The End (Daily Dose)

In honor of the end of my daily-inspiration month, I’ve devised three writing prompts having to do with endings.

1. The First Thing You Think of is Never the Best. It’s true. The first ending that you think of is the one your readers will be expecting. It won’t be surprising because it very much is the easy route.

Take the ending you’ve got planned for whatever piece you’re working on right now, or of a piece you recently completed. Throw it out. Now try to think of three other endings that could fulfill all the promises you made to the reader.

2. End With This. Three possible endings for your using pleasure.

It was over. Her muscles were aching, head-to-toe, but all she could do was lay on her back in the mud and dirt and others’ blood. All that mattered was that they’d won.

Thomas watched the boy walked away with his parents. It had all ended okay. A few broken bones, and some heads would roll back at HQ, but all in all the only one who wouldn’t recover was the monster rotting in his cell. 

The boy pushed the box back under his bed. The last rattle of pans echoed downstairs–thank goodness he’d gotten home in time for dinner. No one ever had to know.

3. Cut-n-Paste. Take a story you’ve never read before (basically, go to the website of an lit mag and there should be some sample stories. Or, you know, find your damn library) and read until the third-to-last page. Then write the ending you want to see.

Finally, go and read the real ending. Is it better or worse than yours? Why?

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Whew! I think this is the last 30-day blogging project I’ll be doing for awhile, at least until summer ends. It was fun, but it does take dedication. (Oh, and anyone who posts what they did off a prompt gets a virtual cookie. I like responses )

Steal This Character (Daily Dose)

Its true that there are very, very few original ideas–and that goes doubly so for characters. So today I stripped several popular movie and comic book protagonists to their basic biographies. Its fun to see what vastly different stories one sparse bio can build.

Bonus points if you can guess who’s who:

He was thrown out of the Air Force for rebelliousness. One day, while out on a flight, he was chosen to be the next peacekeeper for an ancient alien race.

She was born into a world where children were used in ancient killing rituals, retribution for when the colonies rebelled against the capital city. She was the first to fight it.

She put on a costume for a masquerade ball. She didn’t intend to stop one of the city’s most notorious criminals from murdering one of its most famous citizens. And she certainly didn’t mean to keep doing it, night after night.

He was an exile, framed by his mad wife for her murder. Desperate to be able to return to his children, he took the job that would either make him or kill him.

 

Mary Sue Litmus Test (Daily Dose)

I’m planning on doing a longer post about this later, so the writing prompt is going to be pretty brief.

For anyone who doesn’t know (read: any non-nerds) a Mary Sue is a fanfic term for one of those characters that is annoyingly perfect and perky. Usually, its a caricature of the author or the person the author wants to screw. If you’re writing a Mary Sue, it’s pretty hard to tell, because of course you love the character.

Luckily, the Turkey City Lexicon has made a Mary Sue Litmus Test. It’s kind of lengthy, but fun to do. Today’s writing prompt is to run your protagonist through the test. Interestingly, several famous bestseller protagonists (mainly Bella Swan from Twilight) fail the test. Though you can totally see why in each instance.

Have fun!

Even If You Hate It…(Daily Dose)

Right now, I am elbow deep in editing a short story that I began, put down for a few months, and then finished. It is slow going. The story is, quite frankly, not very good. I like the basic plot, and the writing is objectively well done. But the ending is crap and because of the break in writing time I utterly forgot that one character is even in the story and just dropped him halfway through. Compounding that is the fact that the relationship at the center of the story is awkward and uncomfortable in a way I did not want it to be.

So my prompt to you today is intended to be sadistic. Come, darlings, and share my pain.

Take that piece (oh, you know you have one) that embarrasses you, that you would never dream of sharing. And rework at least the first page. See if there’s a small nugget of brilliance that can become something good.

2 Stupid Shows (Daily Dose)

I liked the first episode of 2 Broke Girls. I even mildly enjoyed the second episode. Then I got to the third and realized it was the same damn episode about two annoying, bitchy crybabies in an apartment, just slightly repackaged.

Jesus. I still like the Office and I couldn’t stand this show. How is it still on the air when Campus got canned by our cousins-cross-the-pond after six episodes? Something’s wrong here, America.

But I digress, because this was supposed to be a writing prompt. So write me a story with two annoying, bitchy crybabies that doesn’t suck.

If, somehow, you are a fan of 2 Broke Girls, use the dad from $#*! My Dad Says Instead.

Bizarre Little Kids (Daily Dose)

I think everybody has those childhood stories that make other people think that they either had a very, very odd childhood and/or are traumatized. For example, she I was seven or eight, a man in an unmarked white van drove up to me and asked me to help him find his puppy. Being the type of kid I was, I said “Oh, sure. Let me just go get my parents. They can help too.”

Or another time, when I went swimming in the orange-colored (no joke) drainage pond in my neighborhood, and came out with bug larvae stuck all across my legs. Later, my stupid-ass friend–oh, you know we all have one–and I decided to sell bug large in baby food jars for ten cents apiece. For pets, of course.

Take that wacky childhood memory of yours, and put it in the middle of a story, or use it as part of a character’s backstory. It’ll be interesting, at least.

 

Wikipedia, My Love (Daily Dose)

Again, a short prompt. Because I am tired.

Go on to Wikipedia.

Go to an article that interests you, and click on a link to another article inside that one. Then click on three more links, until you are four articles away from your original article.

Read it.

Write.

Places (Daily Dose)

I was not kidnapped by aliens for taking this picture.

 

A Different Path (Daily Dose)

What was the point in you life where it all could have gone differently? A choice between two college majors? That time you nearly broke up with your girlfriend, but ended up marrying her?

In everyone’s life there’s the place where we can look back and see a whole different life branching out behind us.

Take one of these nexus points and write what could have happened if you’d actually gone the other way.

Culture Shock (Daily Dose)

I’ve always been fascinated by stories like River of the Gods by Ian McDonald and Who Fears Death by Nnedi Okorafor that take place in non-English cultures. Other countries (especially the tiny ones) are writing gold. Take, for example, Samoan culture, where it is quite normal and expected of young women to have pre-marital sex. This was happening back when Europe was inventing chastity belts to keep their virgins under lock and key.

Today’s writing prompt is to take a map and toss a dark (or you know, a marker or something. Darts are pointy) at it. If it lands in the United States, Canada, or England–or whatever country you live in–throw it again. THen spend twenty minutes researching the culture, and use it to write something.

This creeps me out.