Your Prompts and Tips

Some free resources to help you write better and achieve the success you deserve

This is a selection we've harvested from our archives, RELOAD THE PAGE for more!

Prompts:

1. Every year during early fall, half a million monarch butterflies migrate south. Write a few pages about a character who elects to embark on a long journey of their own.

2. Imagine you were given a golden ticket to go anywhere in the world. Where would you go? Write a few pages about your travels to a far-off destination.

3. Write a few pages set on a beach, where a character’s metal detector turns up a valuable but disturbing item.

For more prompts, please Sign in or SET UP A GUEST ACCOUNT if necessary.

Tips:

1. Stories usually have one driving force behind them: plot or character. Of course, both of these elements are strong in good stories, but one usually has more influence. When you are reading, think about whether a narrative is carried by a compelling plot or a character that almost walks off the page.

2. Reading and talking with others about what we’ve read brings us together. Think about the point of view the writer chooses to utilize in a story. Is it first-person, second-person, third-person, or a mixture? Would you say the POV chosen is the ideal one to tell the story? How would the story change if it was written from a different POV?

3. Whether a one-eyed, one-horned, flying purple people-eater or a candlestick that can talk, anytime an author successfully gives life to an inhuman character, it is a feat. When you read one such story, think about how the author brought the being to life. Do they humanize it? Or, do they embrace it as a different kind of creature entirely?

For more tips, please Sign in or SET UP A GUEST ACCOUNT if necessary.

TO DO SCRATCHPAD PRIVATE JOURNAL TRACKING Update Assessment
CLICK A TAB TO USE WILL.POWER

TO DO LIST:
Add tasks to your sortable list, then revel in checking them off.

SCRATCHPAD:
Cache your gems as they fall in this always accessible place.

PRIVATE JOURNAL:
Reflect on your process — good, bad and ugly — in your dated diary.

TRACKING:
Measure your progress with key writing metrics, automatically,
ADD DO
Show Dones
Metric:
Words
Minutes
ADD
Click anywhere to close