Writing Prompts
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20 More Character Development Writing Prompts (Part II)
As promised, another installment of Character Development writing prompts. I’ll explain in case you missed the first list. I have found the personality indices many people use to create characters to be impractical and difficult to incorporate into a story. They don’t really tell me how someone will respond to the situations in my book. So, I have come up with some scenarios that you can put your character into that will show you, practically, their personality and how they handle different situations. If you take the time to write them out they will even help you develop the voice and style you’d like to use while writing your character.…
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20 Tips for Writing Magic Systems
So, you know you want to write a story with magic in it, but you want to come up with something new. Where do you start? The possibilities are practically endless. Below I have compiled a list of questions you can ask yourself to get started and then a few ideas for the basis of a magic system. You can also check out my other articles on this topic in the section Creating Magic Systems. Some general questions: 1) The most important thing for you to decide about your magic system is what the cost is for the users. (I wish I could take credit for this but I got…
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10 Writing Prompts from Norse Mythology
Here we are again looking to ancient mythology to inspire stories. If you are into this sort of thing, I have two other posts you might like about Greek Myths, Irish Myths, and Bulgarian Folklore. This one was fun to do. Norse mythology is popular right now thanks to Neil Gaiman’s Norse Mythology and the new God of War game. For a more thorough reading of the stories I encourage you to check out Gaiman’s book. He is a wonderful storyteller. For my purposes I used Norse-Mythology.org. They have good, concise retellings that are often followed by scholarly commentary. Below I have summed up ten myths and then given you prompts…
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10 Writing Prompts from Irish Mythology
This week’s prompts come from Irish mythology. This was quite a challenge for me than the post on Greek Myths as I knew basically nothing about it before I started. (Now also have a list based on Norse Myths and Bulgarian Folklore!) I used Wikipedia a lot and a helpful website called Bardmythologies.com. I encourage you to check this site out and read all of the myths, they are truly fascinating. Two books also came in handy during my research that I would like to highly recommend. One is The Book of Fairy and Folk Tales of Ireland compiled by W. B. Yeats and the other is Heroic Landscapes: Irish…
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20 Character Development Writing Prompts (Part I)
There are a great many lists out there of personality traits and favorite things and so on that you can use to invent a character. I have tried using some of them but they don’t usually end up being that helpful. Knowing your character’s favorite color or food doesn’t often play into your story. And labeling him/her as surly, intelligent, and afraid of heights may or may not mean anything when it comes to creating character arcs and plot points. These are somehow specific and too general at the same time. Furthermore, many of them aren’t relevant or need tweaking when writing fantasy and science fiction stories.A method that I…
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20 Writing Prompts from Scientist Quotes
Scientists say some pretty amazing things. Whether they are talking about science or not, they have a special way of looking at the world and communicating their ideas to others. Next time you set out to write a story, try using one of these scientist quotes as your prompt. I hadn’t been aware that there were doors closed to me until I started knocking on them.Gertrude B. Elion The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena.Carl Sagan It is not only the living who are killed in war.Isaac Asimov We are all now connected by the Internet, like neurons in a giant brain.Steven…
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20 Writing Prompts to Beat Writer’s Block
Writer’s block hits us all at some point. It can seem impossible to move forward and throwing out the project and starting over often feels like the only logical solution. But sometimes all you need is a little prodding, someone to ask questions that get the wheels turning again. Below are 20 writing prompts to beat writer’s block. 1) What is something your character doesn’t know about character but should? How would this information change their actions? 2) What is something your character has never done before and might consider trying? 3) What is the last thing you want your character to do now? What if s/he did it anyway?…
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10 Writing Prompts from Greek Mythology
Not sure what you want to write your next story about? Need some inspiration to add life to a current project? Ever thought about using writing prompts from Greek mythology? Storytelling has been around since there have been people with language. Humans need to experience their world through stories and through connections to others. These are stories that have been around for thousands of years, which means there is something compelling about them. Getting your writing inspiration from Greek Mythology can be a fun way to revitalize your own storytelling methods. The Greeks had some pretty amazing stories. Even Shakespeare was influenced by Greek mythology. Romeo and Juliet is an…
