Writing prompt

Writing Prompt #21

/ Rebecca Demarest / 5 Comments

Thanks to all of you who have been participating in the weekly writing prompts. As a reminder, anyone can participate! Just drop your response in the comments below…
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Since this is writing prompt #21, let’s talk about coming of age stories. In older times, there were very distinct and specific rituals surrounding children’s coming of age: their first menses, their first hunt, being presented to society. Today, we still have coming of age rituals. I’d argue that one of the most prevalent American tradition is going drinking on your 21st birthday (in most states). It is the final age barrier (except for renting cars) and so it is celebrated in due form.

Your challenge today will be to illustrate a coming of age ritual–either real or imagined. Did your family have specific rituals around certain ages or events? Do you wish they did? Does a character of yours face particularly challenging rituals in their culture? Let the coming of age begin!

Image from the movie Walkabout

Writing Prompt #20

/ Rebecca Demarest / Leave a comment

Play along with the writing prompt by posting your responses in the comments either here or on my response!
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Language is something that most people take for granted. They don’t find they need more than a basic vocabulary or notice how fascinating the history of specific words can be. And then others…others create whole languages. Anyone out there speak Klingon? That is a whole unique language created for the Star Trek universe. Yeah, yeah, and Tolkein’s Elvish. I just think Klingon is more impressive since thousands of people have actually learned how to speak it.

Anyway, language doesn’t have to be verbal, it doesn’t have to have history that is thousands of years old. Take a look at the language of the fan below. Someone decided they wanted these fan movements to mean something to use as a flirting language. Your task now is to develop a new language. It can be as simple as the gestures used by the catcher in a game of baseball or as complex as Klingon. The point is not the grammatical construction itself as what a new language can do for your character.

A listing of the meanings of various fan movements

Writing Prompt #18

/ Rebecca Demarest / Leave a comment

Play along in the comments if you want!
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Your character is undercover and about to get caught. Maybe he’s a crook, maybe he’s a cop, maybe he’s trying to plan a surprise party, your choice. How does he handle the situation when his cover is about to be blown?

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles undercover

Writing Prompt #17

/ Rebecca Demarest / 1 Comment

Okay, so I can eat enough again that my brain has started working, so let’s try a new writing prompt. I’m going to respond to the last one and then this one this week and try and get back on schedule. So who wants to join with me on getting back into writing regularly? You? Excellent. Put your fiction (or non-fiction) in the comments.
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I just finished the Hunger Games trilogy. I know, not high literature, but entertaining none-the-less when you’re down 1,000 calories a day and trying to pretend you don’t hurt. SO, I think it was a fine 15 hours spent all told. But there is one thing that Collins does repeatedly that I think we should play with.

Her main character, Katniss, is constantly returning to places that are significant to her and her character changes are reflected in how she views the special spot–also in how that spot has been changed without her around, but we won’t go into the heavy handedness of her metaphors right now.

My charge to you, dear readers, is to pick a spot significant to your characters (or to you; can you tell I’m planning a non-fiction response already?) and have your character view it again after some life-changing event. We don’t necessarily need to know what the event it, though you can tell us if you want. The goal is more to see the character realize and deal with the fact that the place has changed in meaning since they last saw it.

destroyed playground

Writing Prompt #16

/ Rebecca Demarest / 1 Comment

As usual, let me remind you that you can share your responses to the prompt either in the comments on this post, or in the comments on my response. If your response to the prompt is too long, let me know in the comments and we’ll get it posted as a regular post!
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Who are these two lovely ladies? I figured since I just finished up being in a fancy formal event, I wanted to give all of you the chance to write something about whatever event you think is taking place here. It looks to be about the 40’s or 50’s,  another relic from the wonderful old antique shop drawer full of photos. So, let’s have at it! Who are these women?

Two women looking into a mirror, one wearing a white dress.

Writing Prompt #15

/ Rebecca Demarest / Leave a comment

As usual, let me remind you that you can share your responses to the prompt either in the comments on this post, or in the comments on my response. If your response to the prompt is too long, let me know in the comments and we’ll get it posted as a regular post!
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So, I really wanted to wait to give you all this prompt until the videos went up from the TEDxSomerville last weekend, which was pretty incredible, but then I couldn’t wait. You’ll have to settle for visiting this guy’s website instead (on which are several cool videos). Schuyler Towne is a competitive lock-picker. How awesome is that. And no, his talk did not center around picking locks, per se. Instead it focused on the symbolism of locks in society–societies around the world, not just here.

In America, the general perception is of locks to keep people out. Keep our self and our things safe. But other cultures use engraved locks as a symbol of marriage, uniting two people together; other culture may pierce their skin and secure a lock through it as a symbol of their religious devotion. Still yet other, oppressed, cultures may use their locks as a form of rebellion against their oppressors, finding ways around the state mandated rules to give themselves just that little extra bit of warning that the gestapo is bearing down.

But what do locks mean to you? What can they mean to your character? Here I am, giving you a symbol, a theme. Now it’s your job to start with this item/idea and create a story around it that is not about it. That is the hardest thing with symbolism in a story–how do you not make it overbearing? Sometimes the unintentional symbols are the strongest because they are subtle yet powerful.

A teacher of mine (Michael Strelow and his The Greening of Ben Brown) once told me that the river and water metaphor was completely intentional, but when an early reader commented on the wonderful light imagery, he had no idea what they were talking about until he went back to look at it. And let me tell you, it is magnificent.

So, here I shall stop rambling. Your task is to write something involving locks. Go.

Really old, rusty lock

Writing Prompt #14

/ Rebecca Demarest / Leave a comment

As usual, let me remind you that you can share your responses to the prompt either in the comments on this post, or in the comments on my response. If your response to the prompt is too long, let me know in the comments and we’ll get it posted as a regular post!
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So, here’s a topic that’s at the forefront of my mind and is very difficult to talk about: illness. Be it injury or a sickness that has taken hold, the language surrounding being unwell is tired and trite. How do you make a character’s physical suffering unique and compelling? Now go be cruel to an imaginary person and give them boils or something.

Biohazard sign

Writing Prompt #13

/ Rebecca Demarest / Leave a comment

As usual, let me remind you that you can share your responses to the prompt either in the comments on this post, or in the comments on my response. If your response to the prompt is too long, let me know in the comments and we’ll get it posted as a regular post!
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Since this is writing prompt #13, it only seems appropriate to dedicate this one to superstitions. Have a character with an unreasonable superstition? Have a superstition save their life? Let’s hear it for black cats, broken mirrors, and pinches of salt thrown over the left shoulder!

Black cat under a ladder

Writing Prompt #12

/ Rebecca Demarest / 3 Comments

As usual, let me remind you that you can share your responses to the prompt either in the comments on this post, or in the comments on my response. If your response to the prompt is too long, let me know in the comments and we’ll get it posted as a regular post!
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Genius. It’s a funny word. We attach such importance and stigma to the concept. But here’s the question. Would you rather be a genius, or be the person who birthed/supported/trained/discovered a genius? Give us characters on all sides of the equation because without their support network, geniuses would never be able to do all that they do to advance our society. So…genius or genius’s sidekick?

Picture of Albert Einstein