This was the scene I faced the other day, driving home from work. Fog, fog, everywhere!

Strangely, it was just as thick on the highway as it was on the back roads. Usually, the highway is clear no matter how foggy it is elsewhere, I presume from all the traffic…?

It was a slow commute, and of course my mind wandered to writing about fog…

I’ve done a lot of that myself. I find it fascinating, eerie, comforting, mysterious…. You name it. A lot depends on my mood. It’s a great backdrop for a story, or poetry. In grade school I wrote scads of really bad poetry (some, which didn’t even rhyme!) about fog, and thoughts and feelings lost in it, like ghosts… I’ll spare you the rest.

Here’s Your Prompt:
Write about fog. It doesn’t matter if you write about a memorable experience, or a scene with a character you’ve created (or even with a famous character someone else created), or a poem, etc.

Also: the fog doesn’t have to be physical. Just use the idea of fog in your writing.

You could write about foggy memories, or the fog of inebriation, or a drug-induced fog, or an emotional onslaught, etc. Doesn’t matter. You choose.

Here are some foggy prompts to get you started:

• There’s a little child // Running round this house // And he never leaves // He will never leave // And the fog comes up from the sewers // And glows in the dark – (Song Lyrics by Radiohead)
   
• Fear death?—to feel the fog in my throat, The mist in my face. – Robert Browning
   
• The fog is thick as pea soup. You could cut it with a knife.
   
• Cause the fog’s getting thicker // And the world’s spinning fast // The chaos is building // It’s going to last – (Song Lyrics by Maroon 5)
   
• …but a strange young girl hung around the neck of the hostess is about as welcome as a fog at a garden party. – Etiquette, 1922 by Emily Post. Chapter 17: Balls and Dances
   
• She carries the evening in her chest // And knows that she must wither away // She lays her head in his lap //
  And asks for a last kiss – (Song Lyrics for the Song “Nebel” by Rammstein – Nebel, translated to English = “fog”)
   
• [Indications of Danger.] Alarm. Alarum, larum [archaic], alarm bell, tocsin, alerte [F.], beat of drum, sound of trumpet, note of alarm, hue and cry, fiery cross; signal of distress; flag at -half-mast, – half-staff; blue lights; war cry, war whoop; warning [See Warning]; fog signal, fog bell, fog horn, siren; yellow flag; danger signal; red light, red flag; fire bell, fire alarm, still alarm; burglar alarm; watchman’s rattle, police whistle. – (Roget’s Thesaurus, 1922)
   
• Some say no evil thing that walks by night, in fog or fire, by lake or moorish fen, Blue meagre hag, or stubborn unlaid ghost That breaks his magic chains at curfew time, No goblin, or swart fairy of the mine,
  Hath hurtful power o’er true virginity. – John Milton
   
• “A Scotch fog will wet an Englishman through.” – Common saying
   
• October 22nd to November 21st used to be referred to in the French Republican calendar as Brumaire, or, fog-month.
   

And here is some information about how fog is formed from USA Today.

If you’re just jumping on board, you might want to read last week’s prompt where I discussed one method of building characters for your stories.

This week, we’ll use the same method for coming up with some interesting situations to put them in: a bone for your muse, so to speak.

Here’s Your Prompt:

As you did last week, divide a sheet of paper into thirds and label the first third, “Article of Clothing/Weapon/Random Object,” label the second, “Event or Action,” and label the third, “Emotion, Feeling or Mood.”

(If we were in grade school, I’d make you fold the paper into the three sections, and complete each column before moving on to the next. But you can do this anyway you want. However, I caution against writing across the row, because it’s too easy to come up with hackneyed situations, for example: bouquet, a wedding, happiness. Yuk!)

The first column should be filled with words or phrases such as: chain mail armor, dagger, persimmon.

If you’re having trouble coming up with words on the list, try the Random Noun Generator, which lists up to 10 words at a time. (Not all of them are nouns, unfortunately. You may need to push the generate button a few times to get enough words for your lists.) But do try on you own at first, it’s always good practice to think!

Seventh Sanctum has a Random Weapon Generator, but the weapons are fictional. You’ve got to decide what they do.

The second column should list words such as: “the wedding of the century,” “someone sneezed,” “a robbery,” “a car broke down,” etc.

The third column should be filled with emotions, feelings and moods, such as: mad, happy, glad, forlorn. Try to find some nuances among these, instead of sticking with the mundane. If all you can think of are “the usual,” write down the first ten (10) on a different sheet of paper, and then toss it out. Dig deep into your mind.

Now comes the fun part: choose one item from each column (and never more than one item from each row). You’ll use these to write a scene with the character you created last week.

For a true sense of randomness, use a random number generator from Random.com to pick the item from each column.

I suggest, however, that you choose the event or action which will most upset your character. Conflict will make the scene much more dramatic.

A point of note: I used quotes around the phrase “Good Characters” in the title because I mean good in the sense of well crafted, rather than meaning a goody-goody character. Similarly, “bad” in the title means “unfortunate for your character” rather than (necessarily) dire.

So, your (well-crafted) pre-teen gang member might hate to attend that wedding of the century, or worse, be a bridesmaid.

Once you’ve picked from each column, write the scene described with your character.

I couldn’t decide whether to quote Hemingway or Twain, when it comes to discussing characters.

“A writer should create living people; people, not characters. A character is a caricature.”
~Ernest Hemingway

Hemingway gets right to the heart of it, but Twain’s irreverence takes it a step further: echoing Hemingway’s thoughts, but noting also that it’s what authors do with those characters that makes us want to keep on reading.

“The test of any good fiction is that you should care something for the characters; the good to succeed, the bad to fail. The trouble with most fiction is that you want them all to land in hell, together, as quickly as possible.”
~Mark Twain

Twain’s right: We want to see those characters bound in figurative chains, writhing in agony, in whatever cesspit of a situation that will make them the angriest, or saddest, or vengeful. That makes good reading.

Characters are more than their eye color, how they dress, and their physique. So, to write a great story, we’ve got to get into the psyche of the character, know his loves and hates, what makes him tick and how he’ll react, and then expose him to the very flames which will make him twist.

When you know your character well, you’ll find story and plot ideas will leap out of the knowledge, begging to be written.

Here’s Your Prompt:

Build a character by identifying traits, phrases and situations which can be mixed and matched. Divide a piece of paper into thirds and write “Adjective” at the top of the first column, “Person or Profession” at the top of the second, and “Phrase or Situation” at the top of the third.

My example:

The tendency is to write across the page, filling out the row…but I urge you to fill in the columns instead. It’s too easy (see my belligerent teenager? My lonely middle-aged woman?) to come up with ‘cardboard’ characters while filling in the blanks.

While you’re at it, choose some interesting adjectives and situations. Challenge yourself to find words and labels beyond the ordinary.

Do you write in a particular genre? Then choose appropriate words and situations. If you write fantasy, stay away from the mundane. Include wizards and gremlins and dragons on the page. Sci-fi? Add some interplanetary locales or some phrases based on future tech. Victorian romance? You get the idea…

Write to the bottom of the page, more if you can. Do the same, even if you’re typing. The more options you have the better.

Once you’re done, choose an item from each column and meet your new character. Try unusual pairings to see what you can come up with. At no time can you use any two (or three!) items from the same line.

Write a few sentences about your new character. Why is the middle-aged woman venomous? How did a teenager from (fill in the blank) get lost in Detroit City? Decide how your character got to be this way: give him or her a little back story. Judging from that, what are your characters likes and dislikes?

Next week: we’ll find some awful situations to put your characters in!