Some of the strongest writing comes from an author’s most vulnerable places. As horror comes from our deepest fears, tragedy comes from our deepest sorrows. The things that hurt us, the losses we suffer are what make us cry at movies and sob while reading books. Tragedy makes the audience react because it comes from true loss. Today’s prompt is a harsh one, and possibly the most difficult personal challenge I’ve given.
Da Prompt:
Take a moment from your childhood, a personal loss or hurt, and write about it. There’s a catch, though. The protagonist / main character should NOT be a thinly disguised version of you. Your character needs to be someone different from you in a different time or in a different world. What comes out of this should not be your story anymore. It should belong to the protagonist.
After the story is written, give it to someone else to read. Someone who you trust but doesn’t know the event in question. Ask them for their gut reaction.
The goal of this exercise is to write a tragic story that makes someone else cry.
Word count: 1500 to 5000 (higher is okay).
FYI: This exercise does not come out of the blue. I’ve done it myself. I’ve even written things that have made cry while I was writing.
There’s today’s writing prompt. Now get writing.
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Writers are frequently asked the question “Where do you get your ideas?” The question is a hard one to answer because we all find our inspiration in different places. Some people need to be given prompts, little snippets of ideas to spark their imaginations.
With that in mind, I am posting Writing Prompt Wednesdays. The goal is to inspire writers with exercises meant to train their skills and fire up the creative juices. There are rules. Most prompts will have associated word counts or style instructions. These are not meant to restrict the writer, but give the writer a chance to explore different ways of writing.
If you are an author in search of that one juicy idea, I hope these posts help. If you have ideas for writing prompts, please let me know.
Da Rules:
1) Anything goes so long as you stick to the spirit of the prompt.
2) I ask that if you do publish something based on one of my prompts, that you post the good news (and the link) in the comments of the prompt that inspired your success. You want other people to help you celebrate, right?
