I think a big part of being a writer is learning that anything and everything CAN be written about. What will set your personal writing apart is when you find what you WANT to write about.
With that in mind, I still believe that practice writing with a good prompt is a worthy exercise, because it does a few things: 1) it can train you to write about things you might not have written about otherwise 2) it gives you a sort of quick foundation to build an idea on and 3) it forces you to write. Period.
So let's talk about "prompts." I saw a wide variety in my education, and see plenty more on the internet, in books or magazines, or in workshops and clubs. They can take all kinds of forms: starting lines, characters, settings, objects…practically anything. That's what makes them so useful. Frequent practice with prompts can be great because it starts to make you examine everything around you in a different light. You start to realize that even the most benign or ordinary things at hand have their own stories. Or you might simply want to include them in your epic, overarching vision.
I thought I'd share one of my own "prompt" shorts that I hammered out at a Freefall Fridays session at Calgary's Alexandra Writers Centre. I went there at my friend's urging, and I enjoyed it enough that I would recommend others to give it a go as well. Like the description on their site indicates, the point is to get you writing, not necessarily to provide in-depth criticism or revision. At the session I attended, the bulk of time was spent on quick prompts, followed by brief writing, followed by everyone reading their pieces. It was certainly interesting to see the wide variety that emerged from such a small group.
The prompt for this piece was to include the phrase "thigh-high boots." If memory serves, we took about 20 minutes for this:
Whenever Muriel came around asking to borrow shoes, I immediately put my guard up. It wasn't necessarily that she never returned the things she found in the depths of my closet, or even that they'd come back in a condition unfit for human life. No, what bothered me about Muriel taking my things out was that she was the the kind of friend that would hit up the darker side of town/wrong-side-of-the-tracks / you know, like hey girl, take a walk on the wild side.
And those boots, they were like my kids. She'd bring them back, and I'd be all over them like seagulls on bread crumbs, looking them over, demanding “where have you been” “who've you been hanging out with” and “do you know what time it is?”
So when Muriel came around, asking for a pair of thigh-high boots, I thought to myself: no WAY are you taking something that covers the better part of my shapely curves out on a hot date.
I tried to dissuade her. “What about uggs? In this kind of weather, you want something that'll keep you warm and snug.”
“Honey,” she said to me. “I know exactly how to keep warm and snug, and believe me, the best way to do that is in a pair of thigh-high boots with the perfect skirt, dancing at the Rock n' Rolla.”
I didn't have a quick comeback for that – Muriel's always had a quick tongue, in more ways than one – so I just tried a half-chuckle and let her look in my closet.
Maybe what ticked me off more than letting them out was that I never found a good occasion to wear those ludicrous, leathery, pitch black goose-stepping ass-kicking holy mantel accessories. But that time, letting her out in those boots, I decided on a course of action. I was going to follow her.
No need for footprints. It's amazing what you can do with technology these days. Muriel had the habit of leaving her phone on as she drove around, signed into facebook and foursquare. I followed the trail of GPS – eat your heart out, Nancy Drew.
She didn't stop at a club. She didn't stop at a bar. She didn't – I thought maybe it'd be somehow more dramatic – stop at the local strip joint. Nope. She carried on straight away to a friend's house...and she went to book club.
Book club? My outraged inner voice shrieked. She borrows my clothes to go to a freaking book club?
Well. That's acceptable, I guess.
end.
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| Photo Credit: stilettobootlover_83 via Compfight cc |
So there you have it. While not something I'd be putting out for publication in a professional journal, it's a fun exercise that takes me well outside my usual fare.
If you're interested in seeing another writer's interpretation of "Thigh High Boots", check it out here.
And if you're looking for a good "random object generator," I recommend this one. I like it especially because it gives you an adjective, which you can choose to keep or ignore depending on your personal preference.
Next week will be another look at story prompts, with a slightly different take and another fun resource.
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