, there
are so many what if factors involved with something like that. For
example, if someone in that family, that this was all in their head
and the world as they thought they knew it did come to an end and
the epilogue reveals that they lived in an alien society and this
world was all in their mind (of course, you'd have to foreshadow
this in snippets and scenes throughout the story). You could do
something silly, like the person they thought was their father, was
really an emcee in disguise for some show like "you bet your life"
(which could go either way, life or death). Maybe it would be that
the while thing was a reality TV show and they had to find a way to
save the extras, costars and bit players, not to mention the show's
star, without giving away the plot or scenario to the clueless star.

There are more scenarios that you could construct with such a
snippet. The point is reading, and letting your imagination decide
which idea you'd clip, copy or otherwise save and put in your ideas
file, the 'easy bake over' of the imagination, or whatever, and
cogitate and ponder. Perhaps a story would suggest itself right
away, perhaps it has potential and doesn't become an idea overnight.
The point of it is, you're gathering fodder for your writing,
whether or not you write an article, poem or story.

Good hunting!

Subject: Writing Prompt for Tuesday 04/27/04

As usual, a day late and a dollar short. ;-) No excuses,
even if I did go to the doctor's yesterday, then fell
asleep on the couch. Today will be busy, too. *sigh*

Anyway. have you ever tried writing a scene and found
that you were stuck, because you couldn't figure out
where you wanted to take it? I just had a scene outlined
with a creature (magical) studying half-understood human
books and speech because she was impressed with the human
who, ten years earlier, had helped to form a peace and an
agreement between her race and another one. She was going
to be visited by another of her species, one who disdained
books or anything else human; and while he wasn't going to
try to do anything now, because she's been accepted by a
previous leader and is useful only in one aspect to the
current leader of her folk, she knows that given half the
chance, he or any other member of her race would destroy
these borrowed tomes. It took me a couple of days to figure
out that before she does what the new leader wants, she
would come back and wrap these books There aren't many of
them at a time, since she's always worried about the
possibility that her folk might try to destroy them) that she
would pack and take them with her quickly when she's ordered
by the leader to deliver a message to the other species most
of whom aren't too keen on humans either, despite their
leader and a few others who have engaged in a study of
humans and even a mutually beneficial alliance, seeing as
one human is living among them and has even helped quite
a few of them), about an alliance and war against the humans.
It occurred to me that these books and her responsibility
towards the borrowed tomes and returning them would be
foremost in her mind. (The human language, thanks to several
factors became a language of commerce between the two diverse
species, and she’s the only one of her race who bothered to
attempt to study the language).

Anyway, when it occurred to me that the books were important
enough to her that she would go bundle them up so she could
return them to her human friend who is living among the ogres
and warn him of what the leader plans--war against humans.

It took a while to find a key element to start writing this
particular scene (set, actually, since it will involve more
than one scene).It's just as well, too; she might be a minor
player in the scheme of things, but she moved up from third
level helper (no VP) to second level (minor story arc and
viewpoint--the works). That's not what they call it in the
writing manuals, that's just what I call it--second- and
third-level characters. First level are the main characters--
protagonist, antagonist. They haven't called it that in the
writing manuals I've seen (yet).

You have something you're stuck on, right? I think we all do,
at one point or another: but look through what you do have,
what you want in the scene, poem, whatever, some common
element, something that you have clearly indicated is
important to your character. Perhaps you can use that
object or element as a crux for your scene? Failing that,
think about what's most important to you. What if your house
or apartment was on fire and you could take only one thing
with you. What is the most important thing to you? What
would you take with you to escape the fire? Why would you
take it? What is its value to you? I know it's a hard
decision for anyone to make; I made it simple for my
character since by their nature these folk have few or
no physical possessions. I guess it's figuring out what's
most important in life to an individual. If you're stuck
with a scene, though, something like this might help.

Writing Prompts List Extra: Writing Exercises

My bad, I know that I'm not very good sometimes, maintaining this
list and posting writing exercises. BTW, you all are also welcome to
post them too. ;-)

http://freelancewrite.about.com/c/ec/9.htm

What's that link? Why, it's for a daily 15 minute writing
exercise/prompt list type thingie that comes to your inbox.

Just in case y' all were interested...

Subject: Writing Prompt for Fri 23 April 2004: Writing Goals

http://www.writefromhome.com/writingtradearticles/320.htm

I began with a link to something called 'Writing From Home" or
some such. I just viewed it. It's an article (one of many) about
setting writing goals.

You all know by now that I'm pretty bad at that, myself. *grin* I
want to post a writing exercise here every day, but it's not easy--
two people using one computer, for instance (my daughter and me, and
so much for the DSL that AT&T does not offer out here yet. *sigh* I
mean, we could have gone wireless...)

Since it's Friday, I've tried to get these exercises to hold you for
the weekend, so it's the perfect opportunity to take fifteen minutes
to a half hour a day (or five minutes here and there on the toilet
or cooking dinner or even during the commercial breaks for American
Idol or something) to reflect on your writing goals. Where are you
in your writing, and where do you want to go with it? Do you just
keep a journal? Are you writing short stories for yourself, or to
submit them to a market ? Pro, semi-pro, 4theluv, what? Poetry? Are
you writing a novel? (I know that I'm working on one, and I've tried
to set a goal of one full scene per day, but it's a little hard to
get started when you're bogged down in detail. I have one scene that
takes place in a solar and I finished it yesterday, but it didn't
read the right way so I had to go back and find my notes so I could
sketch a bit more detail into it. Luckily, I don't have to do that
for all my writing LOL).

The major point of goal setting is to say you're going to do
something, and then just do it. You need to allow for flexibility in
the schedule, and you need realistic goals. For instance, say that
you have fifteen minutes to write something one day, twenty minutes
the next, forty-five on another day, and so forth. I think that with
the goal setting, you want to say that you will write for at least
fifteen minutes a day, which means that if you have a little more
time, you'll write for a little bit longer.

Think about your writing goals over the weekend, then take five
minutes on Monday at some point to write them down. They don't have
to be detailed plans, because you want to be able to read them
quickly, perhaps each morning while you're dressing for the day, The
important thing here is to set realistic goals, ones that you can
adhere to, that you can follow without looking at it, shaking your
head, and saying "That's too hard right now, I'll do it tomorrow"
only tomorrow stretches on towards infinity and it never gets done.

Granted, goal setting works for more things then writing--but htis
is a writing prompts list. However, if any part of this helps with
another aspect of your life, feel free to adapt, that's the
creativity of the human spirit. ;-)

Subject: Writing Prompt for Thu Apr 22, 2004 8:28 am: In The News...

You're aware of the news, right?

A mouse with two female parents, no male involvement, and no
cloning. That kind of thing can give rise to a lot of idea, like
the reactions of the mice (anthropomorphism), a human’s reaction to
it, alien reaction...

You're people, so you know how people think about it. Try to
free write a gut reaction to this or another news story, your choice,
your call. it might prove interesting...

Subject: Prompt for Fri Apr 16, 2004: Extreme Measures

I finally opened a forward from my sister Rose. I am not fond of
forwarding email, because it leads to unnecessary e-box clutter:
however, this one was innovative enough to make it part of today's
writing prompt. This is the forwarded email:

In a message dated 4/4/2004 12:42:04 PM Eastern Daylight Time,
PuttPutt5 writes:

An elderly man in Phoenix calls his son in New York and says, "I
hate to ruin your day, but I have to tell you that your mother and I
are divorcing. Forty-five years of misery is enough." "Pop, what are
you talking about?" the son screams. We can't stand the sight of
each other any longer," the old man says. "We're sick of each
other, and I'm sick of talking about this, so you call your sister
in Chicago and tell her," and he hangs up. Frantic, the son calls
his sister, who explodes on the phone, "Like heck they're getting
divorced," she shouts, "I'll take care of this." She calls her
father immediately and screams at the old man, "You are NOT getting
divorced! Don't do a single thing until I get there. I'm calling my
brother back, and we'll both be there tomorrow. Until then, don't do
a thing, DO YOU HEAR ME?" and hangs up. The old man hangs up his
phone and turns to his wife. "Okay," he says "They're coming for
Passover and paying their own airfares."

Silly, yes, but it worked within the context of the flash. It's a
story in and of itself, as well as a joke with a punch line, or
payoff.

This leads to the prompt. Has your character ever gone to such
extreme measures to accomplish something like the father did in this
piece? Would he or she? Try to think of something, some goal to be
accomplished, and then think of the zaniest resolution that your
character could apply to it.

Write on!

Subject: Prompt for Thu Apr 15, 2004 10:43 am: Chaos

What is the most chaotic scenario you can imagine for your
character? Are they space adventurers, afraid of spiders, on a
planet with intelligent and rational arachnid societies, perhaps as
ambassadors for the human race? Is it something as simple as 'for
want of a nail...'? Have some fun with it, whether or not you play
off your character's fears or un-preparedness--and if it involves
some aspect of the character's persona, so much the better.

(With luck, I'll post more regularly again--finally, a local access
number! LOL!)

Yet Another Irregular Writing Prompt

Again, apologies. We're moving this week, signing the lease tomorrow,
enrolling Terror in a new school and all that rot. AT&T will not turn on the
telephone until Tuesday (if they actually do turn it on, that is), so I might not get
to post another prompt for a little while. I still want to check on DSL too,
which would mean we could have a household wireless network and I would not
have to worry about begging computer time from my daughter any more. ;-)

There are many types of moves: changes in residence, school, emotional
state, from culture to culture, country to country. There are moves or shifts in
attitude, circumstance, or thought. Why not write a piece about a particular
move of your own, or of your character? (I refuse to think about a bowel
"move"-ment, but sometimes they can have a serious and profound effect too--or
some such. This time, I'm thinking about when my brother in law passed or moved a
gallstone while he was in the hospital. The little bugger had been vexing him and
they were getting him ready for surgery to remove it; but when it moved out of
his system, that meant he didn't need them to cut him open and take it out.
=})

: Today's Writing Prompt: Time

Hi! I'm not going to make any excuses and just state the facts. The phone
company turned off my telephone 10 days before they should have (on the fifth,
rather than the 15th, which was the day we were supposed to move, which also
meant that we lost the first apartment we were supposed to move to), and we're
moving one week from today. We've packed some things, but there never seems to
be enough time to get packing, writing, or sometimes even breathing done. ;-)
How do you. how does your character, cope with a time crunch? This goes for the
times that they have to make split-second decisions, too.

They do say that 'timing is everything', after all....

Subject: Writing Prompts for The Weekend

It seems I'm going to be all weekend, so I'm going to post three
short prompts and I hope that's okay. My sister is coming out for the weekend and
she didn't give us permission to use the computer inside the house. She's the
executor, so...

1. We all manage to get specific idea for characters sometimes, and from the
oddest sources. For example, in one story still in the process of generation,
I have a character that I had originally intended to kill off towards the end
of the novel. I looked for a good-sounding, descriptive word in the
dictionary, and settled on sepulchre, which is a type of tomb. I thought it would be a
little too silly to give a character that sort of name, so I altered it to
Sepelio. He's not a primary character, but a secondary one who plays a helper role
(albeit an important one) to another character. The way the character
developed, he's not going to die after all, but the name remains the same be
cause it sounds good, doesn't it? You may have an idea for a character type
but lack a name for him or her; if you have an idea from a personality trait or
from an intended destiny, take this opportunity to look in the dictionary for
some basic naming ideas. You don't have to restrict the words to English. Do
a little exploring before you decide on a name and on whether or not to alter
the word for your designs. How do you see this person? How tall, hair color,
habits, hobbies and interests, background, these kinds of things can be
important enough to play a role in their characterization. With luck, it shouldn't
take too long; you already had a specific characterization goal in mind while
naming the character.

2. Take the character that you created and write a scene with them in it.
Maybe you can have them in a coffee shop with some character or person that you,
yourself, have always wanted to meet. Keeping the persona of your character in
mind, and writing the other character or person in what you interpret as his
or her character, perhaps you can have them talking about who's going to pick
up the check, or some other dilemma. Pick a specific goal for the scene and
keep that in mind while you're writing it. Is your character hiring, or for
hire? Will someone excuse themselves to go to the bathroom and bail on the bill?
Would they fight each other, armed or unarmed, and the loser pay the bill? Will
they decide to split the bill? Will they both skip out before paying the bill?
Will they agree to meet on another occasion? You decide what the beginning and
the end of that scene will be, and on who your viewpoint character is, and
just write it straight through. Don't worry about making 'misteaks' in spelling,
since you're the only one reading it. ;-) Just report on it the way you see
it happening from your viewpoint character's perspective.

3. Write the same scene, only from the other character's perspective. Don't
worry about referring to the other scene to get facts in order, just write the
same basic thing straight through from the other character's viewpoint. (Yes,
this can be done in stanzas and lines too.) You can compare the two versions
afterwards and see how each one looks to you, perhaps which one you like
better.

The important thing there is the act of writing, but the process may give you
ideas for a story or three. Have fun with it, and don't be afraid to play
with it.

Subject: Prompt for 4 March 2004: Diary of a Madman/woman

This can be written either from your own perspective or the angle of your
character. Lots of things drive us a bit crazy. What do you think would drive you
or your character off thje deep end? Just for fun, write it up; you never
know when some part of it may be helpful, one day.

Subject: Random Prompt for Wednesday 3 March 2003: Plot & Character

Maybe I'll get better about posting prompts once we're finished moving. ;-)
Speaking of moving... Transitions in a character's life can be important when
it comes to writing a short story or novel; for the former, the character's
transition can be the tale. Whether it's a new job, a move, an abrupt
transition from one plane of existence to the next, put your character through a major
change. Whatever it is, I leave to you. Bring forward a member of the Spanish
Inquisition to the 21st century, possibly a church. Differences in language,
even though they might both speak the same basic one, could lead to some
confusion because of alterations in context and connotation. Even more confusing
might be a samurai from 500 years ago brought forth to present day Manhattan or
a Wall Street broker sent back to feudal Japan. Then again, could you
imagine one of the pilgrims having to deal with telemarketers? How would one react
to the 'magic' of a telephone or a television? There are other transitions
oyu could try, not just time-traveling ones. I've put them forth as major
examples of transitions. It could be as subtle as a petal or two falling from a
wilted flower (with or without a person pondering it who may have suffered loss in
his or her own life and trying to deal with it). It could be just about
anything. I'll let you decide, since you'd be the author. Liz.

Subject: Writing Prompt for Saturday 21 February 2004: Imagery

What we write can be inspired by physical surroundings. What we perceive is
often shadowed or colored by our mood. A dark room can seem like heaven or
hell, depending on the way you feel at the time.

I'm assuming that you have a story that you're working on--if you don't then
just grab a piece of paper and write something. ;-)

First, decide on a mood. How does your character feel, what is your
character's emotional state? If you don't have a location for the scene picked out or
anything, then you can use your kitchen or whatever passes for it. If you're
angry or upset, how do things look to you? What do you notice? If you're
confused, befuddled, bewildered... Pick a feeling, then try to place yourself in that
feeling and write things the way that your character would see them. More
goes into this then you think: this is where some of your character's interests
come into play. If they like to paint in their spare time they may use painting
analogies. If they write poetry, then poetic imagery. If they like racing
cars... Well, you get the general idea.

This isn't just a good way to display character, but also to describe
surroundings in your story. It's a way of interacting with your environment.

Subject: Prompt for Friday 20 February 2004: Fun and Games?

This, I can't help--it was on THE PARASITORIUM, another Yahoo list I belong
to, and they were having a discussion of a book of a collection of short
stories. Apparently, from what I gather, the book is either by Stephen King, or it
begins and ends with Stephen King. A story in it (or the book itself) is called
999, though the book is 666 pages. I mentioned that 999 was supposedly the
beast's intelligence (666 being the Beast), and someone said that 668 was the
neighbor of the beast. Of course, someone else mentioned that 669 was the number
for the Beast's sex life....

Other than beastly jokes, pick one of your favorite (or least favorite)
topics nd see how many jokes you can generate which relate to it: and remember, 333
is the Beast's scion, LOL.

Subject: Prompt for Thursday 19 February 2004: Once Upon A Time...

Write a parody of a fairy tale. Take, for instance, the
three bears, where you could have (after the main action of the story) the
woodcutter in Little Red Riding Hood hauled into court for stalking Little Red
Riding Hood, or having Goldilocks prosecuted for breaking and entering or for
trespassing. You can even tweak fairy tales by combining them, like mixing
Princess and the Pea with Sleeping Beauty.

Above all, try to have fun with it. Maybe there's even a twist on a fairy
tale that you would have liked to have seen, or an urban legend that you would
like to shuffle around a bit.

Subject: Prompt for Tuesday 17 February 2004

First, remember--it's only one month until St Patrick's Day. ;-)

Speaking of snakes, that's going to be the prompt today. Snakes Have fun with
it, it's open to several hundred interpretations, from erotic to catatonic.
There was a movie by that title. Medusa had snakes for hair. Plumbers use what
they call a snake to unclog a toilet. We call a conniver of some sort a
"snake in the grass". There are so many different interpretations of the word
snake, a lot more than I can list in this one email, so decide on something to
write, and have fun with it.

Subject: Writing Prompt for Monday 16 February 2004: What Is A Story?

Well, maybe the prompt title is a little misleading: it should be "What is a
story that you would like to tell". I want you to sit down and write a
paragraph with five sentences.

In the first sentence, I want you to write down who the story is about--the
name and the goal (want) of your protagonist. (Subsequent to this will be the
list of characteristics--who this person is, what they look like, how they act,
mannerisms, but that will be at your own leisure]).

In the second sentence, you need to consider the first obstacle. In the
third, a worse obstacle, perhaps even the worst obstacle for your protagonist to
overcome. In the fourth, think of a way they can overcome this obstacle.

The fifth sentence is the denouement, or the outcome of your protagonist's
success or failure in the course of this venture.

This is the most basic of outlines. The story itself can be written as either
poem or prose (Hi, John!). In a lot of writing books, they recommend three
obstacles; but in flash fiction, you can get away with the minimum in order to
serve your purpose (in this case, just writing something).

Since I mentioned that a lot of this is done with flash fiction, here's a
link to a diagram/website, Writing Flash Fiction Using Bubble Diagrams. A lot of
flash, or five minute, or postcard, or whatever you want to call it fiction
can turn into books in the long run, even a series of books. Trust me, I
know--I'm still working on one that began as a 500-word flash for one writer's group.
I've finally decided where and when the darn story’s supposed to start, I
already have to many notes and the like on it. *grin*. I have a 5000 word story
that began its life as a 450 word 'flash', too.

Flash fiction is a good tool for outlining a larger work, but the outline in
its most basic form gives a hard diagram for the storyline that you van work
with. The five sentence thing in itself is flexible enough to give you a firm
foundation to build on, and it's easy to write or type it to an index card and
put it by your computer for reference while you write, to remind yourself of
your writing goal for a specific story, whether short or novel length.

Subject: Writing Prompt for 15 February 2004: The Aftermath

Hi there! It's time for post-Valentine's stress syndrome prompts. Write something about 'the morning after', whether it's romantic or otherwise. Usually I'd say 'the morning after' something terrible, but if you're not in the mood, then make it a happy scene, just so long as you 'write on'.

Olio of Prompts II

2005-11-17T11:40:00.000-05:00

How do you think valentine's day would be celebrated by an alien race who, perhaps, are multicellular globs with no real circulatory system as we know it but who, perhaps, have picked up on the concept of valentine's day from alien visitors (namely, the human race), decide they like the concept, and adapt it to their species?

#

Here's a fun idea. You, of course, have your protagonists and your antagonists and all that, but has one of your characters ever written a love letter? I think it might be fun, and maybe even have your antagonist send (gasp!) a valentine to your protagonist. If s/he sends one, what kind would they choose? Sarcastic or saccharine? Would they draw hearts or a skull and crossbones, or perhaps a heart emblazoned with a skull and crossbones, on the card?

#

You know how you see the world, how you perceive it. When you read a story (short or series), you bring those experiences to the story, and identifying with the experiences of the characters in the novel engross you in the story.

One fun thing, though: no two people's experiences, no two people's reading, are interpreted in the same fashion. We all have sets of experiences, but even if we went though the same experience, we would interpret them differently from each other.

The same principle applies to our reading. The way I perceive what I read is not the same as the way that you perceive what you read.

This exercise is simple enough, and ongoing: when a part of the story really hits you, when it speaks to you, write it down, and write down (in other words, try to analyse) why it speaks to you. What was it that hit you about it? Even if it's an outrageous, non-reality based experience within the novel, think about the events whivh led up to that moment and then, think about and write down your own experiences and try to see if the similarity in the sequence in the books which led up to that minor apocryphal 'aha!' moment for you, try to find the similar math, or sequence-type thing, in your own life which lets you relate to the story, and to that 'aha!' moment.

They say that life imitates art. Well, sometimes art can mimic life. Where does the mimicry begin? ;-)

#

The aphorism states that 'a picture paints a thousand words'. Well, how many words can you use to describe a rose? You can't just cheat and call it a rose, you have to describe its appearance, its texture, maybe even the thorns on its vines. It can be white, red, yellow, any variety (and you may call it by the name of the variety, just don't call it a rose, LOL). Describe a rose, paint a prosaic picture of it as best you can.

#

There's a common object that we don't think about every day. Something that most of us take for granted.

How many of you have used a bowling ball? In a bowling alley, of course, with those bowling shoes that look so much like gym sneakers (at least IMHO). How does the bowling ball feel in your hands? Is it new, glossy or smooth, or is it's surface not quite so shiny (perhaps dull and scuffed) and pock-marked from much use? How do the shoes look and feel to your feet?

What do you see in a bowling alley? Try to describe it, including the people.

If someone argues in a bowling alley, what do they argue about? Is it usually about keeping score? Or do they argue and talk about work and other things?

Try to think of a scene or short story which could take place in a bowling alley. It could be humorous (say, to deter a Martian invasion-some contest of that nature), serious, speculative (can someone bowl in Zero-Gee? How?) or poetic (even, perhaps, haiku).

Above all, have fun writing it, and don't worry about the first draft. The rewrite's the important thing.

#

I read in another group (one of the Inkies groups) that when one of the folks on the lists runs into problems while writing a character, she switches the gender and writes the character from the perspective of that gender. If you don't have a story that you're working on right now, you can also take an established character from a book and write from that perspective. For example, let's say you choose Huckleberry Finn and use him for this writing exercise: she would still be the same person but, since you switched the gender, _she_, being a tomboy, would face some very different problems and issues in addition to the original plot. What kinds of problems and issues do you think Henrietta 'Huck' Finn would face? Or would you call her Boysenberry? Strawberry? Periwinkle? ;-) Or if you took a cue from fairy tales, what if the little mermaid or Rapunzel had been guys? Humor or not, sketch out a quick 'what if?' scene. You can write a poem about it instead of a scene, too (John, I know you like to write both humor and poetry, so... >=]).

#

I'm going to try something a little different this week. For one thing, this probably will take a week.

First, sit down and freewrite something. Choose a setting that you are familiar with, either from your own fiction or from real life. Write something that has a beginning, middle, and end if you can, but don't worry about particulars at this point. Try to do it in five minutes.

On Monday, think about what you wrote and divide it into five parts. You'll write the first part, the beginning. Try to set the scene with tangibles as well as setting the stage for your story-things that can be seen, smelled, heard, felt, perhaps even tasted.

On Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday, work on a different part each day. That's why I'm asking you to divide it into five parts. Have the character in your story interact with the environment in some way, for some purpose. If you have a cat as your character in act one, for instance, it could be chasing a dist ball around. In the first part it could be washing itself on the table next to, say, a telephone when it sees a dust ball rolling around on the floor. In act two it jumps off the table to chase the dust ball around, knocking the telephone either off the table or off the hook. In act three, the dial tone sounds, the cat chases the dust ball under a chair and swats it back towards the phone. In act four the dial tone stops, the cat chases the dust ball back towards the phone. In act five the high-pitched noise that comes over unhinged phones can sound right by the cat (you know how phones get when you unintentionally leave it off the hook), startling the cat into jumping on the table again.

Not that this would make an interesting story in and of itself, since you need other elements to make up a story, but it gives you an idea of what I mean: it could still turn into an interesting little story, depending on how it is written. Anyway, you don't need to use a cat, that's just an example.

On Saturday you'll read over what you have written with an eye towards any revisions you might have to make to the story.

Granted, it's a basic exercise in putting a story together, but this exercise might generate an idea or three for you. Happy (plot) hunting!

#

We all have villains, 'bad guys', antagonists. Was there a major (to them) event that made them this way?

I had one that actually had a two-part transition, the first when he overheard a conversation that he was never intended to hear and the second, when he was indoctrinated into a group which empowered him to split off from the main group and wreak havoc under his own power, a 'coming-of-age' to the dark side sort of thing.

Whether it's extreme like mine or on a more moderate level (something like overhearing an unfaithful partner, business or otherwise, or overhearing bad things that a so-called 'friend' might have been saying behind his or her back), what made your antagonist start to follow The Dark Side?

#

This is almost a surreal exercise. Using no capital letters or punctuation, write straight through, describing a dream or just freewriting something, perhaps a chain of association. Even if it's just a string of unrelated images with no transitions, just keep writing until you're all written out.

#

Minor characters can be fun. Sometimes, because we get so wrapped up in the development of a short story or novel that we neglect them horribly: then we start to wonder why they never call, write, or remember our birthdays. [-)

Take one of your minor characters out to lunch today. What are their table manners like? Do they cut their meat with their left or right hand? For that matter, do they even eat meat? Are they messy eaters, splattering and spraying their food? Or are they or fastidious ones, perhaps overly so, and disdain even a minor drop on the table?

What do you think they would talk about, what topic would they choose? For that matter, do they have a companion for lunch and have a dialogue with the other, or do they sit and mutter aloud to themselves, or do they hold a silent monologue or argument? How do they sound? Is their voice like the cacophony of shattering crystal or a low, pleasant murmur? Is it anywhere between those two extremes?

You never know what ideas you might come up with from this exercise, even if it's only for your own enjoyment. You may even get to like the character a little more.

Take a minor character to lunch today. It might make both of you very happy.

#

It's funny, how things work out. I always liked to play the piano, even though I haven't really played it since high school. In my imagination, though, I play the guitar. Not in real life: I only know a few simple chords and reading the music, well, fuhgeddaboutit.

I reached a personal epiphany a couple of days ago. My brother, who died in 1978, played the guitar like a virtuoso. His lifestyle was somewhat bohemian, uncluttered, and free.

I realized, finally, that the reason I play guitar in my own imagination is that I envied him that, and the guitar has come to symbolize a personal freedom that I've never known, will probably never know.

How about you? Have you (or your character) ever had one of those moments of realization? How and why did this come about? It might make an interesting story.

#

This is the reverse of a previous prompt. Take your bad guy and write about him doing something really, really good and totally nice.

#

Since you've been writing, you have a definite view of your character's alignment. I want you to reflect on your good characters, your "heroes".

What's the most evil thing that your good character has done? Write a short piece about it and explain the circumstances, no matter how trivial.

#

I'm listening to a recording of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy right now. I have always enjoyed the humor in it, the minor bypass through Arthur Dent's house and the hyperspace bypass through this arm of the Milky Way Galaxy and then progressing through the story from that point.

By a strange coincidence, I thought this would also make a good prompt, either serious or silly.

Friday, what do you think a person could hitch a ride with? A car? A dragon? An interstellar vehicle? An inter-dimensional vehicle? A time machine? Someone's back? Horseback, piggyback... Which one (or more than one) do you think would be fun to write? ("Fun" of course being a relative term). Pick at least two of them and write one on Saturday and one on Sunday.

Oh, yes, flying carpets are okay too, or flying croutons, doughnuts (or if you prefer the American spelling, donuts) (Of course, I should really talk, since I'm a crazy American LOL, but for most of my like I was more familiar with the former rather than the latter spelling). Crickets, kittens and lobsters work, too. The important factor in the prompt is the action of hitching the ride.

#

Pick an emotion. Any emotion will do. Let's say, for example, anger or calm. That's by way of example.

Next - what color do you associate with the emotion? Say, anger = red, red faces, the blood rushing to one's face, pulse rate ascending to an unknown crescendo. Or blue (for peace), calm, placid, clear pools, etcetera.

What odor might you associate with the emotion? Burnt roast, burnt toast, sweat, ... or jasmine, tulip, sandalwood, the smells of a freshly cut lawn or perhaps of coffee in the morning that you drink while reading the paper.

Write something based on those three things-emotion, color, aroma.

#

Have you ever wanted to write a book? If so, then what would it be about? Who is your protagonist? Who is your antagonist? What is their struggle? What is your story about?

Try to write a one page description of your novel--a synopsis. If you need help with this, I have links bookmarked at LinksAPlenty. If you spend a little time thinking about your story, it will help you to focus and clarify your idea.

Some people write these synopses and/or outlines in present tense, but at this point I would advise you to write it down however you think about it.

Friday, I'd like you to read it over for nay typos or chronological errors, to make sure that the copy is a clean one.

Saturday I would like you to fill out a character sheet for your protagonist. There are several that you can use, including at least one at the writer's library. Try to find out what makes him tick.

Sunday I want you to fill out a character sheet for your antagonist. Keep in mind that he or she will oppose your protagonist, so for the important emotions in your story you will need to set up some kind of difference or point of contention beteween them. A good example of this would be Hansel and Gretel (protagonist[s]) versus the witch (antagonist).

#

Imagine a telephone call. Your character just received one. It's the character you're currently writing (or, as the case may be, reading about). If it's, say, Bilbo Baggins in the Lord of the Rings, of course you'd have to write in his reaction to a phone call. *maniacal laughter resonates in the background*.

Bad news from home, over the telephone. If the character is at home, then it's a telephone call from a friend at the hospital or the police station. What happened? Was it an accident? A case of mistaken identity? Did they get caught doing something that they should not have been doing? Your viewpoint character receives the telephone call so the only cue they have is the sound of the other person/being's voice (if it';s a vidphone, the video portion is on the fritz). All they would see would be their own surroundings. How do their perceptions of their own environment change, thanks to the news?

#

If you're like me, you've daydreamed about winning the lottery. Make a list of everything that would o right for you with it--say, paying bill, buying a house, etcetera. Now, make another list. What are the things that could go wrong when you have so much money? Other than robbery (a real possibility), things like tax brackets and the like, plus maybe a few others that I can't think of at the moment.

When Sunday comes, write a funny story about winning the lottery using just about everything that could go wrong. Yes, if you want then it can turn out all right in the end--but throw all sorts of bad things against your protagonist. Make him or her work for the money, baby--even if it's only make believe. ;-)

#

I've been thinking about something.

On another list, they've been discussing "grubby apartment" stories (see THE TURKEY CITY LEXICON.
That list also issues a monthly writing challenge so I suggested it there. I'm going to suggest it here with a twist, mixing it with A SHAGGY DOG STORY to create the writing prompt for today.

The challenge for Tuesday, June 3 is

THE SHAGGY APARTMENT STORY

The challenge for Wednesday, June 4 is

THE GRUNGY DOG STORY

See what you can make of those--and have some fun with them.

#

Human error can sometimes be a good thing. A person could write a letter and then forget to mail it: and, if they had remembered to mail it, the consequences of whatever missive the letter contained might have had a deleterious effect on their lives.

For that matter, they could have been on their way to put in a job application at a place they knew without a doubt would hire them, but perhaps get sidetracked--and the business is closed because it was the front for an illegal 0peration and they also would have been arrested, had they worked there.

Such things are happy accidents. For your major character they're not so good, unless you use them as an excuse to send your character headlong into the main plot line. However, minor characters can have them (though if the happy accident is story related, so much the better.

What are you writing now? Is there any way to insert a purposeful "happy accident" into the piece, even if only just for fun?

#

I'm taking the lazy way (or the sensible) way out. Take three of the character sketches you wrote yesterday, one for each day, and write a scene using that character. Use the character sheet that you came up with, telling details and all, to find out how they would react in a situation.

The scenario is up to you. The point is to have some fun writing it as well as exercising your creative muscles.

#

Whether you commute to work or travel for a different reason, you must have taken a train at some point in your life. Of course, I hope you put it back when you were finished playing with it.

Today's prompt asks you to picture yourself on s train ride. Let's say that, perhaps, you're on the way to visit a relative or an old friend (almost as close as a relative, but in a different way). You know that the trains are crowded at this time of day, One person has a suitcase, another a guitar case, perhaps there's a college student or three. Business suits abound. What kind of stories can you come up with? What are the folks around you wearing? Is the guitar case worn but clean? Do you think that the person carrying it is a struggling folk singer or aspiring rock musician? A classical guitarist? A street corner musician? What do you think drives him or her? (Motivation)

Details can tell you some things about the people around you. Write about five quick character sketches for folks you can see around you, whether in your mind's eye or on your daily commute. I'm sure that you can come up with a story for any one of them, but this is an exercise in seeing and pondering.

#

DEUS EX MACHINA

Hi! No, I'm not referring to a story where a god or some random power comes in and saves everybody. Rather, it's the idea of the god in the box or in the machine (even in a twisted way, like in Harlan Ellison's short story I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream, which has a computer with delusions of deity).

How many ways can you put God in a box or in the machine?

#

Okay, other than bananas wearing tutus, here's a prompt I just thought up for Tuesday's writing exercise.

I want you to write an argument in first person present tense (in other words, happening in the "here and now"). I want this argument to be with a pink elephant. This can't be just any pink elephant, oh, no: I want the argument to be first person, present tense, with a pink elephant who is wearing, of all things, a spacesuit.

Ghu, do you think they come in jumbo extra large?

#

Hehehee. Construction, you say?

Well, you know the prompts on the dialogue and then the narrative I came up with, right? Well,

SATURDAY:
Construct a dialogue around a scene.

SUNDAY:
Using the dialogue as a reference for the scene, construct a straight narrative using absolutely no dialogue

MONDAY:
Try to fit the dialogue together with the narrative, like a jigsaw puzzle.

I'm so evil, aren't I? >=)

#

The rain pelted on the roof of the garage while the librarian pondered what her next prompt suggestion for the writing prompts list would be: if she could, she would have paced the floor: but the cane, hung from the back of her chair, gave a minor nod to why she wouldn't try it at this moment. Aside from which, she knew that many writer's groups recommended "@$$ in chair" as one of the oldest writing methods in the history of inscribed languages.

Then, it came to her: why not something where the author could use descriptive prose and, perhaps, thoughts and also the viewpoint character's perceptions to convey a scene? Say, a narrative challenge of sorts?

V

"Did you say that you wanted to try writing a story using dialogue alone?"

"Well, the limitations are restrictive, but it can be lots of fun."

"What do you mean?"

"It's a challenge to describe a situation or whatever in dialogue alone, using no narrative whatsoever."

"Liz?"

"Yes?"

"There's a bug on your shoulder."

"Very funny."

"No, seriously, there's a bug on your shoulder."

"Did it come via email?"

"How would I know?"

"Well, let's just hope it doesn't eat the page."

"Very funny..."

"Anyway, I hope you have some fun with this exercise."

"You say that all the time."

"Well, I _am_ the virtual librarian here."

"........."

#

DOGGEREL

You don't have to escape, run far away
It's an early writing prompt for Wednesday
take a bit of time, scribbling away
Just take several moments to rhyme today.
They don't need to match or make any sense
Just make up some words while you do progress
(Did I make much sense with this molderrel?
Rhyming in season with this doggerel)
So far as prompts for this Yahoo list go
The idea, say, is "write what you know".

I know--a horrible, horrible rhyme. The prompt today is writing something that rhymes. Granted, I tried to match up the syllables, but you don't have to: and I knw there are several hundred varieties and sub-varieties and micro-varieties of poetry. The idea here is just to create a rhyme and carry it so far as you will,

#

I ended up visiting the Surrealist Compliment generator for this one. I'll see if I can add the site to links later: but something about this random quote might just serve as a springboard for a story idea:

Your fingers sublimate into volcanic gases with the slightest cooling touch from the antennae of a passing lyre.

Olio of Prompts

2005-10-27T20:07:00.000-04:00

Date: Wed May 14, 2003 0:00pm
Subject: Writing Prompt for Thursday 15 May 2003: For The Birds. ElizabethAEnsley@aol.com

Imagine that you're a bird. What kind of bird would you be?

Think of the kinds of adventures you would face as a bird. What kind of predator would be after you? Would you be able to outsmart it? If so, then how would you get away from it? Helicopters and cars are not permitted (unless the bird finds a way to perch on one without falling off, LOL).

Have fun!

Writing Prompt for Tuesday 13 & Wednesday 14 May 2003

Tuesday 13:
Today's might be a little short. I just want to you write three
paragraphs about how you feel right now, then put it aside until
tomorrow.

Wednesday 14:
First, write up to three paragraphs about how you feel today. After
you're done, read what you wrote yesterday: how you felt then isn't
exactly how you feel today, after all. Try to write a story using
those feelings, moving from yesterday's feelings to today's for your
character. How do you think s/he got to here from there?

Writing Prompt for Monday 12 May 2003: To Sleep, Perchance To dream

You know the old joke about dreaming that you ate a
marshmallow and when you woke up, the pillow was gone?

Have you ever had a vivid dream? What if you woke up,
only to learn that it wasn't a dream? What if it was
life and this was the dream? Only, of course, you
don't remember anything about your life there becuse
it's all been lived here? What kinds of adjustments do
you think that you would have to make?

Subject: Writing Prompt for Saturday 10 & Sunday 11 May 2003

"Mystery Ape Discovered: Scientists Baffled Groups of Giant Chimps"

That's the news blurb on the AOL welcome screen at the current time.
Sounds like a crazy headline, doesn't it? Then again, just a couple
of days ago (I think it was off the California coast) they found a
new type of sea life that's big and red and... well, it's 4' big but
it's a deepwater creature.

We seem to be uncovering new life forms on our world.

What if... Say, what if scientists reported on the news that they had
found a colony of rare, winged horses that coud actually fly? Or a
lost amazonian tribe with snakelike hair? How do you think the news
reports would run? Think of a first contact situation with a creature
that might heretofore have been thought of as mythological but which
might turn out to have a basis in reality? Yes, it can be a story
about a banshee or a kraken too--or anything.

(Now I have to get rid of the image of El Chupacabra sitting in my
living room, smoking a pipe and talking about the goat he had for
dinner last night.)

Subject: Writing Prompt for Friday 09 May 2003: The trouble with levitation

Suppose you were walking, and then suddenly you stopped. Suppose your
legs were still moving, but they weren't landing on the pavement.
Suppose that no matter how quickly you tried to walk, no matter how
fast your legs move, you were propelled as if you were walking
through thick molasses?

Gravity not only keeps us rooted to the ground, it lets us move on
sidewalks, climb stairs... many things. How would your character deal
with the lack of gravity in a familiar environment--say, the kitchen
or bedroom, or perhaps the bathroom?

Subject: Re: Writing Prompt for Wednesday 07 May 2003: The best of times, the worst of times

- "Disgorge thy tidings," languourously bade the prince.

This one just seemed like a fun line to use as a writer's prompt. I
don't know from whence the line came, but it's from the third book in
a fantasy trilogy. Someone posted the line to another list and it
made me think of a vomitorium, where you would "disgorge thy tidings"
when overfull of belly.

It did seem like a fun prompt, so... enjoy!

Writing Prompt for Wednesday 07 May 2003: The best of times, the worst of times

What's the best thing that ever happened to you? Write a paragraph or
so about it (more if the muse moves you).

What's the worst thing that ever happened to you? Write a paragraph
or so about it (more, if the muse cracks a whip LOL).

Your challenge today is to write sometyhing incorporating elements of
both the best and worst times and see what you can come up with,
fictional or factual. What if both happened on the same day? Perhaps
at the same time?

Writing Prompt for Monday 05 and Tuesday 06 May 2003: When Disaster Strikes

Write something about a major disaster happening and how a character
acts and reacts during the calamity. The disaster could be a meteor,
an earthquake, a nuke, a mass computer systems shutdown (a la, if you
recall, the great Y2K debacle nad what scared everyone about it).

Tuesday 06 May: Personal Disaster

From bankruptcy to personal injury, from finding out that someone
you'd thought of as a friend betrayed you (stealing boy/girlfriend,
job, et cetera) to finding out that you had inadvertently betrayed
someone, there's enough here to provide a good source of story
fodder. You have a wealth of personal experience at your disposal for
this prompt, so I think you can make good use of it.

Date: Fri May 2, 2003 10:35pm Saturday: THE NAME GAME

In many writing sources, names are an excellent resource for
characterization. For example, one flash fiction piece I wrote
recently figured a lunar transformation so the names I chose, Selene
and Oberon, both had something to do with the moon according ot one
naming database I used for my research.Here is a partial list of
online databases, resources for character naming.

http://www.homepagers.com/names/
http://ohme-ohmy.com/Name_%20Keepsakes.htm
http://www.incompetech.com/named/
http://www.behindthename.com/
http://unusual-baby-names.com/links.htm

One exercise you could try is to use the meaning of your own name to
create a character for a story. For example, the name "Elizabeth"
(that's mine) provides fodder for several that might spring to mind.
According to one resource I checked it means "God's Promise" so its
usage may be open to interpretation. I know that its origins are
rooted in Judaism. I also know that you can get Eliza, Lizzy,
Ellspeth, Betsy, Beth, Liza, Zabe (just an example of uncommon
derivation LOL) Lizab, Bessie, Betha, Livvy (yes, it is a common
nickname for Elizabeth, according to some books)

Let's make the exercise stretch over two days. Today, look up your
own name. Decide what character(s( you could create, using different
varuations of your name. What kind of person does the name suggest to
you? Can you picture the character as the star, or in a supprting
role?

Sunday: THE NAME GAME, part II

Look through newspapers, magazines and books. The name could even
come from an earlier story of yours. Find a name that you like and do
a bit of research on its etymology. Do the meanings suggest a story?
What kind of person is this? What form do you think this character's
fictional journey will take?

Writing Prompt for Friday 02 May 2003: Typos

Have you ever committed a typographical error which led to to a
different story than the one you were working on?

Typos can be one springboard to creativity. For example the
fannish "filksongs" at SF conventions were created thanks to a
typographical error. An "i" instead of an "o" and "folk"
became "filk". It's a genre all its own. (A "filk" is a parody of a
common song, BTW--such as "Smaug the Magic Dragon" rather than "Pull
the Magic Dragon"--a different song, though sung ot the same yune.
Think "Weird Al Parody" and Dr. Demento here, except I think the
genre predates them.)

Typos are pesky critters that can be found anywhere. Keep your eyes
on them, you never know what will turn up.

Writing Prompt for Thursday 01 May 2003: A Good Argument

Life is full of conflict and disagreement. Yes, there are wars, but
they usually start with some form of disagreement, some argument with
the other party or parties.

Write an argument / disagreement. Let it have a beginning, a middle,
and an end (if not a resolution). The end could be one of at least
three things--an agreement, one party wins over the other, or someone
decides to fight over it ("Might Makes Right").

Well, in this case "Write makes right"--try to write something about
it, LOL. And have fun!

Writing Prompt for Wednesday 30 April 2003: Twisted Sister

Today's writing prompt returns to a fairy tale.

Do you recall Cinderella? There was the original tale, which includes
one stepsister cutting off a toe while the other trims her heel, and
then there were lighthearted versions like Disney's own, both
animated and live versions.

Let's ponder the stepsisters. Yes, they were mean to their
stepsister, who they named Cinderella. They must also perhaps have
been in competition, one with the other, as well; this may well have
been fostered by their mother who, if memory serves, goaded them into
the self-mutilation to insure for what she thought was their own
future as princesses. If something like this had happened in real
life, these two rivals may have engaged in serious competition for
romance, promoting their own agendas and encouraged to do so by their
mother.

What kinds of conflicts do you think arose between these two rivals,
aside from the contest to see which of them would get to marry Prince
Charming? Yes, I know neither of them did marry the prince, LOL--but
this exercise is in characterization and in conflict. The arguments
between them could have taken many forms, fromwho would be a real
princess to who would inherit their mother's jewelry to who was the
prettiest of them. Write a story in which the two of them compete
over a common object--a hairbrush, makeup, a dress... something like
that.

Writing Prompt for Tuesday 29 April 2003: The Name Game

Have you ever thought of naming your character after a genre? Say,
for example, that you had a character named Mystery Smythe. Would you
make her (or him) a sleuth or secret agent, or would you go against
type and make him or her a starship captain or crewperson?

Just for fun take a genre of choice and write a scene using that
character in a situation. Set it at a bar, in a coffeeshop, library,
or starship. For that matter, have fun with it and write it, perhaps,
in a context that goes against the implication fo the character's
name. If you named your character Mainstream, for instance, what
could you picture for his or her occupation?

Writing Prompt for Monday 28 April 2003: Opposites Day

What genre do you usually write?

If you write horror, try your hand at writing its opposite. To my
mind, one of the closest opposites to horror might be humor
(although, like in the Nightmare on Elm Street and Buffy the Vampire
Slayer series, the boundaries may well blur from time to time). If
you write science fiction, try your hand at science fact; write an
article about something that may interest you, whether it's the basic
principle of rocket propulsion or about the process of
photosynthesis, or anything related to science. If you write fantasy
(you know, fantastic worlds, dragons, elves, fairies, sprites,
leprechauns), why not try to write a short romance? Children's
fantasy? Why not drama about a "grown up" problem using mature
characters?

I think the same thing may apply to recipes. If you're stuck creating
one dish, if you lack a certain spice, don't you sometimes try
another one? I've brewed regular coffee with cinnamon and with some
vanilla, but allspice adds a unique and satisfying flavor all its own
to the brew.

Sometimes, when your writing hits a slump, taking a break like this
may help revitalize your writing. You may even find something else
that you like to write.

Writing Prompt for Wednesday 23 April 2003

Writing Prompts
===============

Thursday 24 April 2003:

Try writing a piece with the feeling of passion and
the color red or shades thereof. What can you come up
with? It doesn't have to be a naughty piece, y'
know--folks are passionate about causes and the like.

Friday 25 April 2003:

What's the worst thing that you could imagine
happening to you in high school? It doesn't have to be
anything that really happened, this is just a "what
if" scenario, but it should be something that you,
personally, would have dreaded or do indeed dread. Try
to write a short story or scene around that event. It
doesn't need a resolution (yet) but do your best to
handle it and if a solution comes, all well and good.
Otherwise, put it aside after you get it down and
maybe we can return ot it at a later date--say
"unfinished business" day.

Saturday, April 26, 2003:

If someone offered you a ride to another planet, free,
in a flying saucer, would you believe them or not? Why
or why not? Try to write something along that line,
whether real or phantasmagorical.

Sunday, April 27, 2003:

Yes, we know that ET phoned home. What happened the
last time you had to phone home? What if there was a
storm and a flash flood watch and the phone you wanted
to use wasn't working? What if you really, really had
to call home and your cell phone died on you? If
you're in the car in a storm and you see this unknown
shadow shadow on the road... Try to write something
using that scenario, serious or humorous.

Writing Prompt for Wednesday 23 April 2003

Let's try something a bit different today, shall we?
Write a little story set in a haunted ice cream
parlor. Who would haunt an ice cream parlor, and why?

Writing Prompt for Tuesday 22 April 2003: Scary Stuff

What scares you? Spiders? The IRS? Blood? Hollywood?
Madonna? The Osbournes? The Osmonds? Take that feeling
and try to turn it into a story with one of your
characters. Describe the feelings of fear that you get
with such a thing, translate them to your character.

You can use colors and objects as symbols. I think if
it's going to be a fear of blood you might want to use
lots of reds as part of your description. See the fear
as well as feel it. In essence, _be_ the fear for your
character.

Writing Prompt for Monday 20 April 2003: The Crutch

Called an addiction, a crutch, a support, whatever you
call it, it's something that we rely on to help us get
through the day. There are the actual ones (crutches,
canes, mobile supports of any type), the lighter ones
(coffee, that morning cigarette, et cetera) to the
darker ones (from heroin or crack addiction to S&M and
beyond).

Whatever the genre you write, there will be some form
of crutch you could use to support your story or add a
characterization. Try it, write a bit around it; who
knows what you'll come up with.

Writing Prompts for Saturday, April 18 and Sunday, April 19, 2003
Saturday, 18 April 2003: Broken mirrors

Between disillusionment, shattered creams and Lewis Carroll, we have
the prompt "broken mirrors" (Yes, I know it's also the theme for a
flash/anthology, but I liked the analogy). This might be fun to play
with and see what you can create using that analogy or object.

#

Sunday 19 April 2003: Games

What kind of games do you like to play? What if...

Regards,
Your virtual librarian.
8
From: Stark Raving Mad Onna
Date: Thu Apr 17, 2003 10:06am
Subject: Writing Prompt for Friday, April 17, 2003: Childhood Heroes writers_libr...
Offline Offline
Send Email Send Email

We have all been children. Surely there must have been
at least one person who, when you were a child, you
admired and emulated. (Personally, one of mine was Mr.
Spock from Star Trek; also, my oldest sister, although
I didn't do so good a job mimicking her, LOL).

Who did you admire as a child, and why? What qualities
did you see in them that you admired and perhaps
wanted to emulate?

You can use this exercise when generating a character
in your story or stories, too; who did they admire,
why did they admire that person. I think this exercise
might help you get into the head of your character
just a bit more and help you to bring that character
to life on the stage of your tale.

Subject: Writing Prompt for Thursday, April 16, 2003

This prompt is just the fantastical; play with it, use your
imagination and see what you can write for it.

What if, for some reason, your tax refund was one million dollars?
It's not much, but you could have fun with it.

Make a list of the benefits. For every benefit that you list, try to
think of a liability. Let's say that one benefit is that you get to
pay off your bills. One liability is that you have friends you never
even heard of, trying to sell you things like the Brooklyn Bridge.

The Brooklyn bridge is an exaggeration, but you know what I mean;
honey attracts flies, flame attracts moths, money attracts--what?

Write a story about the pluses and minuses, the positives and
negatives. These are opposites and they're supposed to make for good
stories; even if you don't have the money, you can have some fun with
it.

Regards,
Your humble moderator.

Subject: Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday Exercises

Monday:

Look through a newspaper for an article that catches your interest.
Why did it catch your interest? write a story about whatever hapened
in the article.

Tuesday:

Watch the news on television or listen to it on the radio. Did
anything that was mentioned on the news catch your interest? Why?
Write a story or scene around it.

Wednesday:

Read your horoscope. Seriously--even if you don't beleive in
astrology, it does provide some interesting character profiles. Look
up the general profile for your sun sign and write a character sheet
using those traits. Then write a scene for the characte rin a place
where (with those character traits) you would not normally find them.
Perhaps a Leo as a bookkeeper or a Virgo as a lion tamer. What
motivated your character to do something that would be considered
very different from the type of person that they are on their profile?

Have fun!

Regards,
Your humble moderator.

Subject: Weekend Exercises

Saturday 12 April 2003

Put a usual character in an unusual situation (Gandalf meets, say,
The Powerpuff Girls or Elric meets Spock). This is just a minor
exercise in a situation where characterization is important. How
would they react to Mojo Jojo or Harcourt(?) Fenton Mudd stealing the
One Ring?

Sunday 13 April 2003

Use these word- to craft a scene;

brick
shed
lunch
hammer
baking
oven
twilight
gather
apart
together
shame
glory
musty
bologna

Have fun!

Subject: A prompt for 11 April 2003:

Write a scene or story using these images.

Rag doll
Rice bowl
Radio

Dominant color: Brown

Key image: mouse

Subject: A prompt for 10 April 2003: Young at Art

Take a fairy tale and turn it on its ear.

For instance, have Cinderella save Prince Charming form the wicked
stepsisters, or sleeping beauty try to wake the Prince with a kiss
and, when it doesn't work try something else (like turning on a
football game or something).

The idea of this is a "what if" circumstance. You can even
take "Beauty and the Beast" where Beauty is the guy and Beast is the
Princess.

Subject: A prompt for 9 April 2003: Snow job

Write a story about a snowstorm or a blizzard, whether
expected or unexpected. Key to the snowstorm (real or
anticipated) are snow, ice, cold, wind. Sledding,
skiing, skating are okay, too.

Subject: A prompt for 8 April 2003: Sensory Deprivation

Write something using color, odor, texture. Set it in a place--a
library, a garden, in the kitchen. Add an element of the unexpected
from one of the sensory descriptions.

Writing Prompt for /friday 16 May 2003

2005-10-27T19:58:00.000-04:00

Imagine that you're walking into your living room. You already know what's there, so this part should be easy.

Now imagine that you're angry when you walk into your living room. How does this affect the way that you perceive whatever's in your living room? How does it change the way that you see things?

Writing Prompts for Saturday 17 and Sunday 18 May 2003

2005-10-27T19:57:00.000-04:00

Saturday:

Imagine that you're walking into your living room. You already know what's there, so this part should be easy.

Now imagine that you're very sad when you walk into your living room. How does this affect the way that you perceive whatever's in your living room? How does it change the way that you see things?

Sunday:

Try to use a transition in feeling, similar to the last two exercises, into a story. Picture your character in his or her surroundings. First they will walk into the room angry, then later sad. The story will be about how the character moved from angry to sad--or the reverse if you prefer, saf to angry. Why? What happened to make him or her have this reaction, this change in the way they perceive their own reality?

Random Writing Prompt from Monday 19 May 2003

2005-10-27T19:54:00.000-04:00

Describe the world as you see it from your porch tonight. How does the twilight/dark make the colors look? Describe the streetlights, the traffic, maybe the odors as well as the sights. You can also describe it from your window if you don't have access to a front porch.

2005-09-30T19:19:00.000-04:00

You Are Balanced - Believer - Empowered

You feel your life is controlled both externally and internally.
You have a good sense of what you can control and what you should let go.
Depending on the situation, you sometimes try to exert more control.
Other times, you accept things for what they are and go with the flow.

You are a true believer in luck, fate, and karma.
You believe that life is a game of chance - not a game of skill.
You either consider yourself very unlucky or very lucky.
No matter what, you don't feel like you can change the hand you were dealt.

You have a good deal of power, but you also know the pecking order.
You realize that working the system does get you further.
You know who to defer to and who to control.
When it comes to the game of life, you play things flawlessly.

The Three Dimension Luck and Power Test

Levels of Horror

2005-07-25T06:54:00.000-04:00

LEVELS OF HORROR

by Elizabeth Anne Ensley

I know that Dante's Inferno had nine levels of Hell; but how many levels of horror do you think exist in the genre? I suppose this could be divided into types, say:

Psychological/suspense - Much of Hitchcock's movies seemed to work on this level. (Suggested by Darrell Pitt)

Gore
* Splatter films like Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Friday the Thirteenth, Halloween (no relation to Al).
* Comedic -- I'm thinking of the Nightmare on Elm Street series here. Even though I saw V before this so the image of Robert Englund as the word-twisting but nice-guy Visitor never left my mind, the character-driven one-liners of Freddie Kruger (though horrifying in the context of the story) always cracked me up. Humor in horror...
* Fantasy -- even in some writing as well as in the cinema, the blood-soaked scenery shines through, especially if you've vicariously lived through the carnage.

Retro - Lovecraft, Poe - suggested by Cathy Freeze

Dark
Urban

Supernatural
* ghosts
* ghouls
* witchcraft
* psychic
* alien

~#~

"Also, I wonder where the differentiation is between horror and fear. Is horror signified by something that is shocking and `horrifies' the reader? What is the definition of horror?"

~ Darrell.

"I consider Fear to be a biological response, an activation of the sympathetic nervous system--the fight or flight system. Fear is an immediate gut reaction to a threat.
Terror is primarily psychological. Fear has to be there too, but terror is about expectation, about that something that is ABOUT to happen, and you don't know from where it's going to come.
Horror is where fear and terror meet. Horror is when you have both fear and terror and are face to face with either the thing itself that is threatening you, or with clear, visible signs of its handiwork, as in a dead body. I think that horror always has an element of disgust to it."

~ Charles

~#~

Liz,
I dunno if this qualifies as a separate level of horror or not, but to me the character-driven horror tale has always been very powerful. This could very well fall into the "psychological/suspense" genre. I'm thinking of tales such as "A Rose for Miss Emily" by William Faulkner, or maybe "The Open Window" by Saki (H.H. Munro). I tend to separate those types of tales from the work of Hitchcock, for example, but that may just be me.
You probably already know this, but Stephen King has an interesting discussion of the horror genre in his book "Danse Macabre."

Thanks,
~ John Puckett

Commentary is fully welcome. I think this will forever be a work in progress.

The Tripods Boxed Set

2005-07-01T13:31:00.000-04:00

The Tripods Boxed Set of 4: When the Tripods Came/ the White Mountains/ the City of Gold and Lead/ the Pool of Fire [BOX SET]
by John Christopher
(on AMAZON.com).

Random Natter

2005-06-28T10:34:00.000-04:00

The highlighted random proportions
The unsolicited apportions
Of deeds truly perverse and malign
Are happenstance wicked and malign.

Writing Prompt for Wednesday 15 June 2005: Dream Catcher

2005-06-15T12:41:00.000-04:00

A monster, a cat, a plague o'both your houses!
It is to me that I am fortune's pack saddle.
Shakespearean Insult Generator

Jacinth.
Flowery Name

In the nursery of piety the ghosts test,
Poetry First Line Generator

The unusually subdued, Scottish librarian who skyrockets in golden spaceships, and claims to have been abducted by aliens.
Instant Prompt

"Think about all the birds you've seen--from songbirds to hunters. Compare one or more people you know to different types of birds in a piece of writing."
Prompt Generator

I included several prompts, this time out. I know that I have been notoriously bad at updating: but I also thought that if you wanted to combine one of the two, it it strikes a chord within you, then it would be A Very Good Thing. From the Shakespearean Insult Generator to the resident one on Writing Fix, this is a good sample of what's available.

I think that tomorrow, if Terror gives me the change (no more full days of school, you see) I'll try to post something from the newspaper. That is also a good resource for writing prompts and stories.

--
Regards,
Elizabeth Anne Ensley
snapes_angel
liz_ensley
on writing dialogue, she exclaimed: A few basic rules about writing dialogue.

Which Doctor (from Doctor Who) Are You?

2005-06-07T18:12:00.000-04:00

You are the fourth Doctor! You're certainly the
most popular. You've got quite the bohemian
sense of style, and you never met a scarf that
was too long. You have no qualms about playing
a bit of a buffoon, but your carefree nature
turns into steely resolve in the face of
danger.

Which Doctor (from Doctor Who) Are You?
brought to you by Quizilla

Star Wars Horoscopes

2005-05-16T13:15:00.000-04:00

From blogthings:

Star Wars Horoscope for Virgo

You show efficiency when working for a good cause.

You tend to be a bit fussy when it comes to doing something out of the ordinary.

Like many Virgos, you want to stay out of the spotlight.

You do well at picking up the smallest details.

Star wars character you are most like: C3P0.

What is Your Star Wars Horoscope?

Eye See You (flash-in-the-pan horror)

2005-05-13T08:26:00.000-04:00

          Guy Metrey put the dismembered remains of his neighbor into the walk-in freezer. All except the head. He was going to take that and have it mounted, yup. He wanted a souvenir of the hunt. He closed the door and brought the head to his trunk, where he carefully began wrapping it in wax paper to put it into the ice-filled cooler.
          The eyes on his former neighbor's head stared accusingly at him as he wrapped it. He bent down to whisper, "Icy you," into the lifeless ear. But as the ax fell to cut off his own head from an unseen enemy, he heard a maniacal cackle behind and to the left of him.
          Felled in his prime by someone who wanted to get a head in life...

LEVELS OF HORROR

2005-05-13T08:16:00.000-04:00

LEVELS OF HORROR
by Elizabeth Anne Ensley

     I know that Dante's Inferno had nine levels of Hell; but how many levels of horror do you think exist in the genre? I suppose this could be divided into types, say:

Psychological/suspense
(much of Hitchcock's movies seemed to work on this level) (suggested by Darrell Pitt)

Gore
the splatter films like Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Friday the Thirteenth, Halloween (no relation to Al).
* Comedic -- I'm thinking of the Nightmare on Elm Street series here. Even though I saw V before this so the image of Robert Englund as the word-twisting but nice-guy Visitor never left my mind, the character-driven one-liners of Freddie Kruger (though horrifying in the context of the story) always cracked me up. Humor in horror...
* Fantasy -- even in some writing as well as in the cinema, the blood-soaked scenery shines through, especially if you've vicariously lived through the carnage.

Retro (Lovecraft, Poe - suggested by Cathy Freeze)

Dark
Urban

Supernatural
* ghosts
* ghouls
* witchcraft
* psychic
* alien"

~#~

     "Also, I wonder where the differentiation is between horror and fear. Is horror signified by something that is shocking and `horrifies' the reader? What is the definition of horror?"
Darrell.

From theparasitoruim@yahoogroups.com:
     "I consider Fear to be a biological response, an activation of the sympathetic nervous system--the fight or flight system. Fear is an immediate gut reaction to a threat.
     Terror is primarily psychological. Fear has to be there too, but terror is about expectation, about that something that is ABOUT to happen, and you don't know from where it's going to come.
     Horror is where fear and terror meet. Horror is when you have both fear and terror and are face to face with either the thing itself that is threatening you, or with clear, visible signs of its handiwork, as in a dead body. I think that horror always has an element of disgust to it."
Charles

~#~

     Liz,
     I dunno if this qualifies as a separate level of horror or not, but to me the character-driven horror tale has always been very powerful. This could very well fall into the "psychological/suspense" genre. I'm thinking of tales such as "A Rose for Miss Emily" by William Faulkner, or maybe "The Open Window" by Saki (H.H. Munro). I tend to separate those types of tales from the work of Hitchcock, for example, but that may just be me.
     You probably already know this, but Stephen King has an interesting discussion of the horror genre in his book "Danse Macabre."
Thanks,
John Puckett

© Copyright 2005 CElizabeth Anne Ensley (Chaos Smythe) (UN: liz_ensley at Writing.Com). All rights reserved.
Chaos Smythe has granted Writing.Com, its affiliates and syndicates non-exclusive rights to display this work.

A Tale of Two Raindrops [second response to prompt)

2005-05-05T17:32:00.000-04:00

It was the best of rain, it was the worst of rain. The droplets fell upon the building like paws upon drumskins, the bark of thunder chasing after.

Charles Dickens (I might ont have it quite right but at least I tried).

First thing to prompt by a familiar poet

2005-05-05T17:27:00.000-04:00

The feline's fray
The houndish bray
The water's splash
The storm clouds clash.
-Anonymous

Writer’s Forum: WRITING PROMPT

2005-05-03T20:20:00.000-04:00

WRITING PROMPT

Rewrite a common phrase, such as "It’s raining cats and dogs," in the style of three famous authors (e.g., Stephen King, Nora Roberts and John Irving).

To post your response, visit the Writer’s Forum:

Change Your Voice

I'll try to poat a response to this soon. Terror's waking up now LOL.

From "Blogger Buzz"

2005-03-21T22:08:00.000-05:00

If you get the lighter one, you may have flashbacks from fifth grade gym class. Like the time I climbed all the way up the rope and froze. I should blog about that.

Hey, we never had gym uniforms when and where I went to school so no flashbackies for me. >^~,0^<

Holidays

2005-03-18T09:06:00.000-05:00

     We have days set aside devoted to different events such as St. Patrick's Day (to honor an historical figure we celebrate the demise? I'd heard this was the say he died. Or is that just the ase with Saints?). We have more local holidays such as Independence Day on February 4 (dedicated to our country's freedom) and Thanksgiving (the first party in the New World [i.e., the United States]) and Bastille Day on July 14 (the French symbol of the monarchy's end and the beginning of the First Republic).
     If you're worldbuilding, holidays can sometimes help to move the story along and provide a plot point, depending on the action. If you're not worldbuilding but instead writing reality-based fiction or nonfiction, if action takes place during a holiday it will have some effect upon the action.
     If you're writing a fictional piece right now, then what would a holiday celebrating your character be like? What would be the point of the celebration? If non-fiction, then choose someone very important to you, whether historical or contemporary, to create a holiday for; why would you create the holiday? What would it celebrate, and why?

Regards,
Elizabeth Anne Ensley.

What's your Irish Name?

2005-03-18T08:44:00.000-05:00

Your Irish Name Is...

Alannah Connolly

What's your Irish Name?

Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes

2005-02-13T08:54:00.000-05:00

   We're only human.
   Sometimes there are things about ourselves that we don't like very much. We would change these things if we could -- assuming, of course, that we can not in fact change them.
   Look at yourself. Is there something that you would like to change about yourself? Why? If not, then why not?
   Now take a look at a character. It can be one of your original characters, or it can be a character from a book or short story that you have read. Do you think that the character has something -- a habit, a physical feature -- that s/he would chnage, if given the opportunity or the predisposition to do so? If so, then why? If not, then why?
   Enjoy!

Regards,
Elizabeth Anne Ensley.

The Serendip

2005-02-11T09:42:00.000-05:00

     Liz hobbles into the Serendip with her cane, hoping to find some semblance of sanity.

     The Mad Hatter chases the March Hare Around the table, screaming "It's a madhouse! A madhouse!."

     Shaking her head, Liz turns and hobbles back out again. The portents had been correct: this was going to be A No Good, Very Bad Day. At least it's not snowing...

A snowflake? Several? Uh, oh.....

[GENRE_CHARACTER] Rounded Secondary Characters

2005-02-10T09:34:00.000-05:00

      To make your minor characters more real, give them a life. *grin*
      No, not full, major character development. I'm thinking more along the lines of a hobby or interest. It can add a dimension to your story, a depth that it otherwise might lack.
      Take the Harry Potter series, for example. We have Professor Severus Snape, the Potions Master at Hogwarts. He teaches potions, seems to be passionate about the subject. We also know that he (apparently) does not like most of his students very much, at least in some respects, although he does seem to favor those students within his own House.
      Professor Snape teaches at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. He is apparently possessed of a sarcastic wit and a logical, ordered mind (sans pointy ears and Vulcan blood). He also has a deep-rooted dislike of one Mr. Harry Potter, possibly because Harry so strongly resembles his father (an old school rival from his own days as a student at Hogwarts). In the first book, he serves as a red herring to draw our attention away from the real antagonist, in the second, we learn that he craves recognition for his accomplishments, in subsequent books we learn that he was a double agent and a spy, keeping track of the movements fo the antagonists for the protagonists, and possibly vice versa.
      He also has a strong interest in the Dark Arts. He applies each year for the position of instructor for the Defense Aganist the Dark Arts or DaDA, position. So far, he has not won the position.
      Some secondary characters are more well-rounded than others.
      There are still two books yet to be released in the series: the Half Blood Prince (due for publication in July of 2005) and the final book (yet to be written). With each book, Professor Snape, who started in the first book as a minor character, has grown in importance within the plot. That's actually not bad for a non-major character.

Regards,
Elizabeth Anne Ensley.

      (In the HP films, the character of Professor Snape is portrayed by Mr. Alan Rickman (Galaxy Quest, Truly Madly Deeply, Mesmer, Dogma, and Dark Harbor are just a few of his movies).

Random Thoughts: Doppelganger

2005-02-05T14:09:00.000-05:00

01. 02. 03. 04. 05. 06. 07. 08. 09. 10. 11. 11. 12. 13. 14.

*** PARANORMAL SEARCH ENGINE ***          Occultopedia

     Doppelganger's twin is very light
          Copier is mimic's delight
               Raging waves of sand
                    Colourful, not bland
                         A double scoop is aught in our sights.

Inane Limerick? Right....

2005-02-04T23:50:00.000-05:00

Restless, windy night
Filled with plaintive howls of wolves
Scattered to the wind.

"What The HP Cast Thought of You"

2005-02-04T23:46:00.000-05:00

What the cast of harry potter thought of you by Londonchick05
Dan saw that you	were too hot for words
Rupurt thought that your	snogging abilities were too good to be true
Emma wanted to	tell you a secret
James/Oliver wanted you to	join the cast for dinner
Tom said that	you looked like an idiot
Alan tried to	snog you
bonnie remembered	that you had unusually curly hair
Harry guessed that you	must be on a diet
name
age

Quiz created with MemeGen!

Bad Hare Day

2005-02-04T22:08:00.000-05:00

          There once was a rabbit named Peter
          Who told his young girlfriend he'd meet her
          In the cabbage patch
          Where they'd have a match
          And then find a decent two-seater.

A Really Bad Haiku [or Total Blank, Actually]

2005-02-04T09:30:00.000-05:00

     There once was a young Pagan named Tate
     Who believed in a matter of Fate
     Line, sinker and hook
     Were all that iy took
     For young Tate to hook up with the bait.

I am The Chariot

The Chariot often appears when hard control is or could be in evidence. At its best, hard control is not brutal, but firm and direct. It is backed up by a strong will and great confidence. The Chariot can mean self-control or control of the environment. This card also represents victory. There are many types of wins; the Chariot's is of the win-lose type. Your success comes from beating the competition to become number one. Such moments are glorious in the right circumstances.

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