Today’s writing prompt is about a quick author trick for setting up exposition in an opening hook. FYI: This is a starting point, only.
An interesting fact I’ve noticed about many Disney animated musicals. A lot of them start off with a song that tells the audience everything we need to know about the world, the protagonist, and sometimes even the villain. This is true of Pocahontas, The Little Mermaid, Aladdin, and even Beauty and the Beast.
Let’s look at “Little Town.” Belle’s first two lines “Little town, it’s a quiet village. Every day, like the one before.” That tells us where we are. But it tells us more. Most people call towns “small towns,” but Belle specifically uses the word “little” which almost sounds like an insult. Then Belle sings “Little town, full of little people, waking to say…” and if that isn’t an insult, it at least tells us that Belle thinks of these people as parochial, mundane, and not very worldly. They like routine, she does not. In just four short lines, we know Belle does not care for this place, though she’s smiling and making the best of it. A few lines later, we learn Belle and her father come from some place else entirely. “Every morning since we came to this poor provincial town.” And now we know Belle came from a wealthier, more worldly town or even a city. Looking at the rest of the song, we even get a taste of our villain and our side characters.
Da Prompt: Take a current WIP (work in progress) and write a short song setting up your world and the character of your protagonist.
Da Wordcount: It’s a song. It should be as long (but no longer) as it needs to be to convey the information needed.
Have fun!
——————————————-
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?
