PROMPT #7

Recast your story as a fairy tale. Begin with “Once upon a time.” How does this framework help you see the people/characters, places, and events in your story differently? And how does it shift your position as a narrator? What do the characters want, and what are the obstacles in their way? Who’s good, and who’s evil? Who gets to live happily ever after (and who doesn’t … and why does that matter)?  

This approach might also help you introduce or develop new themes or find a more universal relevance. What’s the moral or the lesson of the story? Where does magic happen? 

Get down as much of the story as you can in 20 minutes. Stop for the day.

For some reason, I really don’t want to write a response to this prompt. So I will leave it here. Maybe one day, after we all lived happily ever after.

PROMPT #8

Find a moment in one of your stories that allows you to identify where a change occurs. If you wrote about a memory, think about how you felt then versus how you feel now. What changed? 

As close as possible to the most dramatic moment of your story, add a paragraph that starts with “Then.” Write another paragraph that starts with “Now.” See where else this path might lead you.

Get down as much of the story as you can in 20 minutes. Stop for the day. We’ll be back at it on Thursday.

Again, not really feeling this prompt. Perhaps if I wrote fiction? Still, I guess I should try…one day.

PROMPT #9

Start by choosing one of the main characters from your story—a person at the center of your story (it could be you).  Take a sheet of paper, and—reading through your draft—make a list of everything you know about that character, based on what’s in the draft of the story as currently written.

Once you’ve reached the end of the story, consider the list you’ve made.

• Is there information or context that you haven’t included yet but that might be helpful to readers?
• Have you explained the nature of the character’s relationship to other characters or to yourself?
• What does this character look like or sound like? How old are they? 

Then, go back to your story and think about how you might layer in more of these details. What do they add to your story? 

Spend no more than 30 minutes total on this exercise and stop for the day.

I can see how this prompt would be helpful for my memoir, which is sitting in a folder with lots of TBDs.

PROMPT #10

Use the same story as yesterday. Grab a separate piece of paper, and draw a timeline that maps the chronology of the story you’re telling. Ideally, your story isn’t organized completely chronologically, but your timeline should be. What event (from your story) happened earliest? What happened next? What was the last thing that happened? Include each separate event/step on one side of your timeline.

On the other side, add time stamps: when did each event happen? These time stamps might be very broad (say, if your story spans years) or very small (if your story spans an hour) or somewhere in between.  

Then, looking back at your draft, consider these questions: 

• What’s not on the timeline that should be there? 
• What is on the timeline that doesn’t need to be? 
• Does the way you’ve organized events in your draft make sense? Where does your story begin and end, in relation to the actual chronological timeline?
• Are there other possible starting/ending spots? 

Work for 30 minutes and stop for the day. See you back here on Monday.

Ditto. When I get back to my memoir, I will revisit these prompts.