Sara’s Writing Prompts

Friggatriskaidekaphobia!

No, I didn’t just swear at you! 😉 But this week has a notoriously bad day in it…A day with ominous bias attached to it, Friday the 13th!  Wait! Don’t run away in horror yet!  I have writing prompts for you to scribble away this superstition into oblivion – well at least until the next Friday the 13th December 2013.

That will leave you free to worry about whether or not The Mayan Long Calendar was miscalculated by scholars and the actual impending date of doom for the Mayan Apocalypse will occur on December 21st 2013 (instead of the previously proposed December 21st 2012).  AAAAH! Kidding! 😛

But just to be sure, make sure you have plenty of Mole sauce and Cocoa beans on hand for sacrificial offerings to Quetzalcoatl. Have fun and Write on!  🙂

Prompts:

Week of September 7th – 14th 2013.

1. You go to a hairstylist to get a new ‘do, and you tell them that you trust them. Well, your trust bought you a fluorescent green Mohawk!
2. Write about your first memories of a bad or even lucky day on Friday the 13th.
3. I thought it was a skateboard!
4. I had nothing to lose, so I…
5. Why did the postman cross the road?
6. Write a story or poem about a broken promise.
7. It was like nothing had ever happened. Tom didn’t remember a thing and I was off the hook, or so I thought.
8. Write a story that includes the following: “Our faithful vehicle chose that moment to run out of gas.”
9. “Attitude is everything”, she told me.
10. I watched them go on and on for hours. Just when I thought, they were going to stop, on they went again, until finally…
11. A mouse and a mole were sitting in a hole when along comes a troll…
12. When Arthur lifts the cover off the trash can…
13. While digging a new flowerbed, your neighbor finds a bone that looks suspiciously like a human femur.
14. You’ve taken your first trip to an intergalactic dance club from your colony on Mars, tell us about your boogie/clubbing adventure!
15. In a lab somewhere, chemists formulate the perfect formula to finally…
16. The smell of roasting meat wafted out of the restaurant as he dug through the dumpster in the back.
17. “So you don’t remember the man in a black trench coat, even though the video recorded you ringing him up?” Father Damien Karras SJ wasn’t buying it. Duh-duh-DUUUH! *insert creepy Friday the 13th Film Noir/Horror plot mash-up here* 😉
18. Combine two animals to form a new species. Write about an adventure had by a baby animal of that new species…
19. While writing in a dark forest, cowering behind a tall oak tree…
20. Sorry, but swimmers are not allowed to…
21. You receive a package in the mail. There is no return address. Inside is a large pair of clown shoes filled with jelly beans.
22. An old man finds a coin that reminds him of a special day from his youth.
23. Write a letter to Prime Minister Stephen Harper or a local MP about an issue that’s important to you. (it can be satire if you wish)
24. I was reading a writing prompt on https://barriewritersclub.wordpress.com/ when suddenly… 😉

All lovely writing prompts were gathered from Writing.com‘s prompt machine!  With a few tweaks here and there from me.  Enjoy!

~Sara

Sara’s Writing Prompts

Hello!  So have you been busy writing this past week or have you been too busy getting the kids ready for the first day back to school?  Do you need some inspiration or a prompt to get  your creativity flowing?  Yes?  Good!  I have a whole list of writing prompts just for you.  Take a few minutes, consider where these prompts will lead you then write on!

 

Prompts:

Week of August 26th to September 1st, 2013.

1. Little did John know the panther was just yards away, watching his every move.
2. A straight line and a curved line argue which one is more useful.
3. An unknown person from Egypt sends you a box containing a rock etched with hieroglyphics.
4. One day, your dog starts talking to you.
5. Right before she dies, your mother tells you you’re adopted.
6. He raised his goblet: “Cheers! Here’s to Love!” Then she quipped back, “Define Love.”
7. Write about the smallest insect you’ve ever seen.
8. A frozen pond in the middle of the desert catches the attention of scientists from around the world.
9. You’re in a log cabin deep in the woods. No utilities. Lake plentiful with fish and a prehistoric animal…
10. You just discovered the reason your adopted son is so disruptive of every aspect of family life: Attachment Disorder. What now?
11. “Your name will be in lights, kiddo!” said D. W. Griffith to Mary Pickford.
12. A day after you submit your thesis, you get a call from the Director of the CIA or CSIS/CSEC.
13. Write about the life of a box of Lime Jello.
14. Now you know the reason your neighbor has been sitting in his yard, looking at his shed and brooding.
15. If you could get a job in any occupation, what would you do for a living?
16. Add a dab of this, a dribble of that and stir. Within seconds, you’ll have…
17. The commercials said the shampoo would make my hair grow strong. I didn’t expect…
18. I don’t usually read the end of a book first, but this time I just had to know!
19. A for-hire corporate spy has stolen a flash-drive with sensitive information on it. He must transfer it to his employer within the next week because…
20. A ring is found with an intriguing inscription inside.
21. Pick a marketing slogan and use it in a poem or short-story.
22. You are being driven around by the worst driver ever.
23. The calendar says March 10th, but the last day you remember is March 1st.
24. A stop at the pub on the way home changed his destiny.
25. A circle, a square and a triangle…
26. When her cell phone rings, they think nothing of it. But when his rings too…
27. “Couldn’t you hear me knocking?” she asked. “Uh, no… I was… “
28. The cup tipped over, spilling its contents onto her mobile phone, which was the only remaining connection to the outside world.
29. If life is a TV channel, I’m currently on…

Prompts gathered from Writing.com.

Sara’s Writing Prompts: Film and Media Edition!

Hooray for Hollywood! There’s no business like show business.

 

Hello there! Did you get all your pieces handed in for the BWC Anthology? Yes?! Great!  I know I dillydallied getting around to handing mine in on time too.  So this week for writing prompts I thought we could take a look at story telling from the perspective of Media and Communications.  We need a break from all that frenzied typing and formatting we did to get our submissions in on time!

Let’s have some fun and write something about what we watch, hear and consume from media daily.  Whether it’s from those annoying Sham-WOW commercials with Vince the Sham-WOW-Guy to Movie Blockbusters and Classic Silver Screen Gems, or even to the dishy tell-all books we read about our favorite celebrities.   We’ll use these examples as inspiration to create our own narrative spin on some of Hollywood’s most popular stories along with ideas from the music industry as well.  Grab your pencils or flex those fingers over your keyboard, and let’s begin!

 

Writing Prompts:

• List ten things you do when you procrastinate then turn them into a television advertisement for ADHD medication and/or products.  Use this as your tagline: I never finish what I… 😛

• Retell the Nativity Story in modern or urban/ghetto diatribe-language. Feel free to channel the West Coast Hip-Hop style of Tupac Shakur or if you want to be grittier, go East Coast style with Jay-Z.  😉

• Write about what you’d say to an unexpected guest use the film “Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner” with Spencer Tracy, Sidney Poitier and Katharine Hepburn or for Generation X-Y (Millennials) use the rebooted version, “Guess Who” with Bernie Mac, Ashton Kutcher and Zoë Saldaña.  What happens next? Tell us!

• Write an excuse for not working today or missing school. Think “Office Space” with Ron Livingston, Jennifer Aniston and the curious case of employee redundancy with the character Milton. Or “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off” with Matthew Broderick, Mia Sara and perhaps elaborate further upon Ben Stein’s characters’ infamous monotone teaching soliloquy.

• Imagine your life is now a book sitting on a store shelf.  A book, you didn’t authorize!  – What does the blurb on the inside of the book cover reveal? Think “Oprah: A Biography” by Kitty Kelley or “Tom Cruise: An Unauthorized Biography” by Andrew Morton. Make it under 500 words and all of it complete fiction!

• Write a story about why Fortune 500 companies would start hiring Fortune Tellers and Astrologists.  Think of the television series, “Medium” with Patricia Arquette or James Van Praagh’s life portrayed on “The Ghost Whisperer” with Jennifer Love Hewitt’s character.

•  Create a story, script, play or poem inspired by a line in a Margret Atwood novel, film, story or poem.

Movie Plot Remixes:

• Write a story related to a holiday you had.  Think any of The National Lampoon’s Vacation movie franchise, with Chevy Chase and Beverly D’Angelo with their revolving cast of kids who played their teenage son and daughter characters in these films.  This can be a creative nonfiction experience you’ve personally had or it can be complete fiction.

• A Hippie or Hipster (for Gen. X-Y) bride and groom have a way-out-there New Age wedding!  Tell us what transpires…Think “Betsy’s Wedding” with Alan Alda and Molly Ringwald or the original film version of “The In-Laws” with Peter Falk and Alan Arkin.

•  A handsome college graduate student who’s working as a pizza delivery boy gets a very special tip…Think “The Graduate “ with Dustin Hoffman and Anne Bancroft or “Loverboy” with Patrick Dempsey, Kirstie Alley and Carrie Fisher.

•  A river rafting trip leads to new friends and enemies…Think “Deliverance” with Jon Voight and Burt Reynolds for a darker perspective or for Gen. X-Y try a tamer reboot of “Without a Paddle” starring Seth Green, Matthew Lillard and Dax Shepard.

•  A good friend becomes a leader of a cult or high priest in a coven of witches…Think “Sound of My Voice” with Brit Marling, “Rosemary’s Baby” with Mia Farrow, John Cassavetes, Ruth Gordon and Ralph Bellamy or for Gen. X-Y:  “The Craft” with Robin Tunney, Fairuza Balk and Neve Campbell.

***If you’re feeling especially brave, mix a few of these plots and characters together and write a farcical type of story!***

Have fun with these gone Hollywood prompts and Write On!

~Sara

References and prompt ideas from:

“Creative Writing Prompts a Reader’s Digest Magazine”, Creative Writing Prompts Online.

Creative Writing Prompts Online, n.d. Web. 1 August 2013.

http://creativewritingprompts.com/

“Hatch’s Plot Bank”, Creative Writing Prompts Online.

Hatch’s Plot Bank Online, n.d. Web. 1 August 2013.

http://www.angelfire.com/nc/tcrpress/plotbank.html

Sara’s Writing Prompts

Hello fellow BWC Writers!

I hope you’ve all had an excellent week scribbling in your notebooks – Have you written a piece that you will be sharing with us on Monday night for a critique? No?! Not too worry! I come bearing writing prompts.   The due date for submissions for the Barrie Writers Club 2nd anthology is approaching quickly – 15 more days left to hand in submissions by July 29th 2013.

Don’t over think it. Breathe and know that you can.  Take an inky plunge into the blank pages before you and just write.  Really, it’s just that easy.

“As for goals, I don’t set myself those anymore. I’m not one of these ‘I must have achieved this and that by next year’ kind of writers. I take things as they come and find that patience and persistence tend to win out in the end.”
Paul Kane

 

Writing Prompts:

 

• But the butter wouldn’t stick to the bread…

• A new neighbour in your apartment building is a vampire.  What will they sink their teeth into next?

• After noticing the kitty picture as your desktop wallpaper, your cat becomes jealous of your computer.

• How did all this cake get in my hair?

• You are in the audience, when the lead singer forgets the lyrics. You are the only other person who knows them. What happens next?

• You go to donate blood, but something goes terribly wrong…

• I couldn’t find the glue, so I…

• You see bullet holes in the promotional poster of your new business.

• Every morning at sunrise, the sun shone through the church window to reveal a message.

• At a state dinner, a political cartoonist spills ketchup on the vice-president.

• At an auction, you place a bid on a strange object and win the bid. What is this mysterious object and what secrets does it have?

• In the airplane, you hear the pilot announce he’s running out of fuel, and…(Strangely enough this one actually did happen to me coming back from Heathrow airport to Pearson.  We ended up having to land at Montréal’s Mirabel Airport…This airline has now gone defunct – Thank God!)

• A cat and dog duo decides to play a prank on a pesky neighbourhood raccoon.

• A journalist discovers the whereabouts of a wealthy family’s only heir who was abducted years ago.

• A woman you have never met before tells you: “Your life depends on what’s inside my purse.”

• Your new hot tub looks like a spaceship.  It has buttons, lights and other gadgets, oh and it can fly!

• An animal in the pet shop where you work has some supernatural powers.

• The lead singer in a traveling band gives away top security secrets to the enemy through the songs he sings.

• Attention shoppers!  There is a blue light special on Sardines on aisle 10!

• A vacuum cleaner is invented that generates life from dust…

• The copier wasn’t working again and I was on my last nerve when suddenly…

• The computer screeched and the screen turned blue when he hit the submit button.

• Pick a random person that you know and use their name for an acrostic.

• Researching the quantum origins of consciousness, you discover you can alter and extend time…

• A homeless man can see the future, but no one believes him.

All writing prompts were obtained using Writing.com’s  iPhone App and also at their website, thanks!

Good luck and write on!

~Sara

Next Thursday will be posted the second part of  the research information article.  Have a look for it under “From The Trenches…” link to the right of your screen.  Feel free to comment, ask questions or add your own suggestions.  Or even make a request for anything that you want to understand more about from Generation Enigma er Techno 😉 I’m learning too, so we may as well learn and stumble together!

Also: I will be attempting to make a Screen cast video on how to save, format and attach your writing submissions to email then submit these documents successfully.  Fingers crossed* I will be testing it out on my blog first.  Hopefully, I will not injure my blog in the process.  If you should hear a cacophonous boom from next door, RUN! Or refer my former blog to the appropriate committee, the Darwin Awards…KIDDING! 😉

Sara’s Writing Prompts: Visual Story Prompts

Did you all have a good Canada Day long weekend? Did you eat mouth-watering barbeque, play with fireworks you shouldn’t have, and wave the great Red & White Canadian Maple Leaf flag? No? Me either…Not to worry! I had an idea for a new way to visually set you into the writing mode, by providing something I will call, Visual Story Prompts.

So it works like this:

I’ll give three pictures, and you will create the story that weaves the mesh between these three different picture items.

I took a page out of Oliver Sacks book entitled, An Anthropologist on Mars. The nonfiction work documents a meeting he had with Temple Grandin who has Autism. But the interesting part about her is, the unique way in which she perceives and processes our shared world. This is the case for many individuals who face issues of Neurodiversity – Ms. Grandin rarely if ever thinks in words, but in pictures. For most of us, communication in words is intrinsic to being human. Imagine what her world consists of devoid of words, words that ultimately facilitate essential human interconnectedness and the abstraction that language provides the majority of us with. This alternative way of understanding the world has allowed her to have a very unique way of perceiving what is.

Here are the pictures, and you the writer will use your words to create the story.

Story Choices:

1. A black Labrador Retriever, a sleeping baby and an aqua blue rotary dial telephone.

2. A going away party, a well-traveled suitcase and a bell on a hotel desk check-in.

3. A rustic camping trip, a bunny and a roll of duct tape.

4. A pink wig, a bottle of white wine and a tin trash can.

5. Wooden clogs-shoes, a Tuna Salad sandwich and a grey Tabby cat.

6. A businessman, a stopwatch and a luggage arrival carousel with people ridding on it.

7. An old purple door, a stack of old books, and a man reading by a lake.

8. A map of Canada highlighting the province of Manitoba (my bad, I originally put Alberta! HA!), an Army jeep and a soldiers footlocker.

9. An old Canadian $1 bill, Parliament Hill in Ottawa, and a plate of Poutine.

10. A red Toronto Sun newspaper box, The City of Toronto, and a Twix chocolate candy bar.

Good luck and write on!

~Sara

Sara’s Writing Prompts

Hello fellow writing aficionados!

I have a slew of new writing prompts to ignite the fire in your brain and to finally put that pen to paper (or fingers to keyboard…!)

Remember, that the BWC Anthology Book Publication is still receiving submissions.  The editors and executive staff would love to receive your submission for story (or poetry/prose) from YOU, the members of BWC!

I know, I’ve been struggling with getting my stories and written things together but I’ll submit something if you plan to as well…? 😉

So, are you ready to take a chance and write something fantastic?  You will never know unless you begin to scribble!  Remember:  The anxiety about starting something is often worse than the finished product itself.  Let’s Write!

Prompts:

Write about geography. Pick a random place on a map and write about it. If you haven’t been there, imagine what it would be like.

A six-year old who has trouble with long words is chosen the king for an island nation.

Make up a creative reason for missing a deadline at work/school/etc.

Animals are pretty darned smart. Can’t say the same for a lot of people.

Write a small autobiography from the perspective of being a famous star/starlet  or rock/pop singer.  How fantastic is this persons’ life and what have they struggled with?

Write a sensational tabloid piece about an invented rock or pop band; try to promote their musical style and their personalities.  It could be satirical and humorous in nature or it could a puff piece on this band.

You just got the best job in the world: walking a famous person’s dog! – Who’s this famous person and can their dog really behave on his/her walks?  What’s this dog like?

An unstable scientist keeps cloning cats and eventually changes their DNA. What are these mutant cats capable of?!

You’re cleaning out your closet and find a worn bible, you had forsaken the Lord…Yet when you touch it, the Lord speaks..

Scribbled on the back of a bookmark, he/she read the most interesting thing…

After Doomsday/the Apocalypse, you bio-engineer a new kind of human being.

While exploring a cave, a geologist finds a stone that is not of this earth.

While you’re having coffee at Starbucks, a strange woman pulls up a chair next to you and says, “You must write my life story,” and…

The object you buy from a weird antique store makes you live in an earlier time.

Your camera card has a photo on it that you didn’t take of someone and you’ve never seen before this person before…

Someone you have never met suddenly punches you!  Why?!

After a walk on the beach you return to your spot to find a red rose carefully placed in your beach chair.

Someone stops you on the street and tells you that you have to give them your shoelaces, it’s very important!

Each room in a strange house gives a different supernatural power to anyone who falls asleep in it.

You are a guest at a wedding and two family members start an argument during the ceremony.

You mistakenly enter a room through a door marked “For Authorized Personnel Only“.

Write a letter from the happiest person in the world~! ;D

An overzealous librarian, while chasing after an unreturned book, gets mixed up in an international intrigue.

Write a short dialogue between two political candidates about an issue you care absolutely nothing about.

Prompts from Writing.com and their Prompt app for iPhone with a few extras I added in – Have fun and Write on!

~Sara

A New Logotype for The Barrie Writers Club

I needed some time away from writing over the last few days; to do something in a different realm of creative artistry…Simply writing a story through the use words wasn’t doing it for me so I decided to imagine what The Barrie Writers Club would look like as a beautiful representation of our shared history and our members. So I created a graphic representation of us, a logo – One that encompasses both our heritage and perseverance with our written artistic workmanship, as well as our future lexicon we will create together.

You are all welcome to save and/or copy, distribute and use this logo however you choose. It’s created with royalty free images and fonts for the Barrie Writers Club as well as for your own personal usage. You may use it for letterhead, on this website-blog itself, or perhaps even on your own website and/or blog.

Here’s to our ever unfolding written adventure and the future of sharing our creative and insightful words to better ourselves as the writers we are destined to become. Write on!
~Sara

The Barrie Writers Club Logo.
Our city, our heritage and our future unwritten.