The Incinerated Labyrinth
Here I am, back yet again with another “spam game,” in which I present you with an intriguing randomly-generated spam subject line and turn it into a writers’ exercise. This time the subject line in...
View ArticleOut of Context
One of our T-shirts that’s been picking up in popularity of late bears the slogan, I’d love to help you, but I’m dead. We had a particular context in mind for this when we created it, but of course...
View ArticleClik here to view.
The Special Projects Generator
Here’s a truly nifty prompt generator for you: the Special Projects Generator. You can press the shuffle button, or you can use the arrow keys to go up or down in a given category. This yields a...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Naughtiness and Creativity
Humour – like romance, like drama, like excitement – needs boundaries. It needs rules, lines, differences, be they social (as in Fawlty Towers), cultural (Borat), gender-based (Tootsie) or moral. As in...
View ArticleOnion Fork?
One of my favorite little ten-minute writers’ creativity exercises is to take a random set of words and free-write something from them. Try to include them all in a short or short-short story, essay,...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Wacky Cut-and-Paste
This morning I couldn’t resist sharing a few thoughts about certain aspects of the Cassie Edwards plagiarism scandal over at my personal blog. Apparently she took dry lines from textbook research on...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Out of Context
There’s a meme going around the book blogging community that goes roughly like this: you open a book to a certain page, find a line a certain number of sentences into that page, and then quote the next...
View ArticleRainbow Coding
Next time you find yourself having trouble solving a literary problem in your writing, use colors to help you brainstorm an answer. Say you find yourself uncertain how your main character will get out...
View ArticleSnow and Sand
Write a brief scene in which both snow and sand make an appearance. Yes, this prompt really is just that simple. There are dozens of ways to spice it up or restrict it further, however, if that isn’t...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Connect the Dots (BTT)
Today, I’m going to share with you a prompt from the wonderful weekly site Booking Through Thursday, which they call simply ‘writing challenge’ and I’ll call connecting the dots. Here’s what they have...
View Article
