Friday, December 28th, 2012  Today in 1895, the first commercial movie was viewed at the Grand Cafe in Paris, France. Admission was charged.
The film was made by two professional photographers, Louis and Auguste Lumier, who were goaded into creating a movie when their father saw Thomas Edison’s Kinetoscope, and told them they could do better.
(Let’s hear it for a little parental guilt!)
The movie was a series of short scenes of everyday French life.
It enthralled the public, and the rest is history.
Here’s Your Prompt:
- Write a scene as if you might be writing a movie script, rather than a novel or short story. Don’t worry about making a perfect script. Simply set the scene with a few paragraphs at the top, then write the dialogue.
- Part 2 from above: once you’ve written the movie treatment, turn around and write the scene as if for a novel or short story. Does the dialogue still work? If not, revise.
- Write a journal entry or essay on your favorite movie you’ve seen on the big screen. What about it seeing it in the theater makes it your favorite?
- In Cornhuskers, chapter, 28 Memoir of a Proud Boy, Carl Sandburg writes, “There is drama in that point: the boy and the pigs. Griffith would make a movie of it to fetch sobs…” Write about a movie bringing you to tears. What emotion stirred the tears? Why?
Good Luck!
Friday, December 14th, 2012 Give your character a deadline and you’ve got instant tension in a story. And without tension, you’ve got no story (or maybe no good story).
This works in real life, too.
Case in point: I gave myself a deadline of tonight to have all of my Christmas prep done: present buying, gift wrapping, house cleaning, card sending, etc. Talk about tension! And tonight’s a mad scramble: I’ve got about eight more presents to wrap and 30 Christmas cards to get out the door.
And I’ve come pretty close to my goal. But, alas, there’s one mail-order item that hasn’t arrived yet, and one more gift that hasn’t been bought.
Still: the next 10 days are going to be pretty relaxing around here. And that was my goal, to get it all done so that I could spend some actual time enjoying the holiday instead of making a mad dash in the weeks that lead up to it.
(You’ll want to give your character more dire consequences, however, if you want some real drama in your story. Kidnap his girlfriend and give him five hours to get the ransom money. Have a job hang in the balance, or a long-standing relationship, or a life.)
Here’s Your Prompt:
- Write a scene where your character is presented with some kind of deadline. Make the stakes high, and have your character really struggle to meet it. Don’t let the answer to the problem come from an outside resource.
- Write the “consequences” scene if your character doesn’t meet her deadline.
- Journalers: write about a deadline you made in the nick of time. Talk about what would have happened if you hadn’t have made the deadline.
- Write a poem about figurative deadlines…fall turning into winter, the end of a long life, a road that goes nowhere. Invoke the feeling of a deadline, but don’t use the word deadline.
Good luck!
Friday, November 23rd, 2012 Did you get up at 4 a.m. for all the door busters?
I didn’t. I’m not a Black Friday shopper. (Actually, I’m not a shopper at all. You won’t catch me in a Mall or Discount Store unless I absolutely have to be there. I can’t remember the last time I was at the Mall…)
Here are some of the 2012 Newspaper and Internet News headlines for Black Friday:
‘Gang fight’ at Black Friday sale…
Man Punched in Face Pulls Gun On Line-Cutting Shopper…
Shots fired outside WALMART…
Shoppers smash through door at URBAN OUTFITTERS…
Customers run over in parking lot…
Woman busted after throwing merchandise…
Thousands storm VICTORIA’S SECRET…
VIDEO: Insane battle over phones…
Shoplifter tries to mace security guards…
Men Steal Boy’s Shopping Bag Outside BED, BATH & BEYOND…
For me, these are the most compelling reasons for not shopping on Black Friday.
Anyone reconsidering for next year?
Here’s Your Prompt
- Write about a character who gets hurt while shopping on Black Friday. Or, write about a character who was standing next to someone who got seriously hurt (or killed!) on Black Friday. (Does this character’s feelings about shopping change? What about life in general?)
- Write the scene of Black Friday Mayhem™ from a bystander’s point of view.
- If you journal, write about some of your Black Friday experiences. If you don’t shop on Black Friday, write about some other memorable shopping event.
If Black Friday isn’t your cup of tea either…
- Write a character sketch or short poem about something associated with the color black: witches, funeral processions, black ice on the highway, black and white keys on the piano, the Black Death (Bubonic plague), black licorice, black squares on a checkerboard, etc.
- Write about “black thoughts:” being depressed or depression in general.
- Write about bad luck: being under a black cloud.
Good Luck!
Friday, November 9th, 2012  On November 9, 1989 the Berlin wall came down – figuratively. Officials opened it and allowed citizens to travel from East Berlin to West Berlin.
It wasn’t until a day later when citizens rushed to the wall and started breaking it down and chipping off pieces for souvenirs. In the weeks that followed — though the walls were still guarded in many places — it finally toppled.
During its existence, officials did permit some travel from East to West — with the necessary permits — and usually to anyone but those trapped behind the wall. Some families were cut off from contact for decades. East Germans who worked in West Germany immediately lost the jobs they could no longer travel to. The erected wall cut railway stations in half, closing stations and orphaning lines. Economic outcome grew dim.
Here’s Your Prompt
- Imagine your local government erects a wall in the middle of your home town, separating you from friends, family and employment. What happens? Write a journal entry, poem or essay about the event.
- As above, only interview friends and family for their reaction. Write a fictitious news story detailing the event.
- The same scenario as the first item, only the event happens to a character in one of your short stories or novels. Write the scene for your main character when all these liberties have been taken away. Or, write the scene for the villain who made the decision to build the wall.
- Walls are often used as metaphors for something else. What walls are you surrounded by? What wall is your character surrounded by? Write about these walls.
- Along the same line, why do people build walls around themselves? What can this lead to? Imagine how a the main character in your book has built a wall around himself. How can this back story cause conflict in the story you’re writing? Write a scene where the character acknowledges those walls. Does she tear them down, or keep them up? How does this move your story? Write it.
- Write a poem about a metaphoric wall.
Good Luck!
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Photo Credit: The National Archives
Friday, October 19th, 2012 I’m sitting here sorting through all my boxes of Halloween decorations and watching Tim Burton’s The Corpse Bride with my foot propped up.
(Surgery update: My foot looks like a corpse foot. Stitches are out, and it’s blue, green and purple. But it’s on the mend. Yay!)
I’m definitely in the mood for Halloween, my favorite holiday. So, to get you in the mood…
Here Are Some Prompts:
- The clock struck midnight and…
- Write a recipe for a witch’s brew, a mad scientist’s potion, a magic spell or a Halloween treat!
- Write about something possessed, or about being possessed.
- You walk by the abandoned house in your neighborhood and see a light on in the upstairs window…
- You don’t believe in ghosts, but suddenly, you see one.
- You’re sitting home one night when the lights go out, and your dog suddenly starts to whine.
- Before lunch, you get out of bed on the wrong side, break the vanity mirror in the bathroom, walk under a ladder, and have a black cat cross your path. What follows all these ill omens?
- If you journal, try these journaling prompts:
- The thing that scares me the most is…
- The best (or worst) Halloween you ever had.
- Talk about candy you remember getting as a child, but can’t find anymore.
- You won’t believe this story, but I swear it’s true…
- Bobbing for apples.
Good Luck!
Friday, September 14th, 2012 
American patriot Francis Scott Key penned the Star Spangled Banner on September 14, 1841. Key wrote with emotion, never knowing his poem would one day become the National Anthem of the United States of America.
(It wasn’t officially adopted, in fact, until 1931.)
National Anthems are generally songs of a patriotic nature. They’re primarily set to music in the style of a march, a hymn, or a fanfare. These songs describe the history and traditions of a nation, and are (usually) formally adopted by the government to represent the country.
Here’s Your Prompt:
- Write a “national anthem” of you. Decide if your spirit – your history of you — is a march, a fanfare, or a hymn. Write the words which embody your spirit.
- Write an essay or a journal entry about the national anthem of your country. What images does it invoke? How do you feel when you hear it played at a ball game? How does it make you feel when you hear it at an Olympic medal ceremony?
- What does it mean to be patriotic? Make a list of ideas, feelings and phrases which denote patriotism. Use the best of these in a poem.
- Drop your finger down on a random line in a national anthem (use yours, or choose one from a different country) and free write for 10 minutes about what that image evokes.
Good luck!
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Image of American Flags by Lipton Sale. Used by permission under the Creative Commons License.
Friday, June 1st, 2012  It so happens that June 1 is Doughnut Day. And so, we must talk about doughnuts.
I’d rather have a piece of cake (or chocolate) than a doughnut, but there are days when a warm glazed doughnut beats everything else hands down. I also like a chilled Boston Creme with a tall, cold glass of milk.
I’m not a “sugar in the morning person,” so doughnuts for breakfast is anathema to me.
(The worst part of my honeymoon trip to Italy was breakfast. I’m afraid the Italians adore sugar in the morning with their strong, black coffee. I would ask for a plain dinner roll or slice of bread and invariably it would come sugar glazed. Sacrilege!
In the early morning, I would try to sneak into the kitchen and grab a loaf of day-old-bread to eat with my coffee. Oh, the squawking when they found me! Apparently, it’s just not done to eat day old bread in Italy!)
Here’s Your Prompt:
Good luck!
Friday, April 20th, 2012  I’m heading out today for some research at the Baltimore Zoo.
I LOVE the zoo. It’s been a long time since I’ve been, and I’m really looking forward to it.
My favorite: the snakes. But I also like the primates, too. And the giraffes, and the hippos. The lions, the tigers…
Oh, who am I kidding? I love it all, but especially, the snakes.
I’m sure you can imagine where today’s prompt is going? You guessed it: it’s about zoos and animals.
Here’s Your Prompt:
- Imagine visiting a far off planet. [Class M, if you will.] and you find the most unusual animals. Write about which one is your favorite and why. How do you have to care for this animal? How does it live? What does it eat? Could you bring it back to earth? How would you manage that?
- Me, Tarzan. You, Jane. (I really mean that the other way around. But if I’d written it that way, it wouldn’t have been half as effective!)
Imagine you — or a character in one of your stories — has been raised by animals. Describe life with these animals from early infancy on. Caveat: you can’t choose apes. Bonus points if you don’t choose wolves.]
- If you’re journaling, write about the best (or worst) time you ever had at a zoo.
- Another journaling prompt: write about an encounter with an animal that really sticks in your memory: have you ever been bitten by a dog? How about peed on by a toad? Tell us what happened.
- If you’ve never had an encounter with an animal…pretend. What would it be like to be a veterinarian? A lion tamer in a circus? A scuba diver who investigates invertebrates?
- Write about your encounter with an imaginary animal, such as a unicorn, a dragon, a werewolf or the phoenix.
- Imagine you are the one locked up in a zoo. Someone cares for all your needs. People stare at you all day. How do you feel? What’s the best part? The worst? In an animal zoo, the animals are given toys and their special habitat to make it more palitable to them. What does the zoo provide for you?
- What if you could understand the language of the animals? What would they say to you from behind their bars at the zoo? Do they like being there? Do they want to return to their natural habitats? What do they like or dislike about being in the zoo?
- What if all the animals in the world were locked up in zoos? Keeping pets is forbidden. Only farm animals are “free.”
- What if only all the “frightening” animals are collected and locked up? Which animals would those be? Why?
- Pretend you are Dr. Seuss’ character Gerald McGrew. Like him, what would you do, if you ran the zoo?
Good Luck!
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Writers - Maryland Writer's Assn.
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