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 Friday, March 05, 2010
25 Prompts to Fire Up Your Creativity this Weekend
By my count, Promptly will be hitting its 100th prompt anniversary next Friday (give or take a few days that featured multiple prompts). In addition to celebratory digital cake, in the posts leading up to our double-golden anniversary prompt, I’ll be featuring 25 writing prompts a day, in the order in which they appeared here.
Here's Day 1 of Promptfest 2010. Next week we’ll feature a special prompt with a giveaway and a shot at getting your name and response in Writer’s Digest magazine. Keep an eye out!
(Image: Simon Howden)
***
Feel free to take the following prompts home or post your response to any of them (500 words or fewer, funny, sad or stirring) in the Comments section below. By posting, you’ll be automatically entered in our occasional around-the-office swag drawings. If you’re having trouble with the captcha code sticking, e-mail your story to me at writersdigest@fwmedia.com, with “Promptly” in the subject line, and I’ll make sure it gets up.
The Kickoff
The phone rings and a low voice groans—“Why me?”
You hang up. Twenty minutes later, it rings again.
“You made a mistake.”
The dial tone throbs as the phone hangs from its cord, limp.
*
The Doctor is In
(Literary Roadshow prompt, from Albert Camus’ The Plague; write a story inspired by or including the following—)
“He was going to make them right with a couple of pills or an injection, and people took him by the arm on his way to the sickroom. Flattering, but dangerous.”
Now, he takes your arm. Who is this doctor? Reveal him in scene.
*
The Damaging Dispute
Write an argument—the worst dispute your character has ever been in, at least in his or her opinion—without using a single exclamation point or all-caps word. It’s an exercise in discipline: Keep the fire contained, brimming at the surface but never boiling over. And make sure you mention a pair of pliers and a spectator.
*
Photogenic Stranger
You develop a roll of film, an old roll from about 10 years ago, and sit down to sift through the photos. As you do, you stop and analyze a figure lurking in the background of a vacation photo. You drop the pictures, aghast, and gasp for air.
*
Surprise Attack; New Pet
Something unexpected attacks you. Now, you have to decide whether or not to keep it as a pet.
*
The Terrible Decision
Choose a moment from yesterday or today, an otherwise normal moment when you could have done something extreme, something terrible, if you had just done one small thing different. Do it in scene.
*
Next Time, Chew
At dinner, you choke. Something flashes before your eyes, only it’s not exactly your life.
*
Here’s to the Lion
(Literary Roadshow prompt, from Ernest Hemingway’s short story "The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber"; write a story inspired by or including the following—)
“Here’s to the lion,” he said. “I can’t ever thank you for what you did.”
Margaret, his wife, looked away from him and back to Wilson.
“Let’s not talk about the lion,” she said.
Wilson looked over at her without smiling and now she smiled at him.
*
That Wicked Old Scent
“It smells like something has died in the walls,” she said.
“Well, do something about it.”
“I always do.”
He remembered what happened last time, and the sun sagged low.
*
Wherever You May Write
Write a scene that takes place wherever you write. Take an object [or two] that is always present at your desk, and make it a key element of your scene.
*
Redefining Love
In a scene, define love.
* Like a Virgin
(Slightly out of context without the lead-in from the original blog post, but, still—)
Do something you’ve never done before, and use the experience in scene. *
That Strange Day
It’s been raining for weeks and a single thought has been stuck in your mind: It plays itself over and over, and you can’t stop pondering what happened on that strange day—the day it started raining.
*
Your home floods. You race to save one item, but at the last minute, change your mind.
*
Behind the Curtain
A fortune-teller rubs her glass orb and grabs your hand. She closes her eyes. She raises her head toward the sky and mumbles. Then, she bursts out laughing.
*
The Ultimate Secret
(Literary Roadshow prompt, from George Orwell’s 1984; write a story inspired by or including the following—)
“Julia.”
No answer.
“Julia, are you awake?”
No answer. She was asleep. He shut the book, put it carefully on the floor, lay down, and pulled the coverlet over both of them.
He had still, he reflected, not learned the ultimate secret. He understood how; he did not understand why.
*
Rejecting the Rejection
You’ve had it. You can’t take it any more. You decide to reject a rejection letter.
*
In Your Father's Shoes
You put on your father’s shoes, take a deep breath, say a quick prayer, and walk outside. His hat never quite fit right, but still, you wear it.
*
Cynic!
(Literary Roadshow prompt, from Kurt Vonnegut’s Cat’s Cradle; write a story inspired by or including the following—)
“What a cynic!” I gasped. I looked up from the note and gazed around … “Is he here somewhere?”
“I do not see him,” said Mona mildly. She wasn’t depressed or angry. In fact, she seemed to verge on laughter. “He always said he would never take his own advice, because he knew it was worthless.”
*
Life in the Booth
Write a scene about this man—perhaps a pivotal moment in his life—in the dunking booth, or elsewhere.
*
Tragically, Hero
Write the story of how your hero came to be missing a tooth.
*
Morals and Movies
You have just purchased tickets for a movie, and someone approaches you, tears in his eyes and something gripped in his palm, and asks a question—one that leaves you speechless.
*
Selling Out/Buying In
You have done what you swore you would never do: You have written a book solely to pay the bills. Now, write the back-cover promo copy.
*
A Decision, a Laugh, a Howl
It’s a holiday, and you make a decision that makes something go very awry—or, very right—depending on how you look at it. Meanwhile, it’s cold but it’s supposed to be hot, someone is laughing and a dog is howling.
*
A Game of Confession
Old friends have gathered, and are passing the time with a card game.
“Ante up,” you say.
“I have a confession,” your former roommate replies.
Everyone widens their eyes, but then lowers their heads.
They know something you don’t.
Traditional Prompts | 100th Prompt Anniversary
Friday, March 05, 2010 6:15:26 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00) 
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Wednesday, March 03, 2010
Vooks: What are they, and where are they headed? A recap for writers as Anne Rice's new vook debuts.
With the new digital release of vampire queen Anne
Rice’s 1984 story “The Master of Rampling Gate” today, the question arises for
some readers and writers: What exactly is a Vook? Moreover, does it maybe even have a shot at becoming the new go-to book somewhere down the line?
Essentially, a vook combines video elements with
text—plus links and social media—to create a format that can be accessed
through a computer or mobile device. Last year, the company launched its first
series of vooks in collaboration with Simon & Schuster, HarperCollins and
others, and a slew of new projects are in the works. We checked in with Vook
founder Bradley Inman for the May/June issue of WD to see where he thinks the
medium is heading.
How fast do you see the
format growing?
We are growing very quickly and plan
to release 750 titles in 2010. With the introduction of MotherVook, a new
technology platform that we've developed, the process of creating a vook will
be incredibly streamlined. This will allow us to take the author's text and
professionally shot video, and create the final vook product very quickly and
cost effectively.
Are the days of the traditional book on their way out?
The publishing platform is
fundamentally changing; innovation will drive a new era of multimedia books,
creating a more compelling experience and value for the reader. But I don't see
traditional books necessarily on their way out, because the industry is
innovating and finding new ways to distribute authors’ content. It’s just about
offering consumers more choices and letting them decide what they like the
best.
Do vooks work better for one genre or another?
Vooks are offered in a variety of
genres; we've found that augmenting text with video for how-to books like Return
to Beauty and 90-Second Fitness
Solution creates an unparalleled
reading experience. The multimedia elements also lend themselves really well to
what we like to call cookvooks.
With fiction titles, videos really allow readers to visualize settings and
characters and have a more immersive experience. Education is an area we are
very interested in and excited about. We believe vooks can greatly increase the
learning experience in the classroom.
What’s the typical process for a writer making a vook?
The author works with the publisher,
their agent or at times directly with us to finalize their text, and then they
work closely with one of our professional filmmakers to set a vision for the
videos and integrate them within chapters. Then our technology combines the
text, video and links into a multimedia vook. It's an entirely new creative
collaborative experience and we are just at the beginning of seeing where it
will go.
* * *
WRITING PROMPT
Feel free to take the following prompt home or post your
response (500 words or fewer, funny, sad or stirring) in the Comments section
below. By posting, you’ll be automatically entered in our occasional
around-the-office swag drawings. If you’re having trouble with the captcha code
sticking, e-mail your story to me at writersdigest@fwmedia.com,
with “Promptly” in the subject line, and I’ll make sure it gets up.
Your father made the chair when he was a boy, and it’s
gotten rickety. Preparing to finally throw it away, you flip it over to carry it to
the trash, and notice a message etched in with a knife.
--
Learn how to help your writing career survive—and grow—in
the current economy. Break into corporate writing. Discover the art of taxes
for writers. Absorb lessons and insights from an author-turned-agent. Read
Elizabeth Berg’s thoughts on life after Oprah. Click here to check the March/April 2010 issue of WD out.
Q&As | Traditional Prompts | WD Mag Wednesday
Wednesday, March 03, 2010 6:03:54 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)
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Monday, March 01, 2010
Monday creativity wake-up challenge: The Last Thing You Expected to See on the Menu
WRITING PROMPT: The Last Thing You Expected to See on the Menu
Feel free to take the following prompt home or post your response (500 words or fewer, funny, sad or stirring) in the Comments section below. By posting, you’ll be automatically entered in our occasional around-the-office swag drawings. If you’re having trouble with the captcha code sticking, e-mail your story to me at writersdigest@fwmedia.com, with “Promptly” in the subject line, and I’ll make sure it gets up. 
The waiter handed you a menu. Only what was written inside wasn’t merely a listing of food.
* * *
And on a quick Monday side note, thanks to everyone who submitted their hilarious and awesome awesomely bad endings over the weekend. I reached into the Promptly Random-Commenter hat, and pulled out a name: Nathan Honoré. Nathan, can you shoot your address to me at writersdigest@fwmedia.com, and I’ll get your book shipped out? As always, thanks again to everyone for sharing their work!
(Image: Salvatore Vuono) --
Learn how to help your writing career survive—and grow—in the current economy. Break into corporate writing. Discover the art of taxes for writers. Absorb lessons and insights from an author-turned-agent. Read Elizabeth Berg’s thoughts on life after Oprah. Click here to check the March/April 2010 issue of WD out.
Traditional Prompts
Monday, March 01, 2010 7:22:27 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)
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Friday, February 26, 2010
3 ways to kill a short story (plus, write an awesomely bad ending and win a book)
While working on a short story last night, I was stumped. Everything was written, edited and good to go, except the ending—or, more specifically, the five endings I had written, ranging from the literary drop-off (an esoteric and potentially cheesy musing about losing things) to the genre-style kick (dead body in the piano?).
Which got me thinking more about endings—what works best, and why? Here, courtesy of WD's Chad Seibert, is an excerpt from the WritersOnlineWorkshops.com course “Focus on the Short Story," on what definitely doesn't. (The next course starts March 11; click here to learn more about it.)
* * *
So how does a writer know when and where to end her story? Former STORY editor Whit Burnett says to use "pure instinct"—easier said than done. There are as many ways to end a story as there are to start one. If you want to learn how to end a story, the best thing to do is study examples. But there are at least three basic problems that you'll want to avoid:
The story that simply stops
You don't want the ending of your story to send an editor back to the envelope in search of more pages, scratching his head and wondering if he dropped part of the manuscript on the subway that morning.
Usually, when a story seems to "stop" rather than "end," it's because the story lacks a sense of resolution, of wholeness. The reader doesn’t feel like she's "gotten anywhere." She wonders what the point is.
It's useful to think of your story as making a set of "promises" to the reader. Have you raised any questions or issues that you've failed to answer? A good story does not trick or tease (at least not simply for the sake of tricking and teasing). A good story keeps its promises (which is another way of saying that a good story plays by the rules it establishes for itself).
You, as the author, will have to determine whether or not the logic of your story requires that you answer any particular question or address any particular issue. Unlike the average Hollywood movie, short stories usually aren't obligated by issues of plot so much as by issues of character.
Too much falling action
"Falling action" (also known as the resolution, or denouement) is the part of a narrative that comes after the climax, after the story's main problems have been solved—those sometimes leisurely pages where the author ties up any remaining loose strings.
As Rust Hills (Writing in General & the Short Story in Particular) points out in his chapter entitled "Ending," most short stories (unlike novels) don't require much detail about what happens "afterward." Once you've done what you need to do, don't linger. Get out of the story.
Still, sometimes we don't seem to know when enough is enough. Maybe we become attached to the worlds of our stories and don't want to leave. Maybe we're worried the reader hasn't gotten the point. Or maybe we're just putting off the daunting task of starting a new story.
Whatever the case, the problem of too much falling action is usually easy to fix. At STORY, we frequently suggested that authors snip a line or a paragraph off the end of their stories, sometimes an entire scene. More often than not, the ending was in there somewhere; it was just buried.
The atomic-bomb ending
Perhaps no part of a story invites melodrama so much as the climax (which, in contemporary stories, usually falls near the end). You want this moment to have the maximum possible impact on your reader, but the line between "maximum impact" and "fatal impact" is sometimes hard to judge.
An ending that's too "light" (one that doesn't capitalize on the story's dramatic and thematic potential) can leave a reader disappointed, not quite satisfied. But an ending that's too "hard" (melodramatic, over the top) can do even more damage, leaving a reader in disbelief, turned off, disgusted.
Err on the side of restraint. Don't treat your ending like it's your last chance to drive home the point of the story. If the rest of your story has been doing its fair share of the work, the ending needn't detonate a bomb in order to succeed.
* * *
WRITING PROMPT: Self-Destructive Actions
Feel free to take the following prompt home or post your response (funny, sad or stirring) in the Comments section below. By posting, you’ll be automatically entered in our occasional around-the-office swag drawings. If you’re having trouble with the captcha code sticking, e-mail your story to me at writersdigest@fwmedia.com, with “Promptly” in the subject line, and I’ll make sure it gets up.
Take a short piece you've written (or whip up a new one), and hack the ending off. Then, write the most awesomely bad ending you can—and see how easily you can derail the piece. I’ll choose one random commenter to win a copy of The Weekend Novelist Rewrites the Novel and the latest issue of WD magazine.
(Image: Danilo Rizzuti)
Traditional Prompts
Friday, February 26, 2010 6:24:24 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)
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Wednesday, February 24, 2010
3 quick nonfiction tips from WD magazine
Pull Quote time!
The new issue of WD hit newsstands yesterday, and it’s loaded with a guide on succeeding in the current economy (from breaking into new writing realms to dealing with taxes), lessons from an author-turned-agent, an interview with Elizabeth Berg, and more.
From the magazine, here are three nonfiction tips, pull-quote style, that stuck out in my mind after sending the issue off to the printer.
On networking when freelancing:
“People often think they should network with folks at the top of the food chain. In actuality, it’s more helpful to network with people lower on the chain (low-level execs or assistants). This is because: a) They have more time to network; b) they have a greater need to network; and c) finding talented new writers and articles is part of how they get recognition.”
--Chad Gervich, from his piece “Don’t Be a Stranger: Get Personal to Get the Gig”
On success when selling a debut nonfiction book:
“I surrounded myself with a coach and mentor who kept me moving. I also did things in the right order: I focused on building my platform and developing a winning proposal before I wasted time writing a book that no one wanted to publish.”
--Debut author Debra Berndt, from the Breaking In column by Chuck Sambuchino
On queries:
“I’ve noticed that the tighter and more concise (read: shorter) my queries are, the faster I’m getting responses. With the increased workloads brought on by downsizing in the current economy, many editors would rather not take the time to wade through long, detailed queries. Try condensing your queries down to a few highly targeted sentences, trusting that an editor will e-mail for clarification if you’ve piqued her interest.”
--Freelancer Perry P. Perkins, from his article “Doing the Math”
* * *
WRITING PROMPT: Parting Words
Feel free to take the following prompt home or post your response (500 words or fewer, funny, sad or stirring) in the Comments section below. By posting, you’ll be automatically entered in our occasional around-the-office swag drawings. If you’re having trouble with the captcha code sticking, e-mail your story to me at writersdigest@fwmedia.com, with “Promptly” in the subject line, and I’ll make sure it gets up.
Write the last sentence to an unwritten novel or nonfiction book that's so intriguing that others won't help but want to read the rest of the text. [Feel free to include a paragraph or two leading up to it. And if you’re searching for character or subject fodder, how about the topic of the last phone call you placed today?]
(Prompt courtesy of WD Online Community Editor Brian A. Klems.)
--
And speaking of nonfiction, WD’s Jane Friedman is also hosting a live webinar tomorrow, “Critique Series: Nonfiction Hooks & Book Proposals Live.” Click here to check it out and to get your proposal critiqued.
Traditional Prompts | WD Mag Wednesday
Wednesday, February 24, 2010 7:28:26 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)
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Monday, February 22, 2010
Jump-start your creativity this week: a mysterious suitcase. Strange passengers. A problem.
Here's to a productive writing week, and winning salvos against novels and short stories (anyone else going to enter the NPR Three-Minute Fiction contest?) --
WRITING PROMPT: A Suitor for the Suitcase
Feel free to take the following prompt home or post your response (500 words or fewer, funny, sad or stirring) in the Comments section below. By posting, you’ll be automatically entered in our occasional around-the-office swag drawings. If you’re having trouble with the captcha code sticking, feel free to e-mail your story to me at writersdigest@fwmedia.com, with “Promptly” in the subject line, and I’ll make sure it gets up. 
A man enters your subway car with a small suitcase. He places it under a seat and gets off at the next stop. You eye the “LEAVE NO PACKAGES
UNATTENEDED” sign. Another man boards the train, picks up the
suitcase, takes something out of it, and moves it down a seat. At the
next stop, he leaves and a woman enters, takes something out of it,
moves it down a seat and exits. And then another. Finally, it’s placed under your seat.
--
Great Creative in 2010: Tap into inspiration. Learn strategies for making time to write. Plan your own low key writing retreat. Check out 26 writing contests that can get your book published. Create a book trailer with cinematic flair. Learn Sue Grafton’s writing secrets. Click here to check the February 2010 issue of WD out!
(Image: Clker.com)
Traditional Prompts
Monday, February 22, 2010 5:35:41 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)
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Monday, February 15, 2010
Valentine's Day in Retrospect Prompts
Midwestern blizzards, Valentine's Day, President's Day--no matter how you feel about it all, here's to hoping yours went/are going well.
* * *
WRITING PROMPT: A Day of Valentines
Feel free to take the following prompts home or post your responses (500
words or fewer, funny, sad or stirring) in the Comments section below.
By posting, you’ll be automatically entered in our occasional
around-the-office swag drawings. If you’re having trouble with the
captcha code sticking, feel free to e-mail your story to me at
writersdigest@fwmedia.com, with “Promptly” in the subject line, and
I’ll make sure it gets up.
Take your best--or worst--Valentine's Day experience, and reveal it in scene.
-And/Or-
It was Valentine's Day. You took your date to a movie--only it wasn't the Valentine's Day epic you had imagined, and what happened in the seat in front of you only reinforced that.
Traditional Prompts
Monday, February 15, 2010 6:09:19 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)
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Friday, February 12, 2010
WD wants to know: Where do your best characters come from?
The man on the street, bowler hat, French cigarette and smug charm? An eccentric, reclusive billionaire you read about in a magazine? A facet of yourself known only to you?
 Characters are everywhere. Where do you get yours? In each issue of Writer’s Digest, we propose a(n often mind-bendingly tricky) question for our Superlatives poll, and the fun/madness comes in forcing yourself to answer it. In the March/April issue, which is currently shipping to subscribers, we ask the following:
If you had to pick just one from among the following techniques, what breeds your best characters?
- Using traits from people you're personally familiar with in "real life"
- Using traits from strangers you've heard about
- Crafting characters strictly from the imagination
What do you think? Stop by the Writer’s Digest forum, vote and share your thoughts on the subject (you have to be a member of the free forum to do so). The results will appear in a future issue of the magazine, as will a response on the topic from one commenter.
Also, via GalleyCat, check out an interview about NPR’s upcoming Three-Minute Fiction contest. How’s your short game?
* * *
WRITING PROMPT: Clash of the Characters
Feel free to take the following prompt home or post your response (500 words or fewer, funny, sad or stirring) in the Comments section below. By posting, you’ll be automatically entered in our occasional around-the-office swag drawings. If you’re having trouble with the captcha code sticking, feel free to e-mail your story to me at writersdigest@fwmedia.com, with “Promptly” in the subject line, and I’ll make sure it gets up.
Create a scene using four characters: One based on yourself, one based on someone you personally know, one based on someone you heard about in the media, and one spawning strictly from the imagination. Make the media story the hook or reason they’re all together, and base the scene around that.
* * *
Great Creative in 2010: Tap into inspiration. Learn strategies for making time to write. Plan your own low key writing retreat. Check out 26 writing contests that can get your book published. Create a book trailer with cinematic flair. Learn Sue Grafton’s writing secrets. Click here to check the February 2010 issue of WD out!
Traditional Prompts
Friday, February 12, 2010 7:05:56 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)
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Wednesday, February 10, 2010
How do books wind up on the bargain table--and what does it mean for writers?
I found myself in a dollar store last year, gritting my teeth to ward off impulse buys as we waited for a table at the Mexican restaurant next door.
Then, I stumbled upon the small book section that occupies most dollar stores. And in between oodles of bibles, coloring books and crossword puzzle anthologies, there it was: a hardcover of Elmore Leonard’s 10 Rules of Writing, for $1.
It quickly went into my basket, alongside a hex wrench tool I didn’t need and a bag of cotton candy.
But it puzzled me: What is the formula for how the book wound up there? Not long after, by coincidence, a representative for Distribution Video and Audio got in touch with me regarding her company, thus solving the riddle—and spreading some hope that should your books wind up in a bargain bin, it’s not the end of the world.
Newly posted online from a recent issue of WD, here’s the short piece—followed, of course, by a prompt.
* * *
The Novel Afterlife
It’s a moment of authorial horror: You’re browsing your favorite bookstore, and you stumble upon your book. For $5. In the section with the sign screaming “BARGAINS!” You flee to the dollar store for tissues and an antacid, and then you spot it, near the hand towels emblazoned with kittens and roosters—your book. For $2.
Take a breath. Ryan Kugler, president and co-owner of Distribution Video and Audio (DVA)—a closeout business that buys and sells remainder books—says it’s not a mar to your name. It’s just how the system works.
“It’s good for an author to know that this could and does happen with their writings,” he says.
In a nutshell, DVA works with major publishers that let the company know when they have excess inventory. DVA, a $20-million enterprise, looks over the items, buys the desired stock and distributes it—on the Internet, to bookstores, to flea markets, to truck stops and yes, to dollar stores.
So how do they choose what to buy in the first place?
Click here to read the rest of the piece, including what retains value best in the market, and what all of it means for writers.
* * *
WRITING PROMPT: Plenty of Fish in the Digital Sea
Feel free to take the following prompt home or post your response (500 words or fewer, funny, sad or stirring) in the Comments section below. By posting, you’ll be automatically entered in our occasional around-the-office swag drawings. If you’re having trouble with the captcha code sticking, feel free to e-mail your story to me at writersdigest@fwmedia.com, with “Promptly” in the subject line, and I’ll make sure it gets up. From the InkWell section of the March/April 2010 issue of WD:
You venture into the world of online dating. Browsing through profiles, you drop your coffee mug and it shatters on the ground—it can’t be.
Traditional Prompts | WD Mag Wednesday
Wednesday, February 10, 2010 4:02:29 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)
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Monday, February 08, 2010
Looking for a prompt escape from football recaps and snow?
Looking for a prompt escape from football recaps and snow?
WRITING PROMPT: Test Drive
Feel free to take the following prompt home or post your response (500 words or fewer, funny, sad or stirring) in the Comments section below. By posting, you’ll be entered in our occasional around-the-office swag drawings. If you’re having trouble with the captcha code sticking, feel free to e-mail your story to me at writersdigest@fwmedia.com, with “Promptly” in the subject line, and I’ll make sure it gets up.
You go on a test drive in a new car. With the dealership representative in the passenger seat, you pull to the side of the road, turn off the engine, and lock the doors.
“There’s something I should tell you,” you say.
Also, it’s not to late to Reject a Hit. Write a humorous rejection letter of a classic or contemporary bestseller for a shot at getting published in Writer’s Digest magazine.
* * *
And now, after using my high-tech, bias-free methodology of putting the name of every commenter in a bowl (secret formula: as many posts as they commented, counting one comment per post, and assuming they didn’t win the previous month) and dunking a hand in, we’ve got a name.
Laying claim to the pile of Promptly swag this time around: Dorraine.
Dorraine* will be taking home Diane Wei Liang’s Paper Butterfly, Allie Larkin’s Stay, Robert Hass’ The Apple Trees at Olema, William Dietrich’s The Barbary Pirates, Laura Munson's This Is Not the Story You Think It Is, C.J. Box's Nowhere to Run, Michael Moorcock's The Jewel in the Skull, Christine King Farris' Through It All, Jean Kwok's Girl in Translation and Robert J. Ray's The Weekend Novelist Rewrites the Novel.
To everyone who wrote a story, stories, or shared their thoughts in any form in the last month: An honest thank you for being a part of Promptly.
*Dorraine, can you contact me and provide your address so I can get the swag shipped out?
* * *
Great Creative in 2010: Tap into inspiration. Learn strategies for making time to write. Plan your own low key writing retreat. Check out 26 writing contests that can get your book published. Create a book trailer with cinematic flair. Learn Sue Grafton’s writing secrets. Click here to check the February 2010 issue of WD out!
Swag-Offs | Traditional Prompts
Monday, February 08, 2010 7:07:25 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)
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Friday, February 05, 2010
Want to write like J.D. Salinger? (Plus, weekend blizzard prompt)
One final J.D. Salinger post, and then I’ll leave him the way he liked it best: Alone.
After hearing back from a few people wondering about the Write Like the Masters tips I mentioned in my post about what made Salinger’s writing so great, I dug around and whipped up an excerpt about perhaps the most powerful aspect of The Catcher in the Rye: Holden Caulfield’s voice. (A voice so good that while Salinger may have only published one novel, it still sells hundreds of thousands of copies a year.)
And also, for one of the best articles about Salinger in the last week, check out “Dear Jerry, You Old Bastard: My Adventures Answering J.D. Salinger’s Mail” on Slate.
For our swag drawing, I’ll put all the comment names in a hat and pull one today, and announce the victor of the free books Monday. Have an excellent weekend – here’s to writing through blizzards!
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Voice Lessons from a Master Stylist
(From William Cane's Write Like the Masters)
Holden Caulfield is certainly like young people we all know: He has difficulty relating to his parents and he is alienated from all his friends and school associates. Not that young people don’t have friends; on the contrary, they have on average more friends than their parents and adults in general; but the fact is that young people often feel alienated from their world and from the older generation. They often move through adolescence feeling that no one understands them, even their best friends. This may be one reason why Holden appeals so strongly to young people. On analysis it’s clear that he has no deep relationships, and no personal connection with anyone other than his little sister, Phoebe. He is, as Christopher Booker has pointed out, a man who wanders from person to person without making any significant connection. For many young people, this is precisely what adolescence feels like.
Another characteristic that makes Holden Caulfield come alive for readers of all generations is his unique and facetious voice. In fiction and nonfiction, voice refers to the feeling and tone of writing, a certain flavor determined by word choice and phrasing that gives a text dimension and makes it distinctly and peculiarly human. The voice of a writer is usually easier to hear in first-person texts because third-person narratives so often mimic the “beige voice” of an objective reporter. With first person it’s usually easier to be intimate, unique, and quirky; indeed, open any page of The Catcher in the Rye and you’ll hear Holden’s voice loud and clear.
Salinger makes use of teen barbarisms and he employs numerous leitmotifs, that is, words or phrases that recur with a character and lend him personality. F. Scott Fitzgerald used the same technique in The Great Gatsby (1925) (one of Salinger’s favorite books) where an effective leitmotif was Gatsby’s habit of calling people “old sport”—a phrase that did more to characterize him as affected upper crust than it did to describe the people he addressed. Similarly, in The Catcher in the Rye we have the often repeated goddamn, madman, and phoney. Such words characterize Holden more than the people he describes. The use of leitmotifs is one way Salinger achieves a unique voice for his protagonist. The frequent use of italics, careful attention to diction (general word choice), and repetition all add to the sound of Holden’s voice. For example, “The terrible part, though, is that I meant it when I asked her. That’s the terrible part. I swear to God I’m a madman.” This passage from the end of chapter 17 illustrates the use of italics, careful word choice, and repetition, helping maintain the intimate and unique sound of Holden’s voice. No one used voice better than Salinger, and if you pay attention to the way he captures the voice of his main character in The Catcher in the Rye—as consistently and saliently as Twain does in Huckleberry Finn—you’ll surely be learning the technique from a master.
(For more about the book, which features sections on everyone from Dostoevsky to King, click here.)
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WRITING PROMPT: The Wait is Over
Feel free to take the following prompt home or post your response (500 words or fewer, funny, sad or stirring) in the Comments section below. By posting, you’ll be automatically entered in our occasional around-the-office swag drawings. If you’re having trouble with the captcha code sticking, feel free to e-mail your story to me at writersdigest@fwmedia.com, with “Promptly” in the subject line, and I’ll make sure it gets up.
After a year’s wait, you finally strike—it's yours. But once you get home, you discover that it’s nothing—nothing—like you thought it’d be.
Traditional Prompts
Friday, February 05, 2010 6:09:48 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)
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Wednesday, February 03, 2010
What bestseller would you have rejected? Now is your chance!
In our March/April issue, which hits newsstands Feb. 23, we feature a new call to arms: Reject a Hit.
While combing through our dusty archives for the 90 Secrets of Bestselling Authors feature that ran in our 90th anniversary issue, WD Editor Jessica Strawser stumbled upon a series of funny and intriguing rejection letters of yesteryear—which generated an idea.
Every so often, you hear about how the latest book was rejected countless times before it sold a gazillion copies and sprung up on every type of “–seller” list known to man. So let’s step into the role of the unconvinced, perhaps even curmudgeonly editor: What harsh rejection letters might the authors of some of our favorite books—be them legendary or contemporary—have had to endure?
Humorously reject a hit in 400 words or fewer and send your piece to wdsubmissions@fwmedia.com with “InkWell: Reject a Hit” in the subject line, or post it here. Some of our favorites could appear in a future issue of WD.
Behold, for instance, this troubling letter (featured in the upcoming magazine), discovered in a fictional steamer trunk in the attic of our archives:
Also, registration is now open for the Writer’s Digest Editors' Intensive that takes place March 13-14 at our headquarters in Cincinnati. The event features a full day of workshops, Q&As, info on approaching and querying literary agents and publishers, info about building blogs and using social media, and a reception. Perhaps the coolest feature: Each attendee also gets a one-on-one critique with an editor regarding the first 50 pages of his/her manuscript. Click here to learn more – hope to see you there!
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WRITING PROMPT
Feel free to send your piece to wdsubmissions@fwmedia.com or post your response (400 words or fewer) in the Comments section below. By posting, you’ll be automatically entered in our occasional around-the-office swag drawings (next one: Friday). If you’re having trouble with the captcha code sticking and you’d like your story to appear here, make a note of that and e-mail your story to the submissions address, and I’ll make sure it gets up.
Reject a hit!
Traditional Prompts | WD Mag Wednesday
Wednesday, February 03, 2010 6:38:09 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)
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Monday, February 01, 2010
Your Monday Creativity Wake-Up Prompt: The Man Who Speaks in Poems
Here’s to the start of a new writing week (and, to the pending premiere of Lost)!
WRITING PROMPT: The Man Who Speaks in Poems
Feel free to take the following prompt home or post your response (500 words or fewer, funny, sad or stirring) in the Comments section below.  By posting, you’ll be automatically entered in our occasional around-the-office swag drawings (how about we do one Friday?). If you’re having trouble with the captcha code sticking, feel free to e-mail your story to me at writersdigest@fwmedia.com, with “Promptly” in the subject line, and I’ll make sure it gets up.
Write a prose story about a man who speaks only in poems.
Photo: (c) Surrealmuse.com
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Get Creative in 2010: Tap into inspiration. Learn strategies for making time to write. Plan your own low key writing retreat. Check out 26 writing contests that can get your book published. Create a book trailer with cinematic flair. Learn Sue Grafton’s writing secrets. Click here to check the February 2010 issue of WD out!
Traditional Prompts
Monday, February 01, 2010 7:18:03 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)
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Wednesday, January 27, 2010
The Ingredients of Solid Scenes
OK, OK, so I know this isn’t technically from WD mag on WD Mag Wednesday, but it’s from WD, right? After browsing some of the WritersOnlineWorkshops.com courses, I pulled this intriguing bit from the Novel Writing: Scene Fundamentals course as a nice breakdown for newer scribes (or as a good refresher) of, well, the key fundamentals of scenes. And as always, a prompt shall follow.
Onward!
(If you’re interested in this WOW course or other ones, a fresh batch starts tomorrow and can be found here; enter the code JAN10 to grab a friend-of-Promptly 15 percent discount from this course or a slew of others.)
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There is no magic formula for a scene. Like a recipe, each scene is going to require different quantities of the ingredients that comprise it, depending on the intention of the scene and the goals of the novel you are writing. To this end, scene writing is simply a breaking down of the different craft elements and an understanding of the way in which they intertwine. Many of you might simply rely on your writerly intuition to accomplish this balance, but for those of us who struggle with the “how much is too much” conundrum, it’s important to provide a clear checklist of what a scene should contain:
* Action: This is perhaps the most fundamental element of a scene. Something has to happen. And that something has to compel the eyeballs, as yours are being compelled now, to scan to the end of each and every sentence. Scenes function a bit as a chain reaction; one scene builds upon another, upon another, upon another until we get a full sense of the world inside your novel—or, as Blake might say, the grains of sand that make up your fictional beach. How is the action of this scene related to the overarching plot of your novel? Are you revealing in this scene that your lawyer, a main character, once considered shy and reclusive by the other characters and your narrator, is really a lecherous cad, making moves on his assistant and astounding the reader with new, unexpected information? Well, you sure can. But how do you do it? Does he call her into his office and make a speech, or does he just act creepy, smell her hair a bit when he thinks she’s not paying attention? Stare at her cleavage when she’s fixing the copier, maybe? Your call. But make it memorable, because this guy is secretive about his creepy activities. His actions might reveal his intentions, whether he wants them to, or not.
* Characters and their baggage: By characters, I don’t simply mean flat, two-dimensional characters. They must have a complex history, desires, and motivations. And by baggage, I mean that your characters must have histories and desires; they must want something—both in the short-term (the scene) and the long-term (the novel/story). A story about a barber in a hair cutting contest is much more interesting if the barber is blind. What stands in your character’s way? What understanding of the character will the reader take away from the scene that will help them decipher the rest of your novel? What will your characters say (dialogue)? And what are they thinking (indirect speech)?
* Setting: Each scene must make the physical setting jump off the page for the reader. What does the terrain look like? Feel like? Smell like? Remember, too, that setting is often used to create a mood or a tone of the scene. A story that begins “on a dark and stormy night” will certainly be darker in tone than one that begins on a “bright and fragrant spring morning.” Our lecherous attorney from Bullet Point Number One might be set most convincingly in a cramped, humid office space, dark and dank enough to make everyone hot and bothered, whether or not they share his sweaty desires. If he’s a twisted creep, after all, chances are he’s not a particularly gifted attorney with a spacious, wood-paneled office and expensive art on the walls. He’s an ambulance chaser with a poor record of catching those ambulances; or maybe he’s a divorce lawyer, but one that isn’t so great at keeping his hands off the merchandise. Does a big sign reading “Dewey, Cheatem, and Howe” light up the entryway in blinking neon? If it does, then that decision is part of your setting.
* Point of View: The POV character functions, in essence, as the reader’s eyes and ears in the fictional world. We see the story through the perspective of that individual character, or, to put in another way, we’re in that character’s “head.” Decide which POV character is the best fit for your scene. Who is going to provide the best perspective, details, and insights? And, importantly, will that character actually be present at your fiction’s critical moments? If you want the climactic courtroom scene to be described, bomb-filled backpack being discovered in the corner and all, your POV detective will need to be in the observer’s gallery of the courtroom. Or maybe the judge should describe the story … you get the picture, but your readers won’t get it if the POV character you’ve created for them can’t be available to them at the right times.
* Conflict: Have you ever listened to someone tell a story that seemed to go on and on and on with no real point or purpose? My Aunt Kathy recently told a story about her neighbor’s cat Pumpkin and how she’s always doing the darndest things. Pumpkin jumps up on window sills and takes naps in the old dog house in the garden. Pumpkin chases rabbits in the yard, and she likes to play with the other neighborhood cat, Sam, who is black and white. Kathy spent a full twelve minutes describing Pumpkin’s coat, which, would you believe, is orange? Have you fallen asleep yet? If not, keep in mind that this is how your scene will read if you have not thought to include a conflict or a complication in the scene. Maybe Aunt Kathy’s neighbor, Bart, is a dog person. Hates cats, as a matter of fact. And Bart doesn’t find Pumpkin’s intrusions into his rabbit farm to be amusing at all. Did Pumpkin’s owner ever actually sign the paperwork for that restraining order against Bart? If not, Pumpkin might be toast. Now you’ve got a conflict worth exploring.
* Text/Subtext: Hemingway once said, “I always try to write on the principle of the iceberg. There is seven-eighths of it underwater for every part that shows.” What he means is that if what you’ve written is written carefully, your reader will be able to read further into your story, beyond what is immediately written. The adage “less is more” is useful when writing your scenes. Don’t give too much away; practice the art of subtlety. Remember, you are learning to trust your readers to read closely, to intuit that your antagonist is evil because of his dark and penetrating eyes or his menacing looks.
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WRITING PROMPT: Up in the Air
Feel free to take the following prompt home or post your response (500 words or fewer, funny, sad or stirring) in the Comments section below. By posting, you’ll be automatically entered in our occasional around-the-office swag drawings.
A thud.
On the plane, everyone looks around.
Another thud.
And another.
Then, a knocking from below.
Traditional Prompts | WD Mag Wednesday
Wednesday, January 27, 2010 7:22:03 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)
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Friday, January 22, 2010
Surviving a Writing Group (plus weekend prompt)
If you’ve ever been involved in a writing group, you know things can get awkward. Part of that awkwardness tends to take the form of silence—the nemesis of any writer whose piece has just been read.
In my first writing group, in between twirled thumbs and wall-stares, I realized that (well, most of the time) it’s not the spectacularly bad quality of your piece that stifles your peers. It’s often the fact that developing a language for critiquing, and greasing the wheels of the dialogue, can be monstrously hard. But once you do, the group run smoother, members are left less haunted by nonresponses, and in the end, everyone gets more from your meetings.
Writing groups are on my mind because Kelly Nickell, the executive editor of WD Books who sits across from me, periodically spotlights one of her favorite releases on the WD homepage as a Kelly’s Pick. After reading her post featuring Becky Levine’s Writing & Critique Group Survival Guide, I nabbed a copy of the book from one of the displays near her desk, and was intrigued by the worksheets inside.
For your critiquing pleasure, I’ve posted some points below from the worksheet on fiction. Here’s to hoping it might help fill some of the silent spaces in your own group …
(For the complete worksheet, drop by the Kelly's Pick page, or click here to check out the book.)
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Plot
• Can you identify the hero’s overall goal? Describe it here or note that you aren’t seeing it clearly. What steps is the hero taking to achieve that goal?
• What are the cause-and-effect story reasons behind the characters’ actions?
• What are the subplots in the story? What connections has the author made between these subplots and the hero’s main plot?
Character
• How do the hero and other characters react to the world around them? How do they respond to each others’ dialogue and to the actions and events taking place?
• How has the author portrayed her characters as real, layered people?
What complex and contradictory traits do the characters possess?
• What actions do you see that don’t match the character development the author has created in the story so far? What story reasons, if any, does the author give for these shifts?
Voice and Point of View
• How would you describe the voice of the story? What kind of personality do the voice and point of view evoke?
• Where do you see places that the narrator slips out of her own point of view? If the story is told in multiple points of view, track where and how the shifts are made clear and where they may be confusing.
Dialogue
• What do the dialogue beats tell you about the characters? How do the beats layer in extra meaning to the characters’ spoken words?
• How is information revealed through dialogue? Can you show the author any places she may have used dialogue to dump too much information all in one chunk? How can the author trim this information, and where can she weave it through the story?
Description
• How many details does the author use in her descriptions? Are there places the author could trim the words used to convey a character’s appearance or a setting?
• How well does the author paint a picture of her characters? What kind of image do you see when you first meet a character in the story?
Scene Structure
• What does the author do to keep tension rising across a scene? How does the author increase the level of tension to keep the reader turning pages?
Best of luck at your writing group!
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WRITING PROMPT: That Damn Cat
Feel free to take the following prompt home or post your response (500 words or fewer, funny, sad or stirring) in the Comments section below. By posting, you’ll be automatically entered in our occasional around-the-office swag drawings.
You could have done it. It all should have been simple.
“If it hadn’t been for that damn cat …” he mumbles.
Traditional Prompts
Friday, January 22, 2010 8:36:58 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)
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Wednesday, January 20, 2010
Up for a Writing Challenge?
Promptly regulars Mark James and Martha Warner are embarking upon a challenge that’s intense, awesome and perhaps even a bit insane (the good kind): They’re planning to tackle every Promptly prompt in 2010. Branding the effort The 144 Club, here are excerpts from Martha’s blog post (I’ll try not to steal too much of it so you can check out the full entry here).
“Back in November Mark James and myself committed to writing on the Promptly blog (comments section) with each prompt posted by Zac. It was fun, enlightening, and stretched my writing boundaries. We enjoyed ourselves so much that month we decided to continue.
“To give it an added dimension, for the beginning of a new year, Mark came up with this brilliant idea of the 144 Club.
1. Write to as many of Zac’s posts/prompts in 2010 as possible. Without any major life issues, we can safely say all of them.
2. For each prompt we post, we put a dollar in a jar. (Which keeps us accountable for writing on a regular basis.) If we forget to use the must-have [a predetermined element that needs to be in each story], it’s two bucks.
3. At the end of 2010 we will donate to a charity.
“The point being we will have 144 stories EACH to potentially make and mold into something bigger. Who knows where the next big story will come from? I don’t. So, I’m taking this opportunity (and good excuse) to write three times per week. In the end, we’ll do a little good for someone and a lot of good for our creative selves.”
I’m excited to be a part of the project, and I’m going to brainstorm some ways to match their efforts (donating books/materials to a charity? Matching funds?). Here’s to hoping my prompt generator can keep up with them—and you, if you want to get on board …
And don’t forget, if you’re in Cincinnati tonight, stop by and party with the crew of WD! Expect networking, giveaways, and last but surely not least, birthday cake—with our 90th anniversary magazine cover printed on it. (Remember the fuss I was making about the shiny silver ink? That’s right: Now it’s edible!)
Hope to see you there.
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WRITING PROMPT: Dining Room Enigmas
Feel free to take the following prompt home or post your response (500 words or fewer, funny, sad or stirring) in the Comments section below. By posting, you’ll be automatically entered in our occasional around-the-office swag drawings.
He takes his fifth drink and coughs. His companion takes his first and kisses a waitress on the cheek. Across the room, your associate’s palms sweat as she prepares to tell them the truth.
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Great Creative in 2010: Tap into inspiration. Learn strategies for making time to write. Plan your own low key writing retreat. Check out 26 writing contests that can get your book published. Create a book trailer with cinematic flair. Learn Sue Grafton’s writing secrets. Click here to check the February 2010 issue of WD out!
Traditional Prompts | The 144 Club
Wednesday, January 20, 2010 7:46:46 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)
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Monday, January 18, 2010
Your Monday Creativity Wake-Up Prompt
Happy MLK Day, everyone.
Here's to hoping 2010 is treating you and your writing well. I'll be back Wednesday with a full post.
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WRITING PROMPT: The Broadcast Boon
Feel free to take the following prompt home or post your response (500 words or fewer, funny, sad or stirring) in the Comments section below.
You’ve never done it before, but this time you call in to
the radio station. You win something you didn't anticipate—or want. -- Get Creative in 2010: Tap into inspiration. Learn strategies for making time to write. Plan your own low key writing retreat. Check out 26 contests that can get your book published. Create a book trailer with cinematic flair. Learn Sue Grafton’s writing secrets. Click here to check the February 2010 issue of WD out!
Traditional Prompts
Monday, January 18, 2010 6:35:24 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)
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Friday, January 15, 2010
Is the slush pile dead? (Plus weekend prompt)
Just read a great article in The Wall Street Journal, Katherine Rosman’s “The Death of the Slush Pile.” While the piece recaps what most writers know—you need an agent to get your work published by big presses, breaking out of the pile can take a miracle—it spotlights slush piles across a variety of writing outlets, and some intriguing stories from within them (such as that fluke that prevented Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight manuscript from being immediately canned).
It also has some solid sound bites—as Jim Levine (Levine Greenberg Agency) says, “These days, you need to deliver not just the manuscript but the audience. More and more, the mantra in publishing is ‘Ask not what your publisher can do for you, ask what you can do for your publisher.’ ”
And then there’s the recap of the Paris Review’s slush pile policy: Interns and grad students sort through some 1,000 subs, and two people review every piece. Stories receiving two thumbs up are moved on to an editor, and ultimately, a single piece makes the cut each year.
(Check the full WSJ article out here.)
For the curious, at WD, our slush pile tends to run behind because of the size of our staff and the amount of work that goes into each issue. But we do sometimes buy stories from it. (I bought a lede piece for InkWell a few weeks back, and every so often we’ll nab a solid feature query.)
My advice for surviving the slush pile, at least in the world of magazines: Break out of it. In the absence of an actual contact for a submissions/acquisitions editor (few and far between), track down the managing editor in the magazine’s masthead, and then search for that person’s contact information by Googling their name with an “@” symbol. Even if you can’t find the editor’s e-mail address, label the subject line of your slush pile query with 'Attn: the (appropriate) editor’s name,' which makes your piece harder to ignore, shows you’ve done your homework, and can cut down on response times. Or use market books like Writer’s Market that have contact breakdowns often delving beyond slush inbox addresses. Be easy to work with, and once the assignment is complete, stay in touch. At the end of the day, nurturing solid relationships can be the key to becoming a go-to writer for assignments, and ensuring that you stay out of that particular slush pile—for good.
*(And, as always, read the submission guidelines and the publication before pitching to make sure your idea is indeed an ideal fit, and search for your subject on the magazine’s website to make sure the topic hasn’t recently been covered.)
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WRITING PROMPT: Your 15 Minutes
Feel free to take the following prompt home or post your response (500 words or fewer, funny, sad or stirring) in the Comments section below. By posting, you’ll be automatically entered in our occasional around-the-office swag drawings.
You’re watching a daytime talk show. A familiar face walks onto the stage, you drop what you’re holding and she utters your name on national television.
Traditional Prompts
Friday, January 15, 2010 7:23:56 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)
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Wednesday, January 13, 2010
5 Great Quotes on Writing
As we’re gearing up for WD’s 90th anniversary party next week—talking about printing magazine covers on cakes, sustaining unfortunate injuries such as a thumbtack puncture from a flier posting gone wrong—I keep flipping back to our January issue to check various covers, round up materials, etc.
In the process, I've been bumping into WD Editor Jessica Strawser’s 90 Secrets of Bestselling Authors feature. Here are five of my favorite tidbits from the piece … followed, of course, by today’s prompt.
(Also, thanks to everyone for your excellent author ideas. I'm going to add them to our list of possibilities. If you have an author you'd love to see in Writer's Digest magazine, post his or her name here!)
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“Every idea is my last. I feel sure of it. So, I try to do the best with each as it comes and that’s where my responsibility ends. But I just don’t wait for ideas. I look for them. Constantly. And if I don’t use the ideas that I find, they’re going to quit showing up.” —PEG BRACKEN, 1970 WD
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“If you stuff yourself full of poems, essays, plays, stories, novels, films, comic strips, magazines, music, you automatically explode every morning like Old Faithful. I have never had a dry spell in my life, mainly because I feed myself well, to the point of bursting. I wake early and hear my morning voices leaping around in my head like jumping beans. I get out of bed quickly, to trap them before they escape.” —RAY BRADBURY, 1991 WD
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“I have never felt like I was creating anything. For me, writing is like walking through a desert and all at once, poking up through the hardpan, I see the top of a chimney. I know there’s a house under there, and I’m pretty sure that I can dig it up if I want. That’s how I feel. It’s like the stories are already there. What they pay me for is the leap of faith that says: ‘If I sit down and do this, everything will come out OK.’” —STEPHEN KING, 1992 WD
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“Don’t quit. It’s very easy to quit during the first 10 years. Nobody cares whether you write or not, and it’s very hard to write when nobody cares one way or the other. You can’t get fired if you don’t write, and most of the time you don’t get rewarded if you do. But don’t quit.” —ANDRE DUBUS, 1988
WD
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“Writing is like being in love. You never get better at it or learn more about it. The day you think you do is the day you lose it. Robert Frost called his work a lover’s quarrel with the world. It’s ongoing. It has neither a beginning nor an end. You don’t have to worry about learning things. The fire of one’s art burns all the impurities from the vessel that contains it.”
—JAMES LEE BURKE, 1997 WD
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WRITING PROMPT: Fight Club
Feel free to take the following prompt home or post your response (500 words or fewer, funny, sad or stirring) in the Comments section below. By posting, you’ll be automatically entered in our occasional around-the-office swag drawings.
Take the last fight or disagreement you were involved in—be it a fistfight, a verbal battle with a spouse, a passive-aggressive note campaign with a neighbor—and incorporate it into a scene with a different resolution.
Traditional Prompts | WD Mag Wednesday
Wednesday, January 13, 2010 10:30:02 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)
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Monday, January 11, 2010
If you could read an interview with any living writer, who would it be? (Plus prompt)
Last year we rounded up Stephen King, Anne Tyler, Jerry B. Jenkins, Steve Berry, James Patterson, Brock Clarke, Rick Steves, Cory Doctorow, Lee Child, Gregory Maguire, Audrey Niffenegger and more, and this year we’ve featured the likes of Lawrence Ferlinghetti and Sue Grafton.
I’m curious: Who would you like to see in a future issue of Writer's Digest magazine?
Post your picks in the Comments section of the blog… who knows, maybe we’ll track them down for a chat on writing.
And now, back to seeking out the elusive and marvelous author I’ve been pursuing for more than a year—
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WRITING PROMPT: Cellular Apologies
Feel free to take the following prompt home or post your response (500 words or fewer, funny, sad or stirring) in the Comments section below. By posting, you’ll be automatically entered in our occasional around-the-office swag drawings.
A stranger asks to borrow your cell phone. You agree. She turns away and talks on it for a moment, then faces you once more.
“I’m sorry,” she says, eyes red. “I’m so sorry.”
Then, she runs away.
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King. Kerouac. Vonnegut. Hemingway. How to write a novel in 2010. An interview with Lawrence Ferlinghetti. A celebration of 90 years. Shiny silver ink. Best issue of Writer’s Digest ever? Click here to check it out.
Traditional Prompts
Monday, January 11, 2010 9:02:30 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)
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Friday, January 08, 2010
Your Weekend Prompt: Trapped in the Ice
Prompting on the fly with snow on the horizon – stay warm, and have a great weekend!
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WRITING PROMPT: Trapped in the Ice
Feel free to take the following prompt home or post your response (funny, sad or stirring) in the Comments section below. By posting, you’ll be automatically entered in our occasional around-the-office swag drawings.
Your car breaks down in the midst of a blizzard—and a critical cell phone call. Trudging through the snow, you discover something frozen in ice that will prove to be invaluable in the moments ahead.
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King. Kerouac. Vonnegut. Hemingway. How to write a novel in 2010. An interview with Lawrence Ferlinghetti. A celebration of 90 years. Shiny silver ink. Best issue of Writer’s Digest ever? Click here to check it out!
Traditional Prompts
Friday, January 08, 2010 10:53:58 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)
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Wednesday, January 06, 2010
Party With Writer's Digest: A 90-Year Bash, Giveaways ... and Even Birthday Cake
Going to be in the Great Midwest Jan. 20? If so, join us for a bit of a grassroots bash (with sheet cake). I'll post the official release--and, of course, a prompt--below. Hope to see you there!
WRITER'S DIGEST CELEBRATES 90TH ANNIVERSARY
Legendary writing magazine rings in milestone with special issue, free birthday bash
CINCINNATI--It has featured everyone from Jack Kerouac, Kurt Vonnegut and Ernest Hemingway to Hugh Hefner and Sylvester Stallone. In the last year alone, it's spotlighted interviews with Stephen King, James Patterson, Mitch Albom and Audrey Niffenegger. It's covered everything from “The Truth About Writing For the Talkies” to e-books, and has survived two World Wars, a Great Depression and a recession.
Now, Writer's Digest is celebrating a critical milestone-the magazine's 90th anniversary-and the publication, though now in its nonagenarian years, is (cane-free, and) still going strong.
“Even though publishing is undergoing massive transformation, one thing has not changed: the passion and persistence of writers to improve their craft and get their work published,” Publisher Jane Friedman says. “Writer's Digest survives because the number of aspiring writers increases year on year, and they're all seeking information on how to break into the business.”
Founded by Ed Rosenthal in 1920, the Writer's Digest community today is comprised of the industry-leading magazine, books, special newsstand-only publications, the annual Writer's Market guide (also celebrating its 90th anniversary in 2010), an online school, conferences, competitions and one of the biggest online communities for writers. To celebrate the anniversary, Writer's Digest is hosting a free bash at 7 p.m., Jan. 20, at the Northside Tavern (4163 Hamilton Ave.). In addition to refreshments and cake, the WD team will be on hand to ring in the literary legacy with giveaways and other events.
As for the magazine itself, the 90th anniversary issue, on newsstands now, features an entire redesign, in addition to a package about novel writing. Editor Jessica Strawser also spent time digging in the archives, and assembled a 90 Secrets of Bestselling Authors feature, recapping classic advice from the past nine decades. Finally, the issue is capped off by an interview with 90-year-old writing legend Lawrence Ferlinghetti.
“All of us on staff are honored and humbled to be a part of the Writer's Digest legacy, and this anniversary gives us a moment to celebrate and give thanks to the writing community that supports us,” Friedman says. “Anyone who's ever worked with or for Writer's Digest is encouraged to join us, as well as anyone who has read and appreciated the magazine over the years.”
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Moreover, our anniversary issue is still on newsstands. (And I'm still madly in love with it.) Click here to check it out.
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WRITING PROMPT: Raising the Alarm
Feel free to take the following prompt home or post your response (500 words or fewer, funny, sad or stirring) in the Comments section below. By posting, you’ll be automatically entered in our occasional around-the-office swag drawings.
Yet again, you draw a breath, mumble an apology, and pull the fire alarm at the shopping mall.
Traditional Prompts | WD Mag Wednesday
Wednesday, January 06, 2010 7:49:40 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)
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Monday, January 04, 2010
Get Your Short Fiction Published in WD
In Writer’s Digest magazine, we have only one spot for fiction—the Your Story contest. Readers write pieces in response to an open prompt in every issue, and after magazine staffers narrow down the entries, the members of our online communities vote on their favorites. Ultimately, one winner takes our lone fiction spot. (The most I can offer in the form of an insider glimpse is that the last half dozen contests have witnessed a plethora of leprechauns. We're not sure whether this is good or bad, but are prone to interrupting hushed reading periods with cries of “Leprechaun!” whenever one surfaces.)
Mythical creatures aside, to enter, shoot your story off to yourstorycontest@fwmedia.com, or post your response (750 words or fewer) in the comments section of Promptly. (There’s only one entry allowed per person, and you have until the Feb. 10 deadline.)
Good luck!
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WRITING PROMPT: Your Story No. 24 (as featured in the February 2010 issue of WD)
Parents look on in horror as a magician’s trick goes horribly awry during a child’s birthday party.
—From the Writer’s Book of Matches (click here to check out a digital version) by the staff of fresh boiled peanuts: a literary journal
Traditional Prompts | Your Story Prompts
Monday, January 04, 2010 6:47:52 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)
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Wednesday, December 30, 2009
Being Resolute on Your New Year’s Writing Resolution
They resurface in lost pockets every so often, covered in lint, scrawled on Post-it notes. I analyze them like an archaeologist, studying their messages—some successful, others negotiable, others well, less than so.
Go Europe. Quit Smoking. Sell book. Fried food: No. Take more photos; take photos of anything other than [delightful pet basset hound] Abner.
New Year’s Resolutions.
As I prepare to make another batch, the new February issue of WD sits on my desk. Focused on getting creative in 2010, it features a great piece by Fred White on the topic of inspiration. On my bookshelf, I have White’s Daily Writer, which includes the following bit on resolutions. While it may seem obvious, it’s something I’d like to brand (in so many words) on my arm for 2010.
“It’s easy to make resolutions but tough to follow through on them. Before you make yours, think about the psychology behind wanting to do so in the first place. We look upon the beginning of a new year as a chance to renew our lives. …
“For writers, New Year’s resolutions are motivational prods that actually can work, if you set up a means of fulfilling the resolution along with the resolution itself. For this new year, resolve not only to succeed at writing, but to write every day. To make that resolution stick, get into a routine; make writing a habit. This means carving out a set time for writing and adhering to it.
“Resolutions are best enforced through a daily routine. Eventually, the routine becomes habitual; writing will become an integral part of your life, no different from sitting down to dinner or shopping for groceries—except, of course, that writing involves uninterrupted concentration. It’s a good idea, before committing to a writing routine, to ‘test the waters’ for a few days just to see how well you can handle four or five hours of writing at one sitting. You may discover that spending only two hours a day would work best for you.
“To ensure that you write every day, set aside a realistic chunk of time relative to the demands on your workday. Approach your writing time as you do eating: As something you must do. Decide ahead of time what kind of writing you’re going to do (work on an outline for a novel, profile a character, describe a setting, and so forth) and do it.”
My latest haul of Post-its: Get personal website revamped and back up, finish editing novel, submit pieces every other weekend. Which means getting home from work and getting back into the routine. Which can be the hardest part. (Well, that, and ditching the fried food.)
What’s on your list? See you Monday in the new year!
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WRITING PROMPT: The Power of Suggestion
Feel free to take the following prompt home or post your response (funny, sad or stirring) in the Comments section below. By posting, you’ll be automatically entered in our occasional around-the-office swag drawings.
Ask a friend for a number between 100 and 2,000, and without any further explanation, ask her to say the first word that comes to mind. Write a story of the given number of words exactly, and make the random word the title as well as the final utterance in your story. A possible first sentence: “Do you trust me?”
InkWell Prompts | Traditional Prompts | WD Mag Wednesday
Wednesday, December 30, 2009 6:23:28 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)
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Saturday, December 26, 2009
A Practical Guide to Holiday Creativity
Portly men are tumbling down chimneys, stores abound with merry chaos, and if you still don’t have to go back to work, you might be at home with your relatives—and your writing. How do you make the most of the holidays and go into the new year productive?*
- No one likes a work-obsessed Scrooge scribbling in a notebook while everyone is watching the Christmas Story marathon on TBS, but writers can’t really avoid writing. Especially during the 100th viewing of A Christmas Story. To overcome any angry relatives, buy a stack of gaudy leftover cards at the dollar store and compose your poems, stories and prewriting inside them. Now, your thank-you card productivity shines.
- Get lost in all the ornaments on a holiday tree—names, places, shapes, figurines. Is there a way to mold a story based on what you find dangling in those branches?
- Destroy your inner critic and turn on soap operas and other programs you usually miss (e.g., Judge Judy). Borrow a character from one of the shows, and write a scene based on her daily life outside the program.
- Whereas a cup of tea or coffee usually does the trick to get you amped up and ready to write, indulge in all the seasonal opportunities around you. Soon, you’ll awaken surrounded by 12 types of cookies, peppermint bark, spiked cider, several cups of hot cocoa, a thermos of gourmet coffee, empty boxes of Godivas, A Christmas Story playing in the background and a herd of curious cats watching you. Brush yourself off, avoid the couch that’s calling your name and channel the electrifying sugar jitters to plow through a chapter of your WIP.
- Speaking of those cats, as all the humans doze, arrange the felines around the room and perhaps construct on-the-fly costumes for them out of wrapping paper to bring your scenes to life. Observe new character interactions. And how your protagonist suddenly goes gaga for shoelaces.
- Go to a coffee shop or stand in the Return line at a store and simply listen, jotting down stray quotes. Mash them together, and write a scene based on the voyeur prompt. One of my stolen prompts from today:
“It doesn’t fit.”
“Did it ever?”
“Do they ever?"
“Look—Valentine’s Day is on its way.”
“It all just keeps coming.”
- Get a jump on 2010 and craft a New Year’s Writing Resolution list. More on this Wednesday …
- Print a few poems and short stories, fold them into boxes (numerous versions can be found via a Google search), and tie small bows on them. Candy within optional. Then, give them to your writing group members at your next meeting.
- Don’t celebrate Christmas, Hanukkah or Kwanzaa? Study the various holidays and attempt to write a convincing scene involving one of them. Put yourself in someone else’s shoes and write outside your box (then, make the scene into your own holiday box?).
- If anything, treat the holidays like any other days, slip away for a bit, and just work on your regular project. It’ll only be a couple of hours, and you may be deemed a Scrooge, but hey, it’s easier than making wrapping paper costumes for cats. And A Christmas Story will still be on when you’re done, right?
*Not everything on this list is entirely serious. Although I am writing it inside a card from the dollar store. And A Christmas Story is on.
(Also, check out the excellent holiday stylings of Martha W. and Mark James in the Comments section of the previous post!)
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WRITING PROMPT: Resolute
Feel free to take the following prompt home or post your response (500
words or fewer, funny, sad or stirring) in the Comments section below.
By posting, you’ll be automatically entered in our occasional
around-the-office swag drawings.
It’s Dec. 31, and you’re scrambling to make a resolution come true that you made last year. The sun is setting, and it’s time for action.
Traditional Prompts
Saturday, December 26, 2009 8:23:04 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)
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Monday, December 21, 2009
Holiday Prompts and Gift Ideas for the Snowed In
It’s that time of year again: the WD office is gradually falling silent, and any repairmen or squirrels mulling about the roof of F+W Media are commonly mistaken for rabbit fur–wearing holiday heroes.
Due to an insufficient present stockpile and a few remaining vacation days, I’ll be out for the rest of the week. If you missed it last week, check out my holiday gift roundup for writers—and a few other writers’ lists and sites below, featuring many items that can be purchased from the confines of your home. (Although, as there is only so much lit swag to go around, there always tends to be a little overlap.)
Debbie Ridpath Ohi
Christina Katz
Shakespeare’s Den
Have an excellent week—here's to hoping it goes well. Enjoy a smattering of (seasonal and claymation-infused) prompts for the snowed in/holidayed in!
WRITING PROMPTS
Feel free to take the following prompts home or post your responses (500 words or fewer, funny, sad or stirring) in the Comments section below. By posting, you’ll be automatically entered in our occasional around-the-office swag drawings.
“This was a holiday tradition.”
He glances around, wipes his boot on a rug. “After what happened this year, it’s not any more.”
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Something comes down your chimney, but it’s not exactly Santa. In your bed, you stir as you hear footsteps.
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Write an unexpected literary fiction vignette about a character from a “classic” holiday film—say, perhaps, a lost moment in the life of Cousin Eddie from Christmas Vacation? The trials and tribulations of one Yukon Cornelius (as featured in the Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer claymation special)? A story titled “Ralphie’s Revenge”?
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Nonfiction: Recall the first time you saw a familiar holiday figure (Santa, et. al). Knowing nothing about this character, and seeing it objectively as a first-timer, what was your reaction? How have your early impressions changed?
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King. Kerouac. Vonnegut. Hemingway. How to write a novel in 2010. An interview with Lawrence Ferlinghetti. A celebration of 90 years. Shiny silver ink. Best issue of Writer’s Digest ever?
Traditional Prompts
Monday, December 21, 2009 6:20:13 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)
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Friday, December 18, 2009
WD Wants You: Write a Reckless Blitzen, an Angry Santa
Gorilla suits, zombies, The Universe popping up as a character and saying things like, “You’re getting too big for your fangs.” And that’s only one Friday.
For a trip to the wonderful, fun and often enchantingly weird, check out my lunch buddy (and WD Online Community Editor) Brian A. Klems’ #StoryFriday project on Twitter. Basically, Brian posts an opening prompt with our @WritersDigest feed, and then it’s a creative free-for-all as everyone adds lines to a living canvas.
Great literature? Maybe not. A fun, bizarre forum that can take a story—and your mind—in unexpected and delightful directions? Definitely.
Even if you’re one of the last people on Earth (read: me) without a personal Twitter account, it’s a blast to peruse. To participate, when you contribute a line to the story, place #storyfriday at the end of your Tweet—i.e., He was leaving on a jet plane and never coming back. #storyfriday).
To check out a few of the past stories, visit writersdigest.com/storyfriday. For today’s—an epic spawning from the following line—click here.
"Listen Blitzen, I've had it up to about here with your tomfoolery," Santa said as he waved his finger in Blitzen's face.
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WRITING PROMPT: Cheers
Feel free to take the following prompt home or post your response (500 words or fewer, funny, sad or stirring) in the Comments section below. By posting, you’ll be automatically entered in our occasional around-the-office swag drawings.
"… in this drink?"
He shrugs. "There are always more ingredients than you'd ever guess."
I stare into its depths as it reflects candlelight.
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King. Kerouac. Vonnegut. Hemingway. How to write a novel in 2010. An interview with Lawrence Ferlinghetti. A celebration of 90 years. Shiny silver ink. Best issue of Writer’s Digest ever?
Traditional Prompts | Freaky Friday
Friday, December 18, 2009 6:53:44 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)
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Wednesday, December 16, 2009
Ditch the Fancy Pens: 12 Gifts for Writers
 In the November/December issue of WD, we featured a batch of holiday gifts for writers, as picked by WD editors. In case you missed the issue, here they are, recapped with some new additions—so that the writer in your life doesn’t end up with another fancy notebook he’s scared to write in, even with a fancy pen. (I have a small stack of journals awaiting $40 thoughts.)
Beyond these, what are some of your recommendations for writers?
“Writers can make a classy and professional statement with personalized note cards. I use FineStationery.com (where it’s fun to create mock-ups). To really splurge for the writer in your life, choose a letterpress printing option. Unforgettable.”
Jane Friedman, publisher and editorial director
“I always think a good book is the best gift you can give—but why stop there? Give the perfect winter reading experience by pairing a coveted title with a cozy throw and an indulgence of hot chocolate mix, a tea sampler or a bottle of wine. My personal fireside favorite? Any cocoa from Godiva.”
Jessica Strawser, WD editor
“The iPhone 3GS features a voice recorder and notebook for capturing ideas on the fly, a camera, video camera and zillions of apps, such as dictionaries, thesauruses and e-readers. And with the Internet at your fingertips, it’s a snap to keep up with industry news and blogs. I don’t know how writers live without them.”
Alice Pope, WD Market Books managing editor
“In lieu of a plane ticket to Key West to check out Hemingway’s house and herd of legendary six-toed cats, pick up a copy of Shannon McKenna Schmidt and Joni Rendon’s Novel Destinations—a definitive travel guide for writers that ventures into all the literary corners most guidebooks overlook. Wildly useful for any getaway.”
Zac, WD managing editor
“For writers who like to make lots of notes and tack up story outlines and scene cards, a small bulletin board is great for displaying all the pieces of your work-in-progress. It’s also a good place to hang inspiring stories about authors, photos of hip writing spaces and positive mantras to keep you moving during less productive times. These visual reminders of your goal—to be your own success story—can help keep you grounded.”
Kelly Nickell, WD Books executive editor
And some new picks …
It Was a Dark and Stormy Night board game: Call me selfish for leading off with this one (or, call me Ishmael), but I want this game in which you’re tasked with guessing the title or author of books after hearing their opening lines. (Take note, family members.)
Moleskine City Notebooks: OK, so I may have been bashing fancy notebooks a minute ago. But Moleskine’s are battle tested, and to give a thoughtful writerly gift, all you need do is figure out where your writer is taking a trip in 2010. Las Vegas? Done. Madrid? Si. They come with maps, sections to keep you organized, and even tracing paper.
Fancy things from Levenger: Euro Desk System. Duet Fortunata Tote Bag. True Writer Kyoto Clock Paperweight.
Writer’s Digest Swag: I bought WD products long before I worked here, so I’d mention them in this roundup even if I was still a police reporter. Check out back issues of the magazine and oodles of books, including the handsome 2010 Writer’s Market. Or, if you’re like me and lagging on your present quota this year, drop by your favorite bookstore Dec. 22 to pick up a copy of the February 2010 issue of WD (my new pitch: It’s so awesome it scooped Santa Claus).
A new digital voice recorder: Tired of steering with your knees while balancing a pad of paper and jotting down fleeting ideas? Grab a new recorder. We recently acquired a Sony ICD-UX71 (a sleek red digital recorder with 287 hours of space and a direct USB connection), and so far, we're impressed.
A bookstore gift certificate (with stipulation that it not be spent on Frappuccinos): Old reliable = cheating? Probably. But what better way to sharpen your writing than by reading?
Bookends: Personal favorites of mine include James Thurber’s dogs and lounging polar bears. The best part about bookends? They add a new level to your bookshelf, and can be used to establish rogue bookshelves wherever you choose. (Be warned: Googling “bookends” can lead to several hours of lost time.)
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WRITING PROMPT: Gift That Made You Gag
Feel free to take the following prompt home or post your response (500 words or fewer, funny, sad or stirring) in the Comments section below. By posting, you’ll be automatically entered in our occasional around-the-office swag drawings.
Revisit a scene from your past and write about a gift you once received that shocked you—for better or worse.
Traditional Prompts
Wednesday, December 16, 2009 8:46:52 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)
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Monday, December 14, 2009
The Key Ingredient of a Novel . . .
As I wrote on the WD Forum: Samwise Gamgee or Middle Earth? The simple elegance of Hemingway’s prose or Santiago’s quest for his marlin? Dracula, Transylvania or the book's letter/diary format?
I’m whipping up the March/April InkWell section of Writer’s Digest magazine right now, and one of the features we run every issue is the Superlatives poll—basically, WD readers voting on a question about something in the writing world.
This issue’s question: In your opinion, if you were forced to pick one, what’s the best ingredient of a solid novel: The plot/premise; the style; the characters or the setting?
Drop by the WD Forum and vote! (There’s no catch, except you have to sign up for the free forum to weigh in.) We print the results every issue, and usually run them alongside one writer’s comments to shed some light on the answers.
Also, if you’re going to be in Cincinnati tonight, stop by the Blue Wisp Jazz Club downtown to see three journalists attempting to make music that doesn’t sound like, um, err, music being played by journalists who have practiced once. The Society of Professional Journalists in Cincinnati is having a battle of the journalist bands, and WD book author/rocker Chuck Sambuchino recruited me for the gig.
Pray for rock n’ roll! (And my guitar, which is currently shivering in fright in the corner of my office, having not performed on stage in years.)
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WRITING PROMPT: Taming the Title
Feel free to take the following prompt home or post your response (500 words or fewer, funny, sad or stirring) in the Comments section below. By posting, you’ll be automatically entered in our occasional around-the-office swag drawings.
Write a vignette from one of these titles:
Apocalypse Forgotten
The Dragon is Not Real.
The Sky Is Lying
Traditional Prompts
Monday, December 14, 2009 5:14:35 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)
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Friday, December 11, 2009
Writing Prompt: Steal From the Real
I’m sneaking off a bit early to immerse myself in last-minute preparations for the WD Intensive this weekend. If you missed it earlier this week, check out my post on the event and 7 reasons an editor might toss a novel submission in the round file.
Hope to see you in Cincinnati!
(Also, curious about the Nook e-reader? According to the tech gurus at Wired, it falls flat.)
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WRITING PROMPT: Steal From the Real
Feel free to take the following prompt home or post your response (500 words or fewer, funny, sad or stirring) in the Comments section below. By posting, you’ll be automatically entered in our occasional around-the-office swag drawings.
Take a newspaper and flip through the stories. Jot down two sourced quotes verbatim from different sections—say, one from a news story, and one from a human interest piece—and incorporate them into a story of your own. Make one quote the first line, and the other the final line.
Does toying with the real and connecting the dots between the passages force your fiction into unexpected corridors?
Traditional Prompts
Friday, December 11, 2009 5:51:44 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)
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Wednesday, December 09, 2009
Forewords: How Do You Nab Them? (Plus Prompt)
They can be the icing on the literary cake (or, if done poorly, a sandwich tie in your hamburger). So how do you actually get a hold of a foreword for your book?
I’m working on a piece for the March/April issue of WD magazine about Daryl Pinksen, the winner of the WD International Self-Published Book Awards. (His book, Marlowe’s Ghost, is a fascinating nonfiction study constructing an argument that Shakespeare’s works were actually penned by Christopher Marlowe.) The book features a solid foreword by Michael Rubbo, a filmmaker who also created a documentary on the subject.
In my interview with Pinksen, I asked him about the key to roping a foreword. As part of a new recurring feature, WD Mag Wednesday—a closer look at a bit from an upcoming or current issue of the magazine—here’s what he had to say.
“Contact them. Celebrities will be hard to reach, but not impossible. Authors and academics, however, are usually easy to contact, and they will almost certainly respond to a well-crafted letter, so go ahead and approach them. The worst that can happen is that they'll be flattered and decline the invitation, but they will get to know your name and the name of your book.
“Take your time when writing e-mails. Be self-confident, but always maintain courtesy and a professional manner. Give them your best pitch, but keep it short. Busy people appreciate brevity, and they will be impressed if you can make an impact in a short space. If they're interested, maybe they'll agree to read your manuscript. If they aren't, maybe you'll get some feedback or advice. If you do get a response, always thank them for taking the time to respond to you personally.”
When I was a reporter, getting in touch with the right people was daunting and seemingly impossible at first—but always easy with a little research and a carefully worded e-mail.
Having trouble tracking down a celeb for your foreword? Google the name plus “agent.” Then, call the agency or go straight to the agent. Can’t find his or her e-mail address? Never underestimate the power of a Google search with the agent’s name and an “@” symbol. Lost all hope, desperate and willing to flail in the dark? Find the e-mail address format of someone at the agency (e.g., LastNameFirstInitial@agency.com), plug your agent subject into the equation, and send your carefully worded e-mail, pardoning the intrusion, and explaining just why David Bowie would be a good fit for the foreword of some Labyrinth fiction.
Update: And don't forget to ask for a "foreword," and not "forward." Doh.
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WRITING PROMPT: Strangers on a Train
Feel free to take the following prompt home or post your response (500
words or fewer, funny, sad or stirring) in the Comments section below.
By posting, you’ll be automatically entered in our occasional
around-the-office swag drawings.
You’re on a train and for some reason have missed your stop—which, as you soon discover with the stranger sitting next to you, is a blessing in disguise.
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Befriend Zac on the new Writer’s Digest community, or befriend Promptly on Facebook!
Traditional Prompts | WD Mag Wednesday
Wednesday, December 09, 2009 4:21:36 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)
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Monday, December 07, 2009
7 Reasons Editors (Might) Toss a Submission (Plus Prompt)
Every so often, us folks at Writer’s Digest throw our doors open for intensives (think blitzkrieg weekend conferences). Writers come from around the U.S. to check out the events, which include craft and career sessions, a mixer for writers and editors, and perhaps the key perk for attendees, a critique of the first 50 pages of their books. (Alongside, of course, the experience of Cincinnati’s overly sweet, eyebrow-raising signature chili.)
Now, while any critique is subjective, we try to give each writer a good sense of whether or not the first chunk of his/her book is ready to be submitted to an agent or editor. With the next intensive coming up this weekend, I’ve been looking over notes from the last few, and have pooled a small list of hang-ups from the “Why I Stop Reading” panels where the editors discuss, well, why publishing reps might have stopped reading.
Why might they have given up?
• The information dump. Avoid introducing an unmanageable load of characters, or unloading an epic amount of backstory. Rather than offering a summary, delve deeper into moments and let scenes breathe. Also, be wary of flashbacks too early in a piece.
• “Show, Don’t Tell.” While it’s often overused, the familiar writing adage can still ring true. Instead of rehashing how a character feels, frame them in action and let us discover it for ourselves.
• The usual suspects: Waking to an alarm clock; starting with the weather; revealing that your first scene was only a dream; providing overly thorough physical descriptions, clichés or wild grammar; fluctuating tense and point of view.
• A surplus of jargon early on. Be it scientific or technical, consider trimming it to free your prose and bring the people in the scene to the forefront.
• False starts. Should the piece have begun 30 pages in, when it took on a life of its own and hit its groove? To give the early pages the life found later in the manuscript, perhaps cut extraneous material or reincorporate it later.
• The need for side action/any action. If you’re stuck in long passages of dialogue or backstory and are losing a sense of life in the piece, add side action. Sometimes it takes a familiar dog growling nearby, a barroom brawl, a proverbial dollar bill dangling out of the pocket of a thief who has bumped into an old acquaintance while fleeing a crime, etc., to frame chunks of dialogue/story in a new way.
• A surplus of adjectives and adverbs. (Yeah, I know, I’m guilty of it on a daily basis. But still.)
If you have a free weekend and are looking to get out of town, consider trekking to Cincinnati for the intensive. They’re fun, and a great literary escape from the holiday chaos. This weekend’s event is set to include presentations on landing literary agents, succeeding as a writer in a transformational time, using social networks to further your career, and more. If you come, bring your manuscript—and consider bringing some of your own chili in case you don’t like ours.
Update: Courtesy of WD's publisher, use code "Eetweet" to save $25 off registration.
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WRITING PROMPT: Lowering the Ears
Feel free to take the following prompt home or post your response (500 words or fewer, funny, sad or stirring) in the Comments section below. By posting, you’ll be automatically entered in our occasional around-the-office swag drawings.
It started out as a haircut, but something happened.
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Befriend Zac on the new Writer’s Digest community, or befriend Promptly on Facebook!
Traditional Prompts
Monday, December 07, 2009 8:53:02 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)
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Friday, December 04, 2009
The No. 1 Tip From Writer’s Digest Mag in 2009, Courtesy of Stephen King (And, Get Published in the Magazine)
Without further adieu, I give you my selection of the No. 1 Tip from WD in 2009:
No. 1: Details, Plausibility and the Flipped Trike
“An overturned tricycle in the gutter of an abandoned neighborhood can stand for everything.”
—Stephen King, as interviewed in the May/June 2009 issue of WD (click here to check it out).
Enigmatic? Anticlimactic? To give deeper context to a quote I love and wouldn’t mind making little printable versions of for my computer monitors, here’s King again:
“Making people believe the unbelievable is no trick; it’s work. … Belief and reader absorption come in the details: An overturned tricycle in the gutter of an abandoned neighborhood can stand for everything. Or a broken billboard. Or weeds growing in the cracks of a library’s steps. Of course, none of this means a lot without characters the reader cares about.”
To take things a step further, here’s author Steve Almond on plausibility, from our March/April issue—
“The question of plausibility is central when it comes to fiction. Can you induce the reader to believe? More precisely, to suspend her disbelief? All readers come to fiction as willing accomplices to your lies. Such is the basic goodwill contract made the moment we pick up a work of fiction. … The lesson is this: Readers will happily suspend their disbelief (even in the face of space aliens and angels) if they feel their emotional and logistical questions have been addressed, and if the world they encounter feels internally consistent. In the end, plausibility in fiction isn’t about adhering to the facts of the known world, but the imagined world.”
Plausibility. If we don’t have it, we might not have anything. I suppose an overturned tricycle in the gutter of an abandoned neighborhood really can stand for everything.
Thanks for sticking around and reading the tips over the last two months! To browse the other 19, click “Top 20 Lessons From WD: 2009” to your left. And consider taking a crack at our magazine’s Your Story prompt (we run one every issue; it’s an open contest in which one story, selected by forum members and WD editors, runs in the magazine).
In 750 words or fewer, funny, sad or stirring, post your story in the comments section of Promptly, and it will be automatically entered in the contest, or e-mail it to yourstorycontest@fwmedia.com. (There’s only one entry allowed per person, and you have until the Jan. 10 deadline.) Should your story win and you posted it here, I’ll contact you for your name and mailing address when the time comes. Good luck!
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WRITING PROMPT: Your Story No. 23
Something bizarre occurs at the table next to a couple on their first date.
—From the Writer’s Book of Matches (click here to check out a digital version) by the staff of fresh boiled peanuts: a literary journal
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Top 20 Lessons From WD: 2009 | Traditional Prompts | Your Story Prompts
Friday, December 04, 2009 3:28:26 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)
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Wednesday, December 02, 2009
Ferlinghetti, King, Kerouac, Vonnegut, Hemingway: Coolest Issue of WD Mag Ever? (Plus Prompt)
Admittedly, I’m not the world’s best pitchman. I try here and there, but my theory has always sort of been that if something rocks hard enough, people will find their own way to it. 
But this is different: I’m wild about the January issue of WD magazine (and not just because my livelihood is dependent on people, well, buying our magazines). The issue is shipping to subscribers as we speak (it hits newsstands Dec. 15), and we received our in-house copies yesterday. Not only is the entire magazine redesigned with a sleek facelift, but it’s also our 90th Anniversary edition.
-Exhibit of Awesomeness A: A full feature package about novel writing, from taming ideas to incorporating facts to adding some throttle to your plot to revising.
-EOA B: Editor Jessica Strawser’s 90 Secrets of Bestselling Authors feature, recapping WD advice from the last 90 years from Ray Bradbury, Stephen King, Ernest Hemingway, Jack Kerouac, Kurt Vonnegut, Anne Lamott and 84 others. One of my personal favorite bits is this, from Anthony Burgess: “I’ll tell you a thing that will shock you. It will certainly shock the readers of Writer’s Digest. What I often do nowadays when I have to, say, describe a room, is to take a page of a dictionary, any page at all, and see if with the words suggested by that one page in the dictionary I can build up a room, build up a scene. … I even did it in a novel I wrote called MF. There’s a description of a hotel vestibule whose properties are derived from Page 167 in R.J. Wilkinson’s Malay-English Dictionary. Nobody has noticed. … As most things in life are arbitrary anyway, you’re not doing anything naughty, you’re really normally doing what nature does, you’re just making an entity out of the elements. I do recommend it to young writers.”
-EOA C: A column about low-residency MFA programs by Sena Jeter Naslund, author of Ahab’s Wife.
-EOA D: A relaunch of our First Impressions column, deemed Breaking In and focused on how new authors scored their deals.
-EOA E: The magazine has shiny silver ink on the cover.
Finally, as perhaps my favorite EOA, I interviewed legendary poet Lawrence Ferlinghetti (appropriately, 90 years old) for the 90th anniversary edition of The WD Interview. One of my favorite moments from the chat:
WD: What do you think is the best way to pick up the art of writing?
Ferlinghetti: “If you’re going to be a writer you should sit down and write in the morning, and keep it up all day, every day. Charles Bukowski, no matter how drunk he got the night before or no matter how hungover he was, the next morning he was at his typewriter. Every morning. Holidays, too. He’d have a bottle of whiskey with him to wake up with, and that’s what he believed. That’s the way you became a writer: by writing. When you weren’t writing, you weren’t a writer.”
So, there you have it: My pitch for the new WD. In all honesty, I’m smitten (and not just because of the silver cover).
(And since I’m pitching: Subscribe here and save 58%! Looking at our editorial calendar, I can assure you there’s more awesomeness coming down the pike. Although it may not always feature silver spot gloss.)
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WRITING PROMPT: Leap of Faith
Feel free to take the following prompt home or post your response (500 words or fewer, funny, sad or stirring) in the Comments section below. By posting, you’ll be automatically entered in our occasional around-the-office swag drawings. From the January 2010 issue of the magazine:
“Please don’t. This isn’t going to work. I'm not qualified at all for this.”
“Sure you are.”
She doesn’t believe you, so with the crowd looking on, you prove your point.
InkWell Prompts | Traditional Prompts
Wednesday, December 02, 2009 7:37:57 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)
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Monday, November 30, 2009
Your Job As a Writer: Think Like a Child Again, Make People See the Fish
With the 90th Anniversary 2010 issue of WD shipping to subscribers as we speak and hitting newsstands Dec. 15, we’re nearing the end of the Top 20 Tips from WD in 2009 series. (Who will nab No. 1? Will it be shocking, incredible or anti-climactic? Will it dazzle or dismay? Stay tuned for Friday!)
At No. 2, here is a ponder-worthy duo from Joshua Henkin.
No. 2: See the World With New Eyes
“A friend of mine in college wrote her psychology thesis on how adults group objects versus how children group objects. Adults group the apple with the banana, and children group the monkey with the banana. This is another way of saying that children are more natural storytellers than adults. One of my jobs as a writer, and as a professor of writing, is to teach myself and others how to think like children again—albeit like smart, sophisticated children.”
—Writer and teacher Joshua Henkin, from the September 2009 issue of WD (Check it out here).
And, because I couldn’t choose between the two:
“John Cheever once said he would never use three words in a row that he’d seen used in a row before, which is why he called a bruise “blue and black” instead of “black and blue.” The first time someone used the phrase “like a fish out of water,” you saw the fish. Now no one sees the fish. And one of the purposes of writing is to make people see the fish.”
Also, a shout-out to Promptly heroes Mark James and Martha W., who took on a challenge to respond to every November prompt. Check out their eclectic stories (alongside those of other writers) in the Comments section of the posts below. Thanks for writing here, Mark and Martha!
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WRITING PROMPT(S)
Feel free to take the following prompts home or post your responses (500 words or fewer, funny, sad or stirring) in the Comments section below. By posting, you’ll be automatically entered in our occasional around-the-office swag drawings.
“This cab ride isn’t over.”
“But it is?”
Nearby, a man treads water and the full moon rises.
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Bonus Prompt (to make up for the Thanksgiving tech blackout):
Their tan lines spelled out an unexpected—and unparalleled—message.
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Befriend me on the new Writer’s Digest community, or befriend Promptly on Facebook!
Top 20 Lessons From WD: 2009 | Traditional Prompts
Monday, November 30, 2009 6:31:16 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)
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Wednesday, November 25, 2009
Why the World’s Best-Crafted Query Doesn’t Always Get You a Contract (Plus Prompt)
In No. 3 from the Top 20 Tips From WD in 2009 series, Scott Hoffman points out what may seem like the obvious—but something that can be easy to forget when lost in the mechanics of a query to sell a book to an agent or editor (or when worrying about scoring those hallowed meetings with publishing reps).
No. 3: Story First.
“Remember that even the world’s best-crafted query letter won’t get you a publishing contract if your book is no good. The energy you spend getting face time with influential folks in the publishing industry should be matched only by the energy you spend polishing your manuscript.”
—Agent Scott Hoffman, from the September 2009 WD agent package. (Check it out here.)
That said, with a good story on hand, here’s agent Jessica Faust on what does help make a solid query:
“The best queries don’t leave much of an impression at all. The key to a query isn’t so much in the parts—the specific paragraphs or information—but how well the author’s voice comes through. The queries that really grab me are those that make me feel like I’m already in the book, and make me drop everything the minute the requested material arrives because I can’t wait to read this voice again.”
Also, with a sizable stack of books piling up in the Promptly inbox, it’s a perfect time for a swag-away. After putting the names of every commenter per post from the last month into a hat (err, large bowl from my cupboard emblazoned with roosters), I reached in and snagged a paper, and regular Promptly writer Mark James’ name popped up. He’ll grab Michael Chabon’s Manhood for Amateurs, John Vorhaus’ The California Roll, Sherman Alexie’s War Dances, Joshua Lyon’s Pill Head, Joseph Kertes’ Gratitude, Tom Bird’s The Call of the Writer’s Craft, as well as copies of the WD newsstand-only magazines Writer’s Yearbook 2010, Guide to Creativity, and Novel Writing. Thanks for writing here, Mark! (And for that matter, everyone.)
Finally, has anyone submitted to a literary journal for the November challenge? If I can get a moment away from turkey and other tasks this weekend, I’m going to try to do some fine-tuning and send a piece in. Then, nap. And eat copious amounts of food. Repeat.
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WRITING PROMPT: No Thanksgiving
Feel free to take the following prompt home or post your response (500 words or fewer, funny, sad or stirring) in the Comments section below. By posting, you’ll be automatically entered in our occasional around-the-office swag drawings.
It's a holiday and you have to work. Someone throws a few coins your way, you look up, and decide to put them to work for you.
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Befriend me on the new Writer’s Digest community, or befriend Promptly on Facebook!
Top 20 Lessons From WD: 2009 | Traditional Prompts
Wednesday, November 25, 2009 7:02:59 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)
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Monday, November 23, 2009
What NOT to Do When Starting a New Writing Project (Plus Prompt)
It can seem spectacularly impossible hard to insulate yourself in your writing bomb shelter when working on a new project, but for the sake of your mental health and the well-being of your work, might that be a solid path to follow? Publishing insider Patricia Holt shares her thoughts in the Top 20 Tips From WD in 2009 series:
No. 4: Dodge the News
“The most demoralizing thing to do when you’re starting a book project is to keep abreast of book industry news. Publishers Weekly, GalleyCat, Shelf Awareness, Publishers Lunch, mediabistro.com and others don’t report on routine publishing matters. What makes news for them are big advances, breakthrough campaigns and startling author bios—all of which are irrelevant and distracting (and, in some awful way, diminishing) to you now. So the first thing to do is get away from the madness that publishing has become.”
—Patricia Holt, from the July/August 2009 Publishing 101 issue (click here to check it out).
Of course, we at WD mag are guilty of reporting on publishing homeruns, too—and Patricia’s advice is something we try to bear in mind when fleshing out how we frame different topics in each issue (and penning our own work).
To kick off Thanksgiving week, a special thanks to WD superstar Brian A. Klems for updating the blog—with, appropriately, a Thanksgiving prompt—when I was out of town last week. (And I’m not sure if meat is your bag, but I’m getting pumped about some holiday eating and writing as the bird approaches…)
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WRITING PROMPT: The Artifact
Feel free to take the following prompt home or post your response (500 words or fewer, funny, sad or stirring) in the Comments section below. By posting, you’ll be automatically entered in our occasional around-the-office swag drawings (a comment from the last month will be picked at random Wednesday!).
Your boat rocks back and forth, and you peer over the edge, catching a glimpse of something you thought was gone forever.
Top 20 Lessons From WD: 2009 | Traditional Prompts
Monday, November 23, 2009 4:50:02 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)
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Wednesday, November 18, 2009
Q&A With Author Steve Almond: Literary Journals, the Perks of a Thousand Rejections
Literary journals—If you’re like me, you’ve circled them in a bookstore at one time or another in your writing life, sniffing at their doors, dazzled by their contents, wondering what they’re all about and just how the authors found their way in.
While I talked to different editors and agents for the literary journal roundup in the Nov/Dec issue of WD, let’s take it a step further—why not a writer?
Author Steve Almond, one of my favorite scribes in WD land (and source of one of the coolest quotes from the magazine in 2009: “All readers come to fiction as willing accomplices to your lies”) has been published in a slew of magazines and journals, and he took the time to share his thoughts on the subject.
Steve is the author of two story collections, and several books of nonfiction. He has two new books coming out—Rock and Roll Will Save your Life, a memoir about his obsession with bands we’ve never heard of (April) and a book of short shorts and short essays, This Won't Take a Minute, Honey (summer).
Here, he riffs on the role of literary journals, the art of writing short, the benefits of endless rejections and how you might eventually break into such publications yourself. For more about Steve, check out his reading and teaching schedule here.
Where all has your short fiction ended up, and how many publications do you estimate it has landed in?
My stuff has appeared in lots of tiny magazines and a few of the bigger literary ones. Mostly, the small ones. Oh, and I was in Playboy a few times. I always feel a little weird when people mention that, like I'm a pornographer.
When did you sell your first piece, and was it a struggle for you to break the barrier from unpublished to published? What was the key?
Well, I didn't "sell" a piece for quite a while, but the first pieces that got taken were in 1995. I can remember getting the acceptance, after so many rejections. It was the happiest five minutes of that whole decade. Then I went back to my default position of self-loathing. I'd probably gotten 100 rejections before the first one got taken, maybe more. The key to getting published was finally sending out a story that didn't suck. Don't mean that to be glib. It's just true that a lot of my early work was just really weak—more like summaries than actual stories. Very imitative of the writers I was reading. And it just takes a while to get past your evasions and to start to speak honestly (or let your characters speak honestly) about the stuff that matters to you most deeply.
What are the perks of publishing in literary journals and magazines?
For me, it really just kept me going in the face of rejection and doubt and unhappiness. It was like I was still in the game, as long as there was one magazine that hadn't rejected a particular story. It's also a kind of laboratory for emerging writers. There's incredible competition, so if you want to place a story, you really have to get better in a hurry.
Downsides?
Well, I guess for me anyway, it took a long time. I was publishing in small magazines for nearly a decade before I was able to get a publishing house interested in a story collection.
How do you think they have helped your career?
I don't think of them as having helped my "career." I think of them as having made me a better artist. That certainly helps your "career," but it really depends on what your priorities are. You've got a lot of folks these days who would rather find some kind of "platform" (God, I hate that word; it's just so marketing-scummy) than to practice their craft the old-fashioned way.
How do you view the importance of literary journals today, and what do you think their role is on the writing landscape?
As I've said, they're the laboratory for serious emerging writers. They're not for people who just want to be famous. They're for folks who are learning to take themselves and their work more seriously. In other words, they're insulated from the commercial concerns that act upon art like hydrochloric acid.
What are the basics of a solid short story—one editors like to read?
I edited a literary magazine for a year, so I can tell you what editors want most of all is something fresh. I saw hundreds of tepid stories of suburban angst, the kind of story where nothing is really at stake. I also saw a lot of writers who needlessly confused the reader, or flogged the language. In the end, I just wanted a writer who was going to find a way to tell me the truth about the stuff that mattered to her. Period. It will go without saying that the reader should never be confused, that there shouldn't be any extra words, that the story should dwell in the most complicated and charged moments.
What should you never forget when submitting?
That even a good story is likely to get rejected. I've been rejected thousands of times. You have to accept that as part of the arrangement, and allow it to make you more humble—and stubborn to succeed.
How does writing short pieces sharpen your overall craft ability?
To me, short stories are the hardest sort of prose to write, because every word has to count. You can't allow any bum adjectives, or metaphors to slip past your censor.
Some publications aspiring writers should consider submitting to:
I'm biased toward the ones that I read, but some of the ones I dig are Tin House, Southern Review, New England Review, Missouri Review, The Normal School, and Opium. But there are dozens out there, and they all have great stuff in them. Not being a Pollyanna, that's really the way it is.
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WRITING PROMPT: Be Detestable
Courtesy of Steve Almond, feel free to take the following prompt home or post your response (500 words or fewer, funny, sad or stirring) in the Comments section below. By posting, you’ll be automatically entered in our occasional around-the-office swag drawings.
“Look at a recent story and write the whole thing from the point of view of the most detestable character. That's what I do when I'm stuck.”
Q&As | Traditional Prompts
Wednesday, November 18, 2009 3:25:33 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)
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Monday, November 16, 2009
Stephen King on Creating Believable Bad Guys
They’re not hard to spot: One-dimensional. Predictable. Occasionally drawing up half-hearted ruses and doomsday scenarios, perhaps with a cigar and some maniacal laughter.
Bad bad guys.
So what’s a key to breaking out of the stale villain mold, no matter what you write?
Stephen King offers his thoughts in today’s installment from the Top 20 Tips From WD in 2009 series. (We’ve almost breached the top 5!)
No. 6: Villains in Shades of Gray
“Writers must be fair and remember even bad guys (most of them, anyway) see themselves as good—they are the heroes of their own lives. Giving them a fair chance as characters can create some interesting shades of gray—and shades of gray are also a part of life.”
—Stephen King, as interviewed in the May/June 2009 issue of WD (click here to check it out).
Be sure to check back Wednesday—I’ll be posting an interview with the spectacular Steve Almond (The Evil B.B. Chow, Candyfreak, (Not That You Asked), My Life in Heavy Metal) about literary journals—submitting, their role today, how they can help you sharpen your abilities, and how being rejected thousands of times isn't the worst thing that can happen to you.
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WRITING PROMPT: Sunset
Feel free to take the following prompt home or post your response (500 words or fewer, funny, sad or stirring) in the Comments section below. By posting, you’ll be automatically entered in our occasional around-the-office swag drawings (I feel another one coming on next week …).
The sun is setting in dramatic hues of pink and tangerine, but nobody is watching it—they’re all staring at him, instead.
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Befriend Zac on the new Writer’s Digest community, or befriend Promptly on Facebook!
Also, do you have a writing book and magazine wish list? Win it at the Writer’s Digest Shop! Ditch the gifted blank notebooks and fancy pens and get a hold of what’s really on your list this year by entering for free. Visit writersdigestshop.com/win-your-wish-list for more.
Top 20 Lessons From WD: 2009 | Traditional Prompts
Monday, November 16, 2009 7:30:44 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)
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Friday, November 13, 2009
Mitch Albom: The Keys to a Memoir (Plus Prompt)
Whenever my nonfiction gets personal and I write a column or essay featuring myself as a character, I tend to really cut loose—and often end up with 3,000 words for a 750-word piece. I’m powerless: As soon as “I” comes into play, my internal journalist and editor takes a coffee break and returns, aghast, to find an unruly piece loaded with, well, way too much information. He then takes out his literary chainsaw and (painfully, word by word) slices the whole thing down to something manageable while I look on, shuddering.
Which is why, to cut down on the pain later and focus my writing, I try to remind myself of the first sentence of the following advice before I start (especially, Lord forbid, I ever stretch such a piece into memoir length). Here's the latest in our Top 20 Tips from WD in 2009 series.
No. 7: The Keys To a Memoir
“Anyone who tries to write a memoir needs to keep in mind that what’s interesting to you isn’t necessarily interesting to a reader. Are you writing a book because you just think it’s fascinating, or because you just want to tell your story? I don’t think those are good reasons. A memoir should have some uplifting quality, inspiring or illuminating, and that’s what separates a life story that can influence other people.”
—Mitch Albom, as interviewed in our October 2009 issue (check it out here).
Also, sorry for the radio silence Wednesday—we’re in the process of plowing through the endgame for the February 2010 issue of WD magazine right now. Be sure to check back next week—I’ve got a Q&A about literary journals lined up with one of my favorite authors to work with (for those of us in the Literary Journal Challenge).
Onward!
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WRITING PROMPT: “You did what?!”
Feel free to take the following prompt home or post your response (500 words or fewer, funny, sad or stirring) in the Comments section below. By posting, you’ll be automatically entered in our occasional around-the-office swag drawings.
You take the manuscript, cross out his name, and write your own.
“I’ve earned it,” you say.
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Befriend Zac on the new Writer’s Digest community, or befriend Promptly on Facebook!
Top 20 Lessons From WD: 2009 | Traditional Prompts
Friday, November 13, 2009 6:18:47 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)
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Monday, November 09, 2009
Good Writing: Can it Be as Simple as Leaving Your Living Room?
I’ll look down, and panic will strike when I realize my 3rd-grade penmanship, combined with an errant washing of my hands, has failed me: The list is gone.
I tend to be a creature of routine and plotting, functioning via to-do lists, more often than not scrawled in semi-blurred inks on my left palm. Moreover, since I took up editing over staff writing jobs, my mandatory out-and-about adventure quota has decreased, allowing me to nestle further into my routines and stay indoors after work—which has made creative writing a bit harder. Which has made me realize that some routines can be like electric blankets: Cozy and appreciated by the cats, but perilous if left on too long.
Thus, to combat the beginnings of my inner reclusive Salinger (and break out of recurring themes/characters/plots), I try to remind myself what longtime WD freelancer Art Spikol said last summer in a piece about how to spend writing downtime. His advice is the latest in the Top 20 Tips from WD in 2009 series.
No. 8: Leave the Living Room
“Get out of the house. Don’t go for a walk in the park. Go to places you might not normally frequent: the emergency room, a local bar, a bowling alley, an all-night diner, a comic book store. They’re all slices of culture, mini democracies that will help erase stereotypes in your writing.”
—Art Spikol, from the May/June 2009 issue of WD (click here to check it out).
Taking things one nerdy step further, I try to plan small writing adventures outside of my usual haunts to brainstorm prompts, knead half-baked story ideas, people watch, and even stumble upon the makings of freelance pieces.
You never know what’s going to happen, just like sitting down to a blank page—and it’s damn freeing to ditch the electric blanket every so often, even if whatever I discover does end up scrawled on my palm for a later date.
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WRITING PROMPT: The Wedding
Feel free to take the following prompt home or post your response (500
words or fewer, funny, sad or stirring) in the Comments section below.
By posting, you’ll be automatically entered in our occasional
around-the-office swag drawings.
You attempt to cut the cake, but the knife slides into something else.
The crowd looks on, and forks start clinking against glasses.
Top 20 Lessons From WD: 2009 | Traditional Prompts
Monday, November 09, 2009 7:05:25 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)
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Friday, November 06, 2009
Jennifer Crusie, Jerry Jenkins, Writing Communities and Tamagatchis
Online writing communities: In some ways, I used to liken them to those digital pets kids used to tote around, Tamagatchis. Roughly the size of an egg, you nurtured your puppy on a petite screen, while your real puppy sat by his empty dish, bored, with heart-breaking puppy eyes beaming skyward. Similar to a neglected manuscript, it made me wonder: Why waste time talking about writing and fostering a presence online when you could make a few clicks and actually write?
 Eventually, though, I poked around a few sites, chatted with some people involved, and dove in—which revealed that the communities can be more than a mere scoop of digital food in a digital bowl. The networking can be great, the camaraderie a wellspring of support (even in the face of soul-destroying rejections), the inspiration inspiring, and overall the right site can be a great complement to your actual writing—if you spend your time properly, as bestseller Jennifer Crusie points out in the latest from the Top 20 Tips From WD in 2009 series.
No. 9: Smart, Savvy Support
“Don’t get caught up in the politics and don’t take anything personally. Think globally, act locally and ignore the wingnuts, and you can gain a lot from becoming active in a writing community. The bottom line is that if you’re going to survive in publishing, you need a smart, savvy support group that understands your needs and problems.”
—Author Jennifer Crusie, from our October 2009 issue (click here to check it out).
Also from that issue (tip No. 8.5?), here’s a simple yet practical tip from Jerry B. Jenkins on the topic.
“Google ‘[your city or genre] writers groups’ and you’ll be amazed at what you find. You’re anything but alone in this loneliest of professions.”
Have a great weekend. (A post involving mid-90s toy metaphors? It can only be Friday.)
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WRITING PROMPT: This?!
Feel free to take the following prompt home or post your response (500 words or fewer, funny, sad or stirring) in the Comments section below. By posting, you’ll be automatically entered in our occasional around-the-office swag drawings.
It’s been days.
You’re dehydrated and wild-eyed.
And now this.
You traveled all this way for this?
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Speaking of writing communities, befriend Zac on the new (Tamagatchi-free) Writer’s Digest community, or befriend Promptly on Facebook!
Top 20 Lessons From WD: 2009 | Traditional Prompts
Friday, November 06, 2009 3:47:13 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)
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Wednesday, November 04, 2009
Burning Question: Pitch or Write On Spec? (Plus Prompt)
In the world of journalism and freelance nonfiction writing, there are those (everyone from Hunter S. Thompson to some of my colleagues and writer friends) who say to never, ever, not even if you were the last writer on Earth and the editor of The New York Times (having also survived the zombie apocalypse) asked you to write a series of reflective cover-story personal essays on being the last writer alive, to never write a single freelanced word until you’ve pitched the material to an editor and she’s signed a contract to buy it.
Why waste your time working with no guarantee of ever being paid?
Which can be a valid question. But there are also those, like writer Art Spikol or nonfiction guru Susan Shapiro—the author of the latest advice in my Top 20 Tips from WD in 2009 series—who look at it a different way, and advocate that writing for free is a great use of downtime, and potentially an excellent way to prove yourself to an editor.
No. 10: Don’t Always Pitch—Write!
“Some creative people—like me—are no good at pitching. I find it’s easier and more productive to craft the real thing than to try to write about what I’m going to be writing about. If you want to be a perfect pitchman, go into advertising. If you want to be a writer, read great writing and try to emulate it.”
—Susan Shapiro, as written in our January/February 2009 issue (click here to check it out).
From my highly biased tip, I’m sure you can tell which side of the debate I stand on. While it definitely varies depending on how much time you may spend on an assignment and how personally invested in the topic you are, I think writing on spec can be a great way to break in to a market or showcase a tough story that may not work (or may be impossible to properly convey) in a pitch. Moreover, when combing Writer’s Digest’s submissions inbox, I’ve bought pieces that I wouldn’t have had they been sent with only the query, which often paled in comparison to the actual article.
It has also worked for me with freelanced pieces, and I believe the technique’s great power is that it takes an often overstated writing maxim and puts it to an entirely different use: With on-spec submissions, you’re no longer telling—you’re showing. (Even with a topic as pitch-worthy as being the last writer in the wake of the zombie apocalypse.)
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WRITING PROMPT: 13 Hours
Feel free to take the following prompt home or post your response (500 words or fewer, funny, sad or stirring) in the Comments section below. By posting, you’ll be automatically entered in our occasional around-the-office swag drawings.
“Only 13 hours?!”
“Yes.”
“It’s not possible.”
The dog barks, the child coughs.
“It’s what you’re going to have to do.”
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Top 20 Lessons From WD: 2009 | Traditional Prompts
Wednesday, November 04, 2009 6:05:27 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)
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Monday, November 02, 2009
Author Kelly L. Stone Riffs on Unlocking Creativity and Answers Your Questions
Today is an excellent day at Promptly as we welcome author and licensed mental health counselor Kelly L. Stone to the blog. Alongside her novel Grave Secret, Kelly has written Time to Write: More Than 100 Professional Writers Reveal How to Fit Writing Into Your Busy Life, which was nominated for the American Society of Journalists and Authors Outstanding Book of 2008, and most recently, Thinking Write: The Secret to Freeing Your Creative Mind. Demonstrating how to tap into your subconscious for creative and writing purposes, the book also comes with a disc of guided meditations for writers.
With her unique approach to the art of writing, I checked in with Kelly about unlocking your subconscious, refilling the creative well and the makings of the best writing prompts. Kelly will also be doling out a copy of Thinking Write to a random commenter, so feel free to tap into her mind today with any questions you might have, or to respond to her writing prompt below. (The Comment function has been finicky, so if you are having difficulty posting, e-mail your question to writersdigest [at] fwmedia [dot] com marked “Attn: Zac” and I’ll make sure Kelly sees it.) For more, check out freeyourcreativemind.blogspot.com.
 What inspired your latest book?
I wrote Thinking Write as a companion to Time to Write, which teaches aspiring writers how to find time to write no matter how busy they are. After I finished that book, a lingering question remained in my mind, and that was as a licensed mental health counselor, was there a way for me to translate my understanding of the mind and how it works into a program that would help writers maximize their creativity? I wanted to find out if there was a way to help writers capitalize on limited writing time by teaching them how to get into a creative mind state quickly, easily and efficiently so that they could get the most bang for their writing buck. The answer was yes, and that’s what Thinking Write is about—how to capitalize on your limited writing time by using the power of your subconscious mind.
Is it common for writers to not be tapped into their full creative potentials?
As a general rule, yes. Everyone is familiar with the idea that we use only 10 percent of our brains. What this means is that the subconscious mind is virtually untapped as a resource for most creative people.
What’s the power of the subconscious mind when it comes to writing?
The power of the subconscious mind is truly amazing. It monitors and stores everything that goes on around and inside of you, all of the time. This information is permanent, and it is never forgotten. Details not available to the conscious mind as well as long lost memories are retrievable. These details and memories breathe life into your writing and spark unlimited creativity. Learning to access your subconscious greatly enhances your creativity because whereas the conscious mind is limited and can only attend to one thing at a time, the subconscious mind operates independently from your conscious mind’s limited field of attention. It is like a giant computer system with multiple input sources. Your subconscious is constantly recording all of the details of your life, both items that pass through your conscious field of attention and those items that your conscious mind misses entirely. It is a vast storehouse of information that offers an endless supply of creative ideas. These characteristics of the subconscious mind are what make it such a powerful ally to writers.
What’s a key to unlocking it?
One key is related to brain waves. Certain brain wave states are associated with the subconscious mind and creativity, specifically the alpha wave state. Alpha waves occur when you are awake but in a state of focused concentration, such as meditation. Alpha waves are responsible for causing people to get “into the zone” and are documented to be linked to creativity. Professional athletes have been capitalizing on the alpha wave state for decades to improve their performance. Music is a good way for writers to get the brain into an alpha wave state. Many of the bestselling authors I interviewed for Thinking Write use music as a way to unlock their creativity. What you do is choose music that matches the theme, tone or message of what you are writing and then listen to that music only when you write. Over time, you set up what is called a conditioned response to that particular song or playlist, and when you hear it, you trigger the alpha wave state and are automatically in touch with your subconscious mind and deeper levels of creativity.
In terms of writing prompts, what are the best, most productive types?
Anything that resonates with you on a personal level offers a good opportunity for triggering your subconscious mind for memories and long-forgotten feelings that can enhance your writing.
What have you learned from the creative well running dry in the past, and how did you overcome it?
I learned that I need to take breaks from writing on a regular basis. Some people can write every day. I can’t and don’t. I am more productive in the long run when I take at least one day off each week from writing, even when I have a deadline. So I intentionally build in breaks into my weekly writing schedule. For me, time away from the writing allows me to refill the creative well, rest, get refocused, and when I come back the next day I am usually in a good place to keep going. Every writer’s process is different, and it’s important to figure out what works for you. If you need a break, take one. However, an important sidebar here is that if you spend too much time away from the writing you get out of the habit of writing, which leads to feeling more blocked and also leads to what I call The Big “R”—Resistance to Writing, which is a self-sabotaging behavior. It’s important to keep a balance between refilling the well and staying on task with the work.
Do you have any advice to keep your creativity going strong once you’ve tapped into it?
Ride the wave for as long as you can. In other words, if you use some of the techniques in Thinking Write and feel yourself getting into that ultra focused, highly creative state, keep writing for as long as possible. Also, be alert to messages from your subconscious throughout the day. It takes time to learn how your subconscious mind communicates with you; some people get hunches, others get dreams that offer an idea or solution, or ideas “pop” into their heads at odd times. That’s your subconscious trying to get information to you. The more in tune you get with your subconscious mind, the easier it will become for you to communicate with it. I have learned to keep a notebook in my purse in order to capture all those “aha” moments I get when I’m away from my desk but my subconscious mind is still working out a problem in the writing. Also, trust your instincts when it comes to your creativity. I’m not a seat-of-the-pants writer, but if a character just shows up on the page, I go with it. For example, when I was writing my novel Grave Secret, the character of Billy Powers literally walked onto the page one day. Turns out he was so integral to the plot that without him there was no story.
What’s the best craft advice you can offer?
Write on a schedule. Don’t wait “until you feel like it,” because you’re never going to feel like it. Set aside time every week for writing (with built in time off if you need it) and then when that time arrives, sit down at your desk and write no matter what else is going on. That’s the only way to get words on the page, and as many of the authors I have interviewed say, you might write crap but you can edit crap. You can’t edit a blank page.
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WRITING PROMPTS
Courtesy of Kelly L. Stone, feel free to take the following prompts home or post your responses (500 words or fewer, funny, sad or stirring) in the Comments section below.
Scan your surroundings quickly and list the first three items that catch your eye; they might be the dining room table, the giant oak outside the window, and the discarded tennis shoes by the back door. Write a story incorporating those three items.
and,
Bonus: This isn’t a prompt so much as it is a technique for accessing your subconscious mind via the hypnagogic state, a naturally occurring phase that happens right before deep sleep. I learned it from Dr. Raymond Moody, a psychiatrist who has studied the link between creativity and the subconscious. First, pose a question to your subconscious, such as “Subconscious, what is the next scene in my novel?” Then lie down and hold one arm straight up in the air. Try to doze off while you are holding you arm straight up, all the while focusing on your question. Do this for about 10 minutes or until you feel yourself dozing off and your arm getting limp. Sit up and immediately write down any thoughts, ideas or images that went through your mind while you were dozing, even if you don’t understand them, because they were provided by your subconscious mind.
Q&As | Traditional Prompts
Monday, November 02, 2009 2:23:45 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)
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Friday, October 30, 2009
No Time for A Novel in a Month? How About a Literary Journal Challenge?
They’re “The best of the mysterious, elusive things,” they're “A gateway to discovering your next favorite writer,” they can be “frequently dull, pretentious, willfully obscure,” they're “Vital to the survival of modern literature” and they're “Not read enough.”
Or at least that’s what the editors of some literary journals said in our roundup of which magazines agents are reading for new talent today (in the November/December 2009 issue of Writer’s Digest).
How do you feel about literary journals?
I’m a fan. Moreover, as prompt addicts know, short stories can be great boot camps for longer works. Thus, because of a hectic November schedule, instead of taking part in excellent NaNoWriMo this year*, I’m going to spend November focusing on editing my unruly current work-in-progress, and attempting to write and place a story or two in some of my old favorite journals.
Anyone care to join me? I say we go for it, then in December we can compare notes, share a toast/cry on one other’s shoulders, and toss back and forth ideas for what makes successful short stories. I’ll also try to rope a literary journal editor for a Q&A in the middle of the month so we can tap into what goes through their minds when combing the slush pile.
I’ll bid you a good weekend with what is perhaps the eternal top advice on submitting to any publication, one featured in the lit journal article. As Anne McPeak, managing editor of A Public Space said, “Familiarize yourself with the magazine to make sure your work is a good fit. There’s a lot of great writing out there, but not all of it is right for us.” (That might prevent you from getting a "WTF?" back from an editor, as I once did in college.)
And if you’re on Facebook, I just started a Promptly feed, and am in dire need of a few digital friends. Check it out!
*If you are taking part in NaNoWriMo, check out founder Chris Baty’s top five survival tips, which we ran in our InkWell section last year.
WRITING PROMPT: Paparazzi
Feel free to take the following prompt home or post your response (500 words or fewer, funny, sad or stirring) in the Comments section below. By posting, you’ll be automatically entered in our occasional around-the-office swag drawings.
You try to snap a discrete photo—but it just doesn’t work out that way.
Traditional Prompts
Friday, October 30, 2009 9:00:29 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)
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Wednesday, October 28, 2009
What Every Blogger Should Know (Plus Prompt)
Blogging. Some professional writers loathe it, regarding it as a cheapening of their art. Others adore it, and do it for the sheer love of the instant form. Some accept it as a necessary evil in a platform development often key to securing a book deal. Others do it for the joy of broadcasting themselves, for better or worse, to anyone, anywhere, on any subject.
No matter why we do it, though, everyone tends to have their share of quality posts, and an equal sampling (I admit with rosy cheeks) of, err, less than stellar offerings.
So what’s the secret formula? In the latest from the Top 20 Tips From WD in 2009 series, my favorite bits of advice from our pages this year, writer Dinty W. Moore has an idea.
No. 11: Avoid the Blog Rabies
“Good blogging, like any good writing, is not just foaming at the mouth. First drafts are not your best work, and the audience must be foremost in your mind.”
—Author and teacher Dinty W. Moore, as featured in our November/December 2009 issue.
As with many areas of the publishing world, the key seems to be the same, a constant of the art: Readers, readers, readers, always.
That said, do you blog? Why? Moreover, what do you think makes for a solid post?
And now, paranoid to write any more in light of Dinty’s advice dangling above, lest I froth in hypocrisy, I bid you an excellent Wednesday.
See you Friday!
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WRITING PROMPT: Self-Help Surprise
Feel free to take the following prompt home or post your response (500 words or fewer, funny, sad or stirring) in the Comments section below. By posting, you’ll be automatically entered in our occasional around-the-office swag drawings.
A self-help guru makes you an offer you can’t refuse, no matter how much you’d like to.
Top 20 Lessons From WD: 2009 | Traditional Prompts
Wednesday, October 28, 2009 5:24:34 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)
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Monday, October 26, 2009
Tip and Prompt: How to Self-Publish the Right Way
After taking in forums and coliseums, oodles of trains and 13 different (incredible, highly sedative) servings of gelato in Italy, I’m back in Prompt action. A special thanks to Jessica for posting in the last week, and for all of your comments and stories.
While on vacation, I found myself in a random discussion with a French writer about the ups and downs of self-publishing, which leads to one of the things I mentioned to her—today’s installment of the Top 20 Tips From WD in 2009 series.
No. 12: Self-Publish Right
“Every book that’s self-published should look and read like it came from Random House. To reach that goal, every self-publisher must think like the big houses—and strive to even exceed their quality. Editing and design are not steps that can be skipped without exacting a significant price.”
—Reader Linda Lane, as featured in our March/April 2009 issue. (We’re also running a 40-80 percent discount in our digital store until the end of the month; if you missed it on newsstands, check the issue out here or in a library for a slew of great self-publishing know-how).
Looking ahead, I’ve also got an intriguing author Q&A about the ins and outs of creativity lined up for next Monday, and some gelato inspired prompts in the works for the coming weeks. Here, spawning by a conversation overheard on a train to Pisa, is today’s offering. Moreover, here’s to hoping the last week has treated you and your writing well.
WRITING PROMPT: Why?
Feel free to take the following prompt home or post your response (500
words or fewer, funny, sad or stirring) in the Comments section below:
“Why did you cut it all off?”
She stares out the window.
“Why?”
Top 20 Lessons From WD: 2009 | Traditional Prompts
Monday, October 26, 2009 4:56:43 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)
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Tuesday, October 13, 2009
What to Remember at Every Writing Conference
Writing conferences: They make us feel good because we’re taking proactive, positive steps toward our writerly goals, rather than sitting in front of the TV with a laptop and The Simpsons.
Thing is, once we get to the conference, we’re constantly analyzing: Do we stack up to this writer or that budding poet? Do we have what it takes to do what this speaker is suggesting? Will we ever be up there, rambling about our books while everyone dines on roast beef and pasta during the keynote address?
And, certainly last but not least: Are we writers?
Here is the latest in our Top 20 Lessons from WD in 2009 series.
No. 15: None of Your Business
“Don’t come to the Festival—or any writing conference—with the goal of finding out once and for all if you’re a writer. It’s a question that will only get in the way of your work. Leave it alone. It’s none of your business.”
—Iowa Summer Writing Festival Director Amy Margolis, as interviewed in our May/June 2009 issue.
My sister, who decided to up the sibling ante by attending law school, once told me that one of the cardinal rules in that realm is to never share, discuss or allude to one’s grades in the company of others. You just don’t do it.
Perhaps in the world of writing conferences, like any gathering of those prepping for a fiercely competitive marketplace, it’s best to turn off your overactive mind and just listen, absorb and learn.
Also, tonight I’m heading out for a vacation, and I’m turning over the blog keys for WD Editor Jessica Strawser to help out and be your Promptly maestro until I return. She’s a former book editor and has worked in different areas of the publishing world, so feel free to tap into her wisdom in the Comments section of the blog in the coming week. All told, she’s a great source of knowledge.
As for me, my family has a tendency to have awful luck on vacation—if you ever want a solid tale, come up to me and say, merely, “Out West; van on fire?”—so I’m hoping the following travel-minded prompt will ward off the spirits of bad travel and serve as an appropriate digital knocking on wood.
Here’s to you and your writing (and fireless vans),
Zachary
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WRITING PROMPT: Vacation From Vacation
Feel free to take the following prompt home or post your response (500 words or fewer, funny, sad or stirring) in the Comments section below:
With your cell phone and souvenirs in hand, your torn map falls to the ground.
“He wasn’t even supposed to be here,” you mutter.
And just like that, you need a vacation from your vacation.
Top 20 Lessons From WD: 2009 | Traditional Prompts
Tuesday, October 13, 2009 8:23:37 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)
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Monday, October 12, 2009
Marketing Vs. Story: Which is King? (Plus, Craft the Ultimate Cliche)
Marketing, marketing, marketing. You hear it from writing books. You hear it from us. You hear it from conferences, published writers at readings and even unpublished writers hanging out on street corners. Sure, it’s important—if not crucial at times—but what should really take precedence when it gets down to the marrow of things? It’s something that’s easy to forget when you’re looking at the macro-view of a writing career.
It’s time for the latest in the Top 20 Lessons from WD in 2009.
No. 16: Story, Story, Story
“Keep the focus on the writing and the story. All the advertising, marketing and promotion in the world are meaningless unless you’ve got a tale people want to read.”
—Author Rhodi Hawk (A Twisted Ladder), as featured in our March/April 2009 issue.
Marketing or story: Which do you think should take precedence?
To complement Hawk’s point, as James Patterson emphasized in that issue, “If it’s commercial fiction that you want to write, it’s story, story, story. You’ve got to get a story where if you tell it to somebody in a paragraph, they’ll go, ‘tell me more.’ And then when you start to write it, they continue to want to read more. And if you don’t, it won’t work.”
In honor of Hawk, Patterson and Story, Story, Story, take today’s prompt and try to decode what makes a truly awful story: Write the most hilariously cliché scene you can. How might analyzing the ins and outs of a tired, tried and true yarn lead you to purge your writing demons and craft a more original story next time?
WRITING PROMPT: Crafting a Cliché
Feel free to take the following prompt home or post your response (500 words or fewer, funny, sad or stirring) in the Comments section below:
Write the most cliché story you can, working as many unbearably overdone elements into the scene as possible.
Top 20 Lessons From WD: 2009 | Traditional Prompts
Monday, October 12, 2009 7:33:19 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)
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Friday, October 09, 2009
The Secret to Surviving First Publication (Plus, Get Your Fiction in WD!)
There it sits: everything you’ve wanted, in one hub. Everything you’ve dreamed, in bouts of caffeinated madness. Important-looking editors bustle back and forth within, but you’re stuck on the outside of your new publishing house, peering in through double-buffed windows, eyes wide.
How do you set foot in that hallowed place?
As it turns out, it’s just another rung in a ladder. And like every rung in every ladder, you merely have to know how to climb it.
And to do that, you have to …
(Today we continue our Top 20 Lessons from WD in 2009.)
No. 17: Ask. Ask!
“The moral of the story is not to tremble in awe at the entrance doors of the publisher. Ask, ask, ask, even if you don’t know what to ask. Ask them what you should be asking. Ask for a publishing schedule; ask what you can help with; ask for their publicity plan so that you can compare it with yours. Start your publicity plan long before you’ve finished the book, long before it’s published.”
--Author and WD reader Jeanette Salerno, as featured in our July/August 2009 Publishing 101 package.
Have an excellent weekend, and consider taking a crack at our magazine’s Your Story prompt. In 750 words or fewer, funny, sad or stirring, post your stories in the comments section of my blog, and they’ll be entered in the contest, or e-mail them to yourstorycontest@fwmedia.com. (There’s only one entry allowed per person, and you have until the Nov. 10 deadline.) Should your story win and you posted it here, I’ll contact you for your name and mailing address when the time comes. Good luck!
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WRITING PROMPT: Your Story Contest No. 22
Suffering from a mid-life crisis, a 50-year-old businessman quits his job and goes on a quest to “get the band back together.”
—From The Writer’s Book of Matches by the staff of fresh boiled peanuts: a literary journal
Top 20 Lessons From WD: 2009 | Traditional Prompts | Your Story Prompts
Friday, October 09, 2009 2:58:02 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)
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Wednesday, October 07, 2009
Top 20 Lessons from WD: On Rejection
Hi writers,
Thanks to everyone who stopped by Monday to read or chat with bestseller Dianna Love. And, of course, I’d also like to extend a Promptly Thank You to Dianna for sharing her prompts and insights.
As promised, we’ll be giving away copies of Dianna’s Break Into Fiction to two random commenters. Jacqui Lyonelle and Lisa: Can you e-mail your addresses to me at writersdigest [at] fwmedia [dot] com, Attn: Zachary Petit, and I’ll make sure they find their way to Dianna?
Also, have you ever wallowed in endless rejections? How do you deal with it? (I ask this as I shiver and edit my first work of long-form fiction, bracing myself for the querying process to come.) Today we continue the Top 20 Lessons from WD in 2009 series.
No. 18: Right and Wrong
“It took 80 queries before the most perceptive agent in the world took me off his slush pile. Then it was a score of editorial rejections and nearly a year before my agent had lunch with the right editor at the right time. To deal with rejection, you have to believe you’re right and they’re wrong.”
—Ira Rosofsky (Nasty, Brutish & Long), as interviewed in our March/April issue.
Moreover, as literary agent Scott Hoffman wrote in our September issue, don’t get “even a little bit discouraged until you’ve received 50—maybe even 100—rejections on the project in question.”
For more tips, stay tuned—No. 17 is on its way Friday.
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WRITING PROMPT: Dreamy
Feel free to take the following prompt home or post your response (500 words or fewer, funny, sad or stirring) in the Comments section below:
Take your latest dream, no matter what, and work it into a scene in a story you're currently writing or editing.
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Also, the website for Digital Book World has launched. Check out our new industry insider event geared toward helping consumer book publishers and their trading partners assess the challenges—and opportunities—presented by the digital age.
Top 20 Lessons From WD: 2009 | Traditional Prompts
Wednesday, October 07, 2009 5:31:09 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)
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Monday, October 05, 2009
Special Q&A: Creativity Secrets from Bestseller Dianna Love (and free books!)
Hey writers,
Today is an excellent day at Promptly, as we welcome New York Times bestselling writer Dianna Love, a RITA-award winner and co-author of Break Into Fiction and a popular thriller series with Sherrilyn Kenyon (Whispered Lies). When not standing dumbfounded in front of dollar-gobbling slot machines, I met Dianna in Las Vegas, where we were both teaching at a writing conference.
Going along with Promptly’s goal of boosting creativity with writing prompts and exercises, I checked in with Dianna about breaking block, plotters, pantsers and other topics, and she even provided us with today’s regular prompts.
Check out her advice below, and feel free to weigh in (post in the Comments section of the blog) with your thoughts, any questions you might have for Dianna, or a response to her prompt. On Wednesday we’ll randomly select two commenters to receive copies of Dianna’s new book, Break Into Fiction: 11 Steps to Building a Story That Sells. So don’t be shy: Chime in! Dianna will be dropping by to respond to your questions about the writing world, and having heard her speak in the past, I know she's an excellent source of industry and craft knowledge.
For more on Dianna, catch up with her at authordiannalove.com, or on Twitter: @diannalove.
In your writing, what slows you down the most on a daily basis?
Now that I’m published, I have so much more to do than “just write,” but the writing must come first. My time gets eaten by anything from answering e-mails (some take a lot of time and I get over 100 a day) to working on promo opportunities to interacting with my publisher on an upcoming marketing campaign or edits to dealing with nonwriting related issues (you know … life :).
How do you tackle it?
Prioritize, prioritize, prioritize. I keep lists going all the time. I schedule things to be done by a certain day and try to get to anything early that I can. I set my “personal deadlines” for writing ahead of those my publisher is depending upon, so that if I run late, it’s on my schedule, which means the books are still on time. I’ve just finished a very difficult run of days for the past month and have three days to “catch up” on everything else while the next book is with a cold reader. That means those three days have to be productive, not spent taking a leisurely break.
What best drives your creativity?
Riding my motorcycle feeds my muse. I ride a BMW 1150 RT through scenic back roads to give my mind a chance to breathe. I often come back with a scene or even the basis for a new plot.
What tips do you have for overcoming writer’s block?
I used to wonder why some writers got terribly blocked until I started developing the Power Plotting workshop Mary Buckham and I created in our Break Into Fiction™ program. We figured out the reason most people get “stuck” on a story is because they don’t know where it’s going next. This is especially true for pantsers, or seat-of-the-pants writers, because their process is to just sit down and write. BUT that does not mean a pantser should learn how to plot. That is not their process. Pantsers need a way to fix problems or get unstuck in a way that works with their process. That’s why we created the questions in our Break Into Fiction program that show a plotter how to develop a story in advance, and show a pantser how to break out of a mental log jam or how to fix a book during revision.
What’s the best craft advice you can offer?
Do not EVER let anyone change your writing process. Find what works for you and go with it.
Some writers cannot write if the book has been plotted. Some writers cannot put a word down unless they have everything plotted out. Some I call “hybrids,” because that’s what I am. I like to write a chapter when I start seeing the opening in my mind, and get a feel for the characters. Then I sit down and plot. I don’t go to the extremes of some plotters, but I create complex stories with strong subplots and everything has to hit at the right time for the climax to be powerful. For me, that’s a very freeing process, but if I had to follow someone else’s process it wouldn’t work. Write a couple books to figure out your process.
What’s the best publishing advice you’ve ever received?
To be careful not to let promo and marketing opportunities bankrupt your time.
Writing mantra:
Nothing is worth more than today. That is a Goethe quote and it has been in my office since I started my first business at 17.
(photo courtesy of authordiannalove.com)
WRITING PROMPTS: Courtesy of Dianna Love
Below are five opening lines for a scene. The first three are in third person, the fourth is in first person and the fifth can be either one. You can change the point of view from third to first or first to third. There are no names, so you pick the characters. Write the first scene that comes to mind. Don’t worry about being correct on anything—just write and have fun.
He opened his eyes and slowly took in his surroundings, searching for one thing that looked familiar.
If she didn’t make the last ridge before the portal closed in the next 15 seconds, she’d end up losing her bounty and getting blood on her new solar boots.
He appreciated having a choice, but generally he was given at least one option that allowed for a chance to walk away alive even if he had to sacrifice dignity.
My mouth fell open in shock at the gangly man carrying a cardboard box, not believing he would dare to enter my real estate office again.
A palomino horse trotted into the yard sans rider, daisies braided into the mane and a sword hanging from a leather loop on the saddle.
Q&As | Traditional Prompts
Monday, October 05, 2009 3:45:38 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)
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Friday, October 02, 2009
Top 20 Lessons From WD Mag in 2009: Steve Berry
Hey writers,
Wasted and lost writing time: We all worry (if not obsess) over it. As it turns out, we’re not alone. It’s time for the next installment in our Top 20 Lessons From WD Magazine in 2009 series.
No. 19: Heed the Voice
“I didn’t write my first word until I was 35 years old. I wasted about 10 years before that, when the little voice in my head was screaming for me to write. All writers have a little voice in their head that drives them forward. Listen to it.”
—Bestseller Steve Berry (The Amber Room, The Templar Legacy), as interviewed in “Springboards to Success,” from our May/June 2009 issue.
Literary food for thought: How long did you wait—or are you still waiting? What's the key to kicking yourself into gear?
Have an excellent weekend, and enjoy the prompt below from the brand new issue of Writer’s Digest magazine (currently shipping to subscribers, and on newsstands Oct. 13—it features Time Traveler’s Wife author Audrey Niffenegger, alongside a cover package loaded with info about writing short, from personal essays and freelancing to literary journals).
And don’t forget to stop by Promptly Monday, too—bestseller Dianna Love will be sharing her take on the creative process, as well as offering prompts and perhaps a free copy or two of her new book, Break Into Fiction. In addition to a posted Q&A, Dianna will be dropping by to interact with anyone who’d like to chat about creativity, the business of publishing, or anything else that may cross one’s writerly mind.
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WRITING PROMPT: Breaking Down
Funny, sad, or stirring, feel free to take the following prompt home or post your response (500 words or fewer) in the Comments section below:
A Tire blows out as you’re in the car with someone on the verge of his or her own breakdown. Stuck in a small town, you’re about to do something you haven’t done in years.
InkWell Prompts | Top 20 Lessons From WD: 2009 | Traditional Prompts
Friday, October 02, 2009 8:08:29 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)
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Wednesday, September 30, 2009
Can Writers See the Future?
Hey writers,
Intriguing post today at Wired’s This Day in Tech blog. It’s a topic you’ve probably heard wisps of at one point or another in the pop culture of writing—the author who more or less predicted the sinking of the Titanic. Contrasting any loose Nostradamus-style guesstimations, Morgan Robertson (born on this day in 1861) published his maritime disaster epic Futility in 1898. The book’s ship? The Titan. The culprit that landed it at the bottom of the Atlantic? An iceberg. As the blog also details, one of Robertson’s short stories in 1914 depicted a war between the United States and Japan, sparked by a surprise salvo. (Read more here.)
 Eerie coincidences for a writer with bad luck—or, OK luck, depending on how you look at it (after all, his ocean liner tome was reprinted after the Titanic went down in 1912).
Every so often, you hear about other coincidences between works of fiction and reality. What do you think: How do fiction writers do it? Do they have such a strong grounding in their subject matter that they can make informed guesses about what’s down the road? Or are there so many fiction writers with such a momentous output that someone's bound to hit the nail on the head from time to time? Or, sliding further down the rabbit hole, as Stephen King said in our May/June issue: “I think every writer who does this on a daily basis has a ‘back channel’ to the subconscious that can be accessed pretty easily. Mine is wide and deep. … I sense strongly that this world is a thin place indeed, simply a veil over a brighter and more amazing truth.”
Sure, it’s all a bit out there and may even border on new-age turf, but it makes you wonder. And as writers, isn't wondering the key to getting to the good stuff?
Here’s to you on your birthday, Morgan Robertson. Thanks for the prompt. (And sorry for the Titanic pic.)
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WRITING PROMPT: Fiction to Fact
Feel free to take the following prompt home or post your response (500 words or fewer, funny, sad or stirring) in the Comments section below:
Take the last piece of fiction you wrote, and imagine that it actually happened—and found its way to the news. Now, write a piece centered around the reactions of a character watching a recap of the story on television. (What can you learn about the original piece—or the world around it—from this objective glimpse?)
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The October issue of WD is now on newsstands. Check out our community issue here, featuring writing forums, online collectives, bestsellers riffing on writers’ organizations, and even the keys to making the most of a nightmare conference. What’s worth your time these days?
Traditional Prompts
Wednesday, September 30, 2009 9:17:19 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)
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Monday, September 28, 2009
The Top 20 Lessons From WD Mag in 2009: No. 20
Hey writers,
The 90th anniversary issue of WD is fast approaching (it’s our January 2010 installment, which ships to subscribers Nov. 24 and hits newsstands Dec. 15), and Editor Jessica Strawser and I are rapidly working to get everything out on time.
Which means another year of magazines is about to start. Being the type of person who has a hard time parting with anything (I still have a rather hearty collection of Pez dispensers, not to mention roughly everything I’ve ever written), I want to hang onto the 2009 series of WD magazines for as long as possible. When you work on them long enough, they become a bit like old pals—quotable and even sometimes annoyingly omnipresent, but you're always sad to see them go.
Thus, to give the 2009 WDs their due, I’m counting down to the January 2010 issue two times per week with my favorite 20 writing lessons from the year. Think simple, quotable passages of wisdom from Stephen King, Rick Steves and others, from the bestseller to the savvy newbie.
No. 20: Get Messy
“During the course of writing six novels, I realized that the days when the truth shone brightest were the days my pen flowed the freest and messiest across the pages. And I was rewarded with longer and longer satisfactory passages. It’s paradoxical that giving up control rewards you with what you seek most: concise, insightful work.”
—Elizabeth Sims, on how writing freely without initial self-editing can bring new life to your prose, in “Rough It Up,” from the January 2009 issue of WD.
After each installment of tips, you’ll receive a regular helping of writing prompts to spark new life into your work. And don’t forget to stop by next Monday, Oct. 5. New York Times bestseller Dianna Love will share some great insights about her creative process, and offer prompts and a couple of copies of her new book, Break Into Fiction.
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WRITING PROMPT: Old Habits Die Hard
Feel free to take the following prompt home or post your response (500 words or fewer, funny, sad or stirring) in the Comments section below:
You decide to give up an old habit—in exchange for something that was originally promised to you years ago.
Traditional Prompts | Top 20 Lessons From WD: 2009
Monday, September 28, 2009 4:11:10 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)
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Wednesday, September 23, 2009
Did your story take home the Promptly gold?
It’s that time again — time, alongside a Writer’s Digest comrade, to gnash our teeth, hold our breath and force ourselves to pick a top story from the past month’s creative cavalcade of responses to various prompts.
For August-September, with the help of magazine staffer and WD Books Editor Scott Francis, we selected Megan Hyman’s “Cynic!” piece. As Scott said, “the voice and the tone are so telling that though the story is short, you come to understand the emotions of the characters.” For her story, Megan will receive a copy of Bang The Keys: Four Steps to a Lifelong Writing Practice by Jill Dearman, Thanks, But This Isn’t For Us by Jessica Page Morrell, Sorrow Wood by Raymond L. Atkins, a copy of the WD Novel Writing special newsstand publication, and a copy of the WD Guide to Creativity newsstand publication.
As always, thanks to everyone who shared their work here in the last month. It means a lot to me, as the blog’s curator, and I’ve heard from other people at WD and scattered about the country how much they love reading all of the pieces, too.
Every time you write a story here it could take home some picks from the WD office swag bag, but perhaps most important, it may help other writers get their creative wheels turning, and it flexes and sharpens that strange muscle—the one most of us don’t have a hope in the world of burying or setting aside, even if we wanted to.
Here’s to hoping we never do.
*Megan, please send an e-mail to writersdigest [at] fwmedia [dot] com marked "Attn: Zachary Petit," so I can get the goods shipped out to you!
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WRITING PROMPT: From the Attic
To respond to the following prompt, courtesy of Scott Francis (check out his blog at seescottwrite.wordpress.com) post your stories, in 500 words or fewer, in the Comments section of Promptly:
You are awakened in the middle of the night by a strange tapping noise coming from your attic. You decide to investigate, and after moving a few old boxes, you find what appears to be a telegraph receiver hidden in a small hole in the wall.
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The October issue of WD is now on newsstands. Check out our community issue here, featuring writing forums, online collectives, bestsellers riffing on writers’ organizations, and even the keys to making the most of a nightmare conference. What’s worth your time these days?
Traditional Prompts | Winning Stories
Wednesday, September 23, 2009 6:05:03 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)
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Monday, September 21, 2009
Worst Tweet Ever?
You can run, but you can’t hide: Talk of Fail Whales, talk of Ashton vs. CNN, talk of how you found out your sibling is engaged through a revelatory 140-character missive, and so on—anything and everything, all the time.
What do you think of Twitter?
While it can be a force of evil—think unnecessary info dump overload—I think it can indeed be a positive tool in your writing arsenal if you devote time and a benefit-oriented approach to your posts. (In our May/June 2009 issue we ran a guide to social networking that offers tips on how writers can max out their use of Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn. Click here to check it out for free.)
Or, if you’re like me and not directly on Twitter, there can be a lot to gain from other people’s Tweets. Our publisher and editorial director, Jane Friedman, runs a great (and I’m not just on the hunt for a raise) roundup series on the Best Tweets for Writers, downsizing for us the massive task of sifting the gold out of Fail Whales, "watching Nick@Nite" updates and Ashton Kutcher wars.
Speaking of bad Tweets … what form might the absolute worst take, and how might it spread like a virus?
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PROMPT: Worst Tweet Ever?
In 500 words or fewer, funny, sad or stirring, feel free to post your story in the Comments section of the blog:
Write a scene about the fallout from one of the worst Tweets ever. Or, simply draft a few of the worst Tweets ever.
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Also, the October issue of WD is now on newsstands. Check out our community issue here, featuring writing forums, online collectives, bestsellers riffing on writers’ organizations, and even the keys to making the most of a nightmare conference. What’s worth your time these days?
Traditional Prompts
Monday, September 21, 2009 6:01:36 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)
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Friday, September 18, 2009
Weekend Prompt: Strange Happenings in the RV
The RV is full. The gas is low. From the expressway, nobody has any clue what's inside. But that may change soon.
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Hey writers,
The WD offices in Cincinnati are silent. A stack of queries sits, pensive, anxious. A few tapped keys echo. Mini notes on computer monitors assure passers-by their owners shall return soon.
Magazine/book imprint apocalypse? Quite the opposite. The majority of our staff has jetted off to New York City for the Writer’s Digest Conference: The Business of Getting Publishing. If you couldn’t make it this weekend, you can follow the goings-on live as my friends and comrades blog about the latest developments in publishing—and what it means to writers—at writersdigestconference.blogspot.com.
Meanwhile, your trusty managing editor will be holding down the fort, working on the Writer’s Yearbook 2010 magazine and the WD Interview for our 90th anniversary issue—which is, in my opinion, one of the coolest legends we’ve ever featured.
If you’re outside of New York, say, perhaps, landlocked in the great Midwest, pack up your mental RV and take a stab at the prompt above. In 500 words or fewer, funny, sad or stirring, your stories are welcome in the Comments section of the blog, where they’ll be entered in our monthly swag giveaway. Or, chime in with your thoughts about Dan Brown and his success here, where J. Alvey has posted some great insights about the industry and the author.
Have an excellent weekend,
Zachary
Traditional Prompts
Friday, September 18, 2009 3:46:18 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)
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Wednesday, September 16, 2009
Mid-Week Prompt: A Novel Speech, Derailed (plus Dan Brown)
You’re supposed to be giving a speech, but your mind seizes. You look up at the massive crowd, frantic, and start reciting the contents of an alarming letter you received last week, instead.
(In 500 words or fewer, funny, sad or stirring, feel free to post your stories in the Comments section of the blog.)
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Hey writers,
Imagine: “Symbols from the book's cover were projected high on the walls. Catering staff wore bright white George Washington-style wigs. Lost Symbol cocktails were offered in oversized martini glasses, followed by champagne for toasting. Delicious finger snacks came by. A White House cake was on display, then sliced up for dessert.”
Oddly, this wasn’t a Gatsby party, but rather Dan Brown’s book release soiree for The Lost Symbol, as documented by Los Angeles Times writer Carolyn Kellogg. (And for the record, Kellogg also said Brown was pretty great behind the mic, contrasting the fictive non-Brown based prompt above, which would be more likely to happen if it were, say, me up there.)
For many in the publishing industry, there’s a lot banking on Brown’s new book, which was released this week. Some see it as the book world’s potential savior, and its colossal output is undeniable—according to Bloomberg, it broke the preorder and Day 1 sales records for adult fiction, and the first U.S. print run was a hulking 5 million copies.
Reviews are in the positive–mixed range, with some citing Brown’s ability to weave a killer plot, and others bashing a lack of style. What do you think: What's the secret to his success? Will it be what’s needed to pull the book biz out of a slump?
No matter what happens, I'm pumped to see the mainstream book world partying again, or at the very least, smiling, finger snacks in hand.
Traditional Prompts
Wednesday, September 16, 2009 4:29:18 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)
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Monday, September 14, 2009
Promptly Special: Get Published in WD Magazine
Seven people board a small boat for a tour of the islands, but when the boat returns to the dock, only six people remain on board. —From The Writer’s Book of Matches by the staff of fresh boiled peanuts: a literary journal
Hey writers,
Quandary: In WD magazine, we’re typically cramped for open space, and I’ve gotten e-mails from some of you about how it’d be cool to publish a Promptly story in our pages. I agree, and rather than attempting to sleight-of-hand a piece in last minute when the editor is at the copy machine, I’ve got a solution: Your Story.
Essentially, Your Story is a recurring column in which we run a new prompt and, alongside it, a piece inspired by the previous issue’s prompt. WD editors read through the stories every magazine cycle, and then we post the top 5 on our forum so readers can select the winner.
Thus, in 750 words or fewer, funny, sad or stirring, I invite you to post your stories in the comments section of this post, and they’ll be entered in the contest. (There’s only one entry allowed per person, and you have until the Oct. 10 deadline.) Should your story win, I’ll contact you for your name and mailing address when the time comes.
That said, we’re off, pizza in hand, to judge last month’s batch.
Looking forward to your stories, and hoping you had an excellent weekend,
Zachary
Also, if Promptly isn’t fulfilling all your insatiable prompt needs and you’re interested in The Writer’s Book of Matches (source of the prompt above), I gave it a peep, and it’s currently on sale in our online shop.
Traditional Prompts | Your Story Prompts
Monday, September 14, 2009 3:43:56 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)
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Friday, September 11, 2009
Weekend Prompt: Your Ultimate Quote (Win swag!)
Write a conversation in which you utter what will be your—or your character’s—most memorable quote. The one that will be repeated for some time—for better or worse.
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Hey writers,
In the world of authors, you’ve probably heard them, or some form of them, before.
“[Writing is] like driving a car at night. You never see further than your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way.” –E.L. Doctorow
“If it sounds like writing, I rewrite it.” –Elmore Leonard
“The road to hell is paved with adverbs.” –Stephen King
“Know your literary tradition, savor it, steal from it, but when you sit down to write, forget about worshiping greatness and fetishizing masterpieces.” –Allegra Goodman
What is it that instills a quote with fire and importance, that element that burns it into someone’s mind? Or, alternatively, what is it that deflates a quote and leaves you gnawing your tongue, wondering what, exactly, will go down in the history books?
In 500 words or fewer, funny, sad or stirring, I invite you to explore the prompt here or offline, and I'm also curious about your thoughts on the nature of quotes. And as always, feel free to post your stories in the comments section of the blog to automatically enter our monthly favorite-story swag giveaway.
Happy Friday,
Zachary
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Also, to tap into the inner punctuation nerd in us all, check out the hilarious "Blog" of "Unnecessary" Quotation Marks for some weekend reading.
Traditional Prompts
Friday, September 11, 2009 2:54:46 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)
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Wednesday, September 09, 2009
Mid-Week Prompt: A Game of Confession
Hey writers,
Hope you had a refreshing Labor Day. I spent the weekend in Goshen, Ind., in the upper reaches of the great Midwest, tooling around on boats and board games (after all, as the local TV commercials boast, there’s more than corn in Indiana—which you’re pleased to discover after five hours of driving through husk country).
Even though I went down in flames on several games (I recall storming out on Pictureka! and proclaiming some rather unfair judgments upon the board featuring odd monsters and fantastical shapes), spending some time with old friends was excellent.
Here’s to hoping you had a pleasant weekend with old faces, free of any game-related confessions that go beyond mere Pictureka! slander (see below), and the clever, prompt-nailing trauma inherent in Jason Dougherty’s “A Decision, a Laugh, a Howl” post, which is this week’s Notable Story Pick.
Yours in writing,
Zachary
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PROMPT: A Game of Confession
In 500 words or fewer, funny, sad or stirring:
Old friends have gathered, and are passing the time with a card game.
“Ante up,” you say.
“I have a confession,” your old roommate replies.
Everyone widens their eyes, but then lowers their heads.
They know something you don’t.
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Also, anyone interested in a writerly jaunt to NYC? Registration is still open for the WD Conference: The Business of Getting Published that’s coming up next week, Sept. 18-20. Check it out if you’re interested in the future of the industry, or want to take in some editor meetings, marketing and promotion sessions, and more. Update: Got ahold of a coupon code for us. If you register by Sept. 14, paste in "PC109" to get $50 off the registration.
Notable Story Picks | Traditional Prompts
Wednesday, September 09, 2009 4:14:48 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)
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Friday, September 04, 2009
Holiday Prompt: A Decision, a Laugh, a Howl
Hey writers,
I’m jetting off to the lakes of exotic Indiana for the weekend. I wish you the best of Labor Days, free of any of the prompt-story trauma below.
Also, on the WD Forum, I started up a new poll for the January issue of Writer’s Digest magazine: Which is your favorite type of writing prompt—an open-ended question or scenario, a specific challenge, a photo or art prompt, or no prompt at all? Feel free to weigh in and offer your comments, which may wind up in the next issue of WD.
Yours in writing and Labor Days,
Zachary
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PROMPT: A Decision, a Laugh, a Howl
In 500 words or fewer, funny, sad or stirring:
It’s a holiday, and you make a decision that makes something go very awry—or, very right—depending on how you look at it. Meanwhile, it’s cold but it’s supposed to be hot, someone is laughing and a dog is howling.
Traditional Prompts
Friday, September 04, 2009 3:53:40 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)
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Wednesday, September 02, 2009
Mid-Week Prompt: Selling Out/Buying In
Hey writers,
Promptly and some of the other WD blogs had a bit of a blackout earlier, but it appears we’re back online (I write as I compose into a Word file, cringing while optimistically eying the “Post” button). Sorry for the radio silence!
Assuming all of our technical difficulties have shown mercy on us, if you’re interested in writing programs or life therein, we just launched a new blog, MFA Confidential, with Kate Monahan. Check it out—her post today shares some first-year lessons. And she’s also down with A.M. Homes.
Finally, a tip of the prompt hat to Mark James, whose “Tragically, Hero” piece is this week’s Notable Story Pick.
Here’s to hoping you have a glitch-free Wednesday,
Zachary
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PROMPT: Selling Out/Buying In
In 500 words or fewer, funny, sad or stirring:
You have done what you swore you would never do: You have written a book solely to pay the bills. Now, write the back-cover promo copy.
(From the newest issue of Writer's Digest magazine, which hits newsstands Sept. 15.)
InkWell Prompts | Traditional Prompts
Wednesday, September 02, 2009 6:58:00 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)
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Monday, August 31, 2009
Creativity Wake-Up Call: Movies and Morals
Hey writers,
While waiting for a showing of Inglourious Basterds this weekend, a young teen (who somehow had a rather bushy goatee) sauntered up to my companion and me with a request.
Goatee: “Bro, which movie are you seeing?”
Zac: “Inglourious Basterds?”
Goatee: “Right on.”
(Awkward mutual stare)
Goatee: “Wanna do us a favor?”
Zac: “What’s up?”
Goatee: “Will you pretend to be my bro’s parents so he can get in?”
(Bro in question grunts in agreement, offers handful of popcorn)
As it turned out, we were seeing the film at different times, so I managed to dodge the moral issue of being someone’s understudy father. Which got me wondering about movies and more hearty moral questions.
Yours in writing,
Zachary
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PROMPT: Morals and Movies
In 500 words or fewer, funny, sad or stirring:
You have just purchased tickets for a movie, and someone approaches you, tears in his eyes and something gripped in his palm, and asks a question—one that leaves you speechless.
Traditional Prompts
Monday, August 31, 2009 4:17:01 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)
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Friday, August 28, 2009
Weekend Prompt: Tragically, Hero
Hey writers,
Anyone have an iPhone? I’ve been too attached to my old phone (read: thrifty) to pick one up, but am steadily wishing I would. WD Market Books Managing Editor Alice Pope gave me a heads-up about this: featherproof Books’ TripleQuick Fiction iPhone app. In a nutshell, the app will serve up stories that are 333 words long (three iPhone screens). Writers can also pen (thumb-type?) their own pieces on the phone, snap a photo of themselves with the on-board camera, and submit it all on the spot.
Staring wistfully at my antique, offering a random prompt and wishing you the best of weekends,
Zachary
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PROMPT: Tragically, Hero
In 500 words or fewer, funny, sad or stirring:
Write the story of how your hero came to be missing a tooth.
Traditional Prompts
Friday, August 28, 2009 3:56:15 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)
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Friday, August 21, 2009
Weekend Prompt: In Your Father's Shoes
Hey writers,
WD Editor Jessica Strawser and I are gearing up to conquer a critical chunk of our Nov/Dec issue today, so I’ll cut my usual screeds and ramblings short(er), and wish you an excellent weekend. I’m planning on jaunting down to the Kentucky State Fair in Louisville tomorrow, and there’s a high likelihood some prompts will arise next week from my (often bizarre, if not curiously charming) old Kentucky home’s festival. Think rooster crowing contests. Miniature horses. Lynn's Paradise Cafe Ugly Lamp Contest. Yes.
Yours in writing,
Zachary
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PROMPT: In Your Father's Shoes
In 500 words or fewer, funny, sad or stirring:
You put on your father’s shoes, take a deep breath, say a quick prayer, and walk outside. His hat never quite fit right, but still, you wear it.
Traditional Prompts
Friday, August 21, 2009 3:56:04 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)
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Wednesday, August 19, 2009
Mid-Week Prompt: Rejecting the Rejection
Hey writers,
Not too long ago, a strange thing happened in the storied submissions intake department of WD (my cluttered desk). In short, a writer pitched us a pretty solid idea, but we had run something similar in a previous issue, so I sent a polite “no,” and explained the situation.
My e-mail pinged an hour later: “Can I reject this rejection?”
I sat there, brainstorming faux-clever responses galore, from the dashing one-liner to the form letter (a triple play!), and eventually X’d the e-mail out.
Still, I found it hilarious, and often wonder what her letter would have entailed, had it gone into greater depth.
Also, a tip of the prompt hat to Beth Cato, whose “That Strange Day” piece is this week’s Notable Story pick. Next week, guest judge/WD Editor Jessica Strawser and I will pick our favorite story for the monthly swag giveaway.
Have a great Wednesday,
Zachary
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PROMPT: Rejecting the Rejection
In 500 words or fewer, funny, sad or stirring:
You’ve had it. You can’t take it any more. You decide to reject a rejection letter.
Notable Story Picks | Traditional Prompts
Wednesday, August 19, 2009 5:09:06 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)
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Friday, August 14, 2009
Your Weekend Prompt: Behind the Curtain
Hey writers,
Here’s to hoping your writing week treated you well. Attached below is a new prompt, if the creative urge so strikes you this Friday, Saturday or Sunday.
Have an excellent weekend laden with scores of It is decidedly sos (or, Reply hazy, try agains, depending on your preference),
Zachary
PROMPT: Behind the Curtain
In 500 words or fewer, funny, sad or stirring:
A fortune-teller rubs her glass orb and grabs your hand. She closes her eyes. She raises her head toward the sky and mumbles. Then, she bursts out laughing.
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If your prompt stomach continues to groan, check out The Writer's Book Of Matches: 1001 Prompts To Ignite Your Fiction, which was penned by a few of my friends at WD (Alice Pope and Scott Francis, et al.). Alice, who I forced into an overblown logline, promises you'll be basking in a raging inferno of writing genius.
Traditional Prompts
Friday, August 14, 2009 3:56:45 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)
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Wednesday, August 12, 2009
Mid-Week Prompt: Things We Lost in the Flood
Hey writers,
Cincinnati weathered a bit of a flash flood Monday, and I answered the phone at WD to my mother panicking—sewage had bubbled up from a drain, and was streaming into her basement. My father and I held our breath and dove into the old goods—think antique candy, family photos, basset hound lawn ornaments, clothes, stacks of anonymous boxes—and hauled up the most worthy items for hospice in the garage.
In a flood situation, what would you save—or not? (I can assure you a few mid-80s chocolate rabbits met their demise.)
Also, a tip of the hat to Jared David's intriguing portrait from "Wherever You May Write," which is this week's Notable Story pick.
Yours in writing,
Zachary
PROMPT: Things We Lost in the Flood
In 500 words or fewer, funny, sad or stirring:
Your home floods. You race to save one item, but at the last minute, change your mind.
Notable Story Picks | Traditional Prompts
Wednesday, August 12, 2009 4:06:15 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)
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Monday, August 10, 2009
Your Monday Creativity Wake-Up Call: That Strange Day
Hey writers,
The July/August issue of Writer’s Digest is nearly off newsstands, and I feel a bit weepy, like an old friend is about to pack up the U-Haul, give some of those awkward parting hugs and hit the road. I love this edition, and I say that not to get everyone out to the store to gobble it up in droves, but because—from Jessica Strawser’s interview with literary guru Anne Tyler to the publishing survival guide package and the blast I had profiling travel writer Rick Steves—it’s one of my favorites from the last two years.
July/August 2009 WD: Gone too soon, off to the great mag universe in the sky. (Or, rather, to the Internet, where it will live on at the Writer’s Digest Shop.) Luckily it’s slick sibling, the September 2009 issue focused on literary agents, hits newsstands in mid-August, with cutting-edge coverboy Cory Doctorow dishing about his innovative (and seriously cool) approaches to publishing.
As some Monday coffee for your creativity (without all the acidic burn), here’s the prompt I wrote for the July/August issue. Onward!
Yours in writing,
Zachary
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PROMPT: That Strange Day
In 500 words or fewer, funny, sad or stirring:
It’s been raining for weeks and a single thought has been stuck in your mind: It plays itself over and over, and you can’t stop pondering what happened on that strange day—the day it started raining.
Traditional Prompts | InkWell Prompts
Monday, August 10, 2009 4:20:40 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)
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Friday, August 07, 2009
Your Weekend Creativity Challenge: Like a Virgin
Hey writers,
Attached below: Your weekend prompt.
In a short story I’m working on, a character fires a gun. No momentous occasion for the character; not exactly out of the ordinary. Except when he went to shoot it, the report fizzled out—a bang somewhere between a snap-and-pop and a stack of books hitting the ground. The bullet left the chamber and sauntered out into the open, leaving the character itching a bug bite and sending a text message.
Which made me realize: I knew nothing about how to fire a gun. What happens when you fire it. How to fire it. What your hands feel like after you fire it. How the air smells.
Which, simply put, left the fiction lifeless.
So I decided to go out and get educated with a friend at a firing range—which put a lifetime of bb-gun play and video game stereotypes to shame, revealing an armada of new writing fodder—the sheer (mildly scary), restrained power. The roar. The kick. The quasi-embarrassing scratch on my face from one particularly strong kick.
As Steve Almond once wrote in our magazine, “All readers come to fiction as willing accomplices to your lies.” Sometimes, it seems, good writing is all about sharpening our lies.
Here’s to trying something new.
Have an excellent weekend,
Zachary
PROMPT: Like a Virgin
In 500 words or fewer, funny, sad or stirring:
Do something you’ve never done before, and use the experience in scene.
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Also, if you're a publishing futurist or simply curious about where current trends are heading, check out Digital Book World. I'm intrigued, and the blog debates are pretty stirring.
Traditional Prompts
Friday, August 07, 2009 4:25:55 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)
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Wednesday, August 05, 2009
Your Mid-Week Prompt: Redefining Love
Hey writers,
How goes it? All is well in Promptland and Digest-ville. We just wrapped our October issue and are plodding onward toward our November/December mag, and the (most-excellent) post-wrap (brief) calm has descended. I’m working on a piece for the next issue involving literary journals and magazines, and I’m curious, since many of you have the short-fiction skills—have any of you written for any lit mags? Which are your favorites?
Also, a tip of the hat to J. Alvey and his authentic, spooky “Here’s to the Lion” story. It takes the cake as this week’s Notable Story pick. Thanks for the great tale and a great spin on the prompt and predators, Joe.
Be well and write well,
Zachary
PROMPT: Redefining Love
In 500 words or fewer, funny, sad or stirring:
In a scene, define love.
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Also, there’s been a lot of talk around the office about the upcoming Writer’s Digest Conference on the business of getting published and selling books. Yesterday the WD event powers that be announced that all attendees can get free critiques of their work, and 10 will be selected to meet with literary agents. (If you’re interested, it’s Sept. 18-20, New York. You can read more here.)
Notable Story Picks | Traditional Prompts
Wednesday, August 05, 2009 4:15:35 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)
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Monday, August 03, 2009
Your Monday Prompt: Wherever You May Write
Hey writers,
Hope everyone had an excellent weekend. I ended up stumbling upon whereiwrite.org (check it out if you have a second—it’s fascinating), a site that documents notable scribes in their natural habitats. Which made me wonder: Where do you all write?
Here’s to hoping all is well in your world (and at your desk),
Zachary
PROMPT: Wherever You May Write
In 500 words or fewer, funny, sad or stirring:
Write a scene that takes place wherever you write. Take an object [or two] that is always present at your desk, and make it a key element of your scene.
Traditional Prompts
Monday, August 03, 2009 5:42:26 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)
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Friday, July 31, 2009
Your Weekend Prompt: That Wicked Old Scent
Hey writers,
The battle to finish our October issue wages on, and so I’ll again be brief: Here’s to hoping your writing and muses are treating you well. Mine were MIA for the last few days, but I blame it on a week of ominous, slightly frightening scents in the hallway of my otherwise cozy apartment building (see below).
Have a great Friday-Saturday-Sunday!
Zachary
PROMPT: That Wicked Old Scent
In 500 words or fewer, funny, sad or stirring, write a story inspired by or containing the following:
“It smells like something has died in the walls,” she said.
“Well, do something about it.”
“I always do.”
He remembered what happened last time, and the sun sagged low.
Traditional Prompts
Friday, July 31, 2009 7:59:39 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)
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Wednesday, July 29, 2009
Your Wednesday Prompt: Here's To the Lion
Hey writers,
On Monday I read through last week’s pool of stories: How you all turn around such content so fast with innovative spins continues to baffle me. Moreover, it’s awesome to see Constant Writers (the Promptly pickpocketing of Stephen King’s Constant Readers terminology) developing—a sense of your voices is percolating to the surface. I’m proud to have you writing here, and I type that without flattery. To you, and our new writers this week, thanks for sticking around after the initial challenge. I’d like to call all of you out, but you know who you are.
As for the Notable Story pick of the week, the title goes to Loveskidlit’s story from “Photogenic Stranger.” Check out her well-written, haunting flash-fiction here. To me, she took an unexpected direction and nailed the prompt, down to the meditative final line.
For today’s story, let’s try the Literary Roadshow approach again (I’ll pull a normal, out-of-context line from a book, and use it as a prompt—is one writer’s line-in-passing another’s creative jackpot?).
Yours in writing,
Zachary
From Ernest Hemingway’s short story "The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber":
PROMPT: Here’s To the Lion
In 500 words or fewer, funny, sad or stirring, write a story inspired by or containing the following:
“Here’s to the lion,” he said. “I can’t ever thank you for what you did.”
Margaret, his wife, looked away from him and back to Wilson.
“Let’s not talk about the lion,” she said.
Wilson looked over at her without smiling and now she smiled at him.
--
Also, I run writing exercises in our InkWell section of the magazine, and yesterday stumbled upon Bonnie Neubauer's new WD "Take Ten for Writers" book, which is jampacked with endless prompts and exercises. If your prompt quota is still not filled, check it out or read an excerpt here—it inspires jealousy in even the finest prompt scribes.
Traditional Prompts | Notable Story Picks
Wednesday, July 29, 2009 2:42:47 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)
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Monday, July 27, 2009
Your Monday Prompt: Next Time, Chew
Hey scribes,
We’re waging a final salvo against the October issue of Writer’s Digest magazine, so I’ll be brief today, and wish you an excellent Monday. I hope all is well in your universes, both fictive and traditional. I’m planning to drop a WD nod of the hat to last week’s Notable Story pick Wednesday.
Write on,
Zachary
PROMPT: Next Time, Chew
In 500 words or fewer, funny, sad or stirring:
At dinner, you choke. Something flashes before your eyes, only it’s not exactly your life.
Traditional Prompts
Monday, July 27, 2009 6:17:02 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)
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Friday, July 24, 2009
Your Friday Prompt: The Terrible Decision
Hey writers,
At an old copy-editing job, I worked with a writer who thought it was hilarious to slip the occasional vulgarity—often spectacularly creative and monstrous—into one of the publication’s stories before I proofed them all. It became a sort of game, a sort of watching Zac over the top of a page as his eyes widened in final-proof horror. Sure, I chuckled, grumbled and deleted the intruder (albeit on the brink of journalism tears).
But what if I hadn’t?
Forget that for a second, and consider a moment from yesterday or today, a moment when you could have done something terrible if you had just changed one small thing. It could be anything stirred up in your imagination: bellowing a cheerful vulgarity to a co-worker who issued you the standard morning Hello!; mumbling, “No, more, all of it, everything,” when cashing a check at the bank; choosing not to extinguish a candle burning close to the curtains in a house you’ve lived in for too long.
How do you define “terrible”? And isn’t it sort of fascinating how one otherwise mundane moment, decision or turn of phrase can change a life, spreading alternate futures out like the branches of a tree?
So keep the terribleness confined to your writing (and away from poor, young copy editors), and have a great weekend!
And, happy birthday to Audrey.
Yours in writing,
Zachary
PROMPT: THE TERRIBLE DECISION
In 500 words or fewer, funny, sad or stirring:
Choose a moment from yesterday or today, an otherwise normal moment when you could have done something extreme, something terrible, if you had just done one small thing different. Do it in scene.
Traditional Prompts
Friday, July 24, 2009 6:21:13 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)
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Wednesday, July 22, 2009
Surprise Attack; New Pet
Hey writers,
Do you know what house centipedes are? Those multi-legged monsters that look like the next generation of weaponized spider, and move with the speed of a gazelle? I found one in my apartment last night and a scuffle ensued. Afterward, as we sat there looking at each other, beaten and exhausted, I felt a little bad for Clyde him, and the following prompt bubbled to the surface.
Intruders aside, here’s the latest news about moving forward: Every week, I'll go through and pick a great story to call out in an entry as a "Notable Story of the Week." At the end of every month, we'll have the usual swag-off, and I'll rotate my co-judges to keep the perspectives fresh (I'll also get a logo drawn up for the winners, in case they have websites they want to use it on).
Yours in writing,
Zachary
PROMPT: Surprise Attack; New Pet
In 500 words or less, funny, sad or stirring:
Something unexpected attacks you. Now, you have to decide whether or not to keep it as a pet.
Traditional Prompts
Wednesday, July 22, 2009 4:10:40 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)
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Monday, July 20, 2009
Your Monday Prompt: Photogenic Stranger
Hey writers,
Everyone have a good weekend? After several million recommendations over the last few years, I finally caved and my girlfriend Audrey and I hunkered down and tackled part of the first season of Dexter—Showtime’s eerie/hilarious series about, well, a good serial killer who kills bad serial killers who kill good people. Around episode four, a plot arises involving old photographs—which prompted me to look through some of mine. As I did, the following prompt developed. (Editor's Note: That pun was unintentional, so after suspiciously eyeballing it for a few minutes, I'm going to let it stand. I was also going to bring an awkward family photo from a decade or two ago to post as creative fodder, but my flash drive isn't working, so you have been spared.)
Moreover, Writer’s Digest online guru Brian Klems and I are going to sift through the stories from the Kick-Off Challenge today, and we’ll announce the winner—and his or her swag—tomorrow, so stay tuned.
Hope all is well in your writing world,
Zachary
PROMPT: Photogenic Stranger
In 500 words or less, funny, sad or stirring:
You develop a roll of film, an old roll from about 10 years ago, and sit down to sift through the photos. As you do, you stop and analyze a figure lurking in the background of a vacation photo. You drop the pictures, aghast, and gasp for air.
Traditional Prompts
Monday, July 20, 2009 6:58:52 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)
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Friday, July 17, 2009
Promptly Kick-Off Finale: The Damaging Dispute
Hey writers,
Welcome to the last day of the Great Promptly Kick-Off Breaking-Block Challenge. My brain tends to not fully warm up until 10:15 a.m. or so, so rather than sleep-type, I'll back out gracefully by saying thanks for all of your awesome responses so far. We'll pick our favorite story from the first three prompts on Monday (you have until Sunday night to get a response in for the challenge) and shell out some WD swag.
Happy Friday!
Zachary
PROMPT: The Damaging Dispute
In 500 words or less, funny, sad or stirring:
Write an argument—the worst dispute
your character has ever been in, at least in his or her opinion—without using a single exclamation point or all-caps word. It’s an exercise in discipline: Keep the fire
contained, brimming at the surface but never boiling over. Oh, and make
sure you mention a pair of pliers and a spectator.
--
ADDENDUM! Remember how I said that my brain doesn't come fully online until 10:15? It's about 10:35, and I just realized I forgot to mention something super-cool: Next Thursday, WD friends Jane Friedman and Alice Pope will be giving a webinar on how to write a book query letter that gets a response.
I can vouch for Jane and Alice's knowledge and awesomeness, so here's the info in case you're interested in cracking book queries, or getting some feedback on one you've stalled out on:
"Extreme Makeover: The Query Letter."
Date: Thursday, July 23, 2009
Length: 60 minutes
Price: $99.00
Presenters: Jane Friedman & Alice Pope
All attendees will be invited to submit a one-page book query letter for potential critique in this hands-on session.
You’ll witness the unbelievable transformation of ordinary, everyday query letters into strong and persuasive letters that catch the attention of agents and editors.
A seasoned and experienced editor will revise letters for stronger leads, concise and efficient expression, and compelling sales hooks - so that you better understand what a professional immediately sees and responds to in your work.
Aside from the revision action, you'll also get a checklist of the five essential elements of every query.
Traditional Prompts
Friday, July 17, 2009 3:00:00 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)
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Monday, July 13, 2009
Promptly Kick-Off Challenge
Welcome writers, one and all. For a call to arms (and an explanation of just what exactly is going on in here), check out the post below. But if you’re ready to write …
Jump into the official Promptly Kick-Off Breaking-Block Challenge. Here’s how we’ll do it: I’ll post a prompt every other day this week, starting with a muse-stirring challenge today for you to grease the wheels. On Monday, July 20, the scribe who wrote the best response and posted it in the comments section of the blog (up to a 500-word vignette, which can be your entire story or an excerpted chunk of it), as selected by myself and another Writer’s Digest editor, will claim some around-the-office writing swag.
So let’s get our pens moving, eh?
Yours in writing,
Zachary
PROMPT
In 500 words or less, funny, sad or stirring:
The phone rings and a low voice groans—“Why me?”
You hang up.
Twenty minutes later, it rings again. “You made a mistake.”
The dial tone throbs as the phone hangs from its cord, limp.
Traditional Prompts
Monday, July 13, 2009 2:57:15 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)
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