Wednesday: Prompts & Inspiration

Hey, it’s Wednesday again — that means another prompts and inspiration post! (It also marks one week since I started this blog . . . it feels like it’s been a lot longer than that already. Huh.) Anyway, I’ll get on with things.

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Setting inspiration is up first — a few new possible places to set your story. (I don’t know about you guys, but coming up with these has really inspired me to give my story some cool new settings.)

Setting Prompts

1) A tent or cabin (or just a campground in general . . . maybe something will happen on the way to the bathroom in the nighttime . . . I’m getting distracted, sorry.)

2) On a bus or a train

3) The Drach Caves in Spain

I feel like this would make such a cool setting . . . I really want to go here now. 

 

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On to the next type of inspiration — general prompts. [These are a few that I found on the NaNoWriMo site.]

General Prompts

1) Write what your character is/was/will be like at five, fifteen, and fifty years old. [I haven’t tried this myself yet — I only found it a little while ago — but I really want to try this. It sounds like a cool character building exercise.]

2) A character receives a letter. Who is it from? What does it say?

3) There were three cookies, and no one was looking. (Bonus points if you use this and it causes big problems in your story — I think it would make a fun inciting incident. It could tell a lot about your character. Sorry, I’m getting distracted again.)

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The third type of inspiration I’m going to share is title inspiration — a few select title possibilities chosen from my enormous list I’ve collected. Hopefully someone will be able to at least one of these, because I quite like them, but don’t think I’ll ever get around to writing something for them. As always, feel free to change or combine them as you like.

Title Inspiration

1) The Weeping Gate [I also like the Gates of Weeping]

2) The Inevitability of Forever

3) The Favorites of Chance

 

[Note: this is totally not important, but I think that numbers two and three would be cool together — The Inevitability of Forever and the sequel, The Favorites of Chance, or vice versa. Sorry, I’m just getting distracted by everything today. Back to the inspiration.]

 

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Character inspiration is next on the list . . . hopefully these will help with somebody’s character(s)!

Character Inspiration

1) This person is a very good liar, does nothing for free, and really loves the color orange. (It might be considered his or her “signature color.”)

2) A vegan who is also a lover of all things music, and is rather overprotective of his friends and/or younger siblings.

3) A retired Italian detective who is very proud of his heritage, and despises children for no good reason. (He might also be married to a school teacher. That’s up to you, I guess.)

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Alright, we’ve made it to the last type of prompt: picture prompts. Here are a few that I’ve chosen for today:

Picture #1

What happened here? Who is this man? What is he picking up?

Picture #2

This is rather more fitting for fantasy, etc. — What is this place? Who is on the path? Which way will s/he go?

Picture #3

Again, this is more suited to fairy tale or fantasy, but it’s still a cool prompt . . . where do these stairs lead?

 

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Lastly, here is your daily writing dare.

Writing Dare

Take something that you do well (that isn’t writing), and give that skill to a character. (Or give a character a power or something based on that skill.)

 

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Thank you for reading, and I hope this inspires someone! As always, I’d love to hear what you think, and if you’ve got any suggestions for more prompt types, etc., please share!