Readers need to connect the content to their own lives. Recently I was reading Jane Eyre. The narrator and main character Jane was describing a view of Rochester seated alone in a darkened room, and suddenly I was transported back about ten years and the memory of walking into my father’s office to see him…
Regional stories are wrapped around the cultural, traditional, and environmental qualities of the area. Often dialect is a feature, but not a requirement. So work on a few paragraphs of a story that can only happen where you are. Make it utterly dependent on the locale, can’t happen anywhere else but there. Read Faulkner’s “Barn…
Pick out a room in your house or apartment that you would love to remodel. Imagine the changes you would make. What different furniture would you prefer, paint scheme, layout, window type? Think about every detail: baseboard, electrical switches, trim around the doors, what is in the vase of flowers, scent. capture the details When…
In Dickens’ A Tale of Two Cities, Mr. Lorry holds an imaginary conversation with Dr. Manette, who is newly released from prison. The imaginary conversation is tied around the question, “How long have you been buried?” It takes numerous twists and turns as Lorry considers all the variety of ways that Manette could reply, keeping…
Look through your memories and find one that was especially sad. Think about all the details. Make yourself sad. Now write it down in a narrative voice that is not yours. Write it in poetry, personal prose or short story. Add this twist to it: Look at it from a funny perspective. Be smiling when…
Your main character is asleep and though it is early, the sun is lightening the room enough to discern furnishings and objects about the place. Have your main character begin his usual wake up routine. When he gets up to sit on the side of the bed for the last residuals of sleep to pass,…
Everybody has one of those items in their house that they don’t know the purpose of. I once had a slender silver cylinder measuring thingy (received from my husband’s family and sold by him at a garage sale) that was also a music box (say 8 inches tall, base included, and 2 inches in diameter). …
This is more of a change in perspective than an actual topic prompt. What I suggest you do is go sit someplace where you don’t usually go to write. In my class, I have my students sit on the table or beneath it or face a corner. How many teachers ask you to sit on…
