Writing Prompt Reviews Part 2

It’s that time again! The Writing Prompt Review comes forth to analyze a few more springboards of creativity. Today’s prompts come from Writing Forward’s collection of 15 Creative Writing Prompts for speculative fiction.

Speculative fiction is loosely defined as “anything that ventures beyond known reality” and includes both fantasy and science fiction. This description isn’t entirely faithful to hard science-fiction, of course, which attempts by definition to expand on what we know of the universe rather than leaving it and its laws behind entirely. Perhaps a better way to say it would be that speculative fiction is “anything that ventures beyond known experience.” We know that it’s possible to travel to the edges of the solar system; we just haven’t managed to do it in practice yet. On the other hand, if you aren’t in the mood for the constraints of physics and the laws of nature, you can simply turn to the absolute freedom of fantasy. Want to base an entire world off of an imaginary set of magical laws? Go for it. No one will protest. 

Writing Forward does not combine its prompts with images, as was the case in the last review session. The flavor you bring to these prompts will be dependent entirely upon your own brain. Listening to music can guide your interpretation, if you like. But sometimes it can be fun to see how the prompt comes across to your naked imagination.

#1. A team of researchers in a submarine is caught in a deadly sea storm. The instruments on board go haywire. They submerge deep into the ocean in search of calm waters until the storm passes. When it does, the sub surfaces but the instruments are still not functioning properly. They can’t get a fix on their location and cannot find land, which should be nearby. Then the researchers realize there are two moons in the sky and the constellations are completely unfamiliar.

You could argue that this is far too specific to be a truly useful writing prompt, but it certainly is an interesting concept! What you would ultimately have the freedom to decide on is where they are now and how they got there. They could be in an entirely different solar system. But that seems like the obvious answer. How about they’re in the same solar system, but so long ago that the Earth has two moons and the stars are just different enough as to be unrecognizable. You could also flip that around so that they have traveled forward in time – maybe the second moon is the result of a large chunk of the Earth being ripped out by an asteroid, or nuclear war. You just have to decide whether you want to play with dimensional travel or time travel.

You don’t have to make it a submarine, either, or a storm. This sort of story trope started with Rip Van Winkle – losing yourself in another time or place because of unnatural occurrences. What’s the difference in probability between entering another time/place by travelling deep into the ocean vs. sleeping in a fairy ring? One has a fantasy flair, the other a science fiction flair.

#2. A man who sees ghosts checks himself into a mental institute, not realizing that the facility has been closed for almost thirty years.

This prompt has the potential to be either spooky or hilarious – and it would probably be an excellent exercise to try doing both!

Let’s start with horror. If the ghosts are real, you have a man who finds himself trapped and tormented in one of the most macabre settings on earth, alone and completely deluded by the dead caretakers who surround him. It would be fascinating to see how many clues you could leave for the reader without allowing the man to become aware of his situation himself.  Not to mention all the rabbit trails that you can go down describing each ghost and why they are there in the first place.

On the other hand, if the ghosts are not real, you can paint a picture of a man gradually losing more and more of his sanity as he lives out his fantasy world in the very building where his ills could be cured, if only he had picked an asylum that was populated. This would be a story contained entirely within the mind of the man, and I imagine it would get twisty very quickly.

However, if this prompt were to be played as comedic, I would personally play up the farce to eleven. I see him as a prim, proper man with a very set view on how things should be done, and bother if these ghosts are going to make him miss his Aunt Bert’s tea party next month. The ghosts don’t scare him at all, no matter how hard they try, and he just sniffs them away as an inconvenience that needs to be dealt with as quickly as possible. Of course, as soon as he arrives at the asylum, he notices how filthy it is (having been abandoned for so long) and he makes it a personal project to spiff up the place (after all, he’s going to be living there, and I mean really, every room deserves a proper duvet and the kitchen is missing the appropriate amount of tea cozies).

So what do you think? What direction are your muses inclined to go when faced with these prompts? Let me know via comment – or choose another prompt from the list and go wild!

Keep reading, keep writing.

Immersive Writing and Everyday Mining

Show, don’t tell.

A frustrating order for writers, backed up by countless, tired quotes that all say the same thing but in a more artistic way. Most of them show examples of what the original statement is telling you to do (delightful irony). They sound lovely and grand the first or second time you hear them, but if anyone ever tells me that they want to hear the raindrops on the window again, I might just throw them out the window.

This seemingly basic technique can be difficult for writers in situations where they have to describe something in a physical way when they have never experienced it before. Any writer who has been stuck inside on a rainy day has the ability to describe what that feels like, sounds like, smells like. You just have to pause and remember. And you can’t be lazy. If you catch yourself being lazy (the wind howled outside – nyah!), be honest with yourself and rewrite it.

But what about those instances when you are illustrating something you have never experienced before? In today’s culture with the world at our fingertips, we are blessed with the gift of being able to see and hear just about any setting with the touch of a button – thank you National Geographic. We can easily find resources that help us stretch our imagination and twist modern day reality into something a little more fantastical. Our world and the many places, peoples, and cultures within is so vibrant and beautiful. It’s the perfect springboard for some truly incredible ideas, with just the right combination of reality and imagination.

Listening to the “Jungle Noise” blend from myNoise.net, all I had to do was close my eyes and I could easily envision the setting for my most recent short story – a mountain-top forest filled with vibrant life by day and raucous dread by night. It was easier for me to describe this jungle that I was creating because I could interpret what I heard in realistic ways, and it in turn inspired my imagination to come up with unique visuals to accompany the sounds. I believe my descriptions were much more realistic with the soundscape supporting my efforts, as opposed to what I might have come up with listening to the air conditioning hiss in my fluorescent-flooded office space.

Using specific noise sets to help your writing is one of the many faces of a technique called “Immersive Writing.” Some people use music (my personal favorite). Some people surround themselves in visuals that match what they are attempting to accomplish. Some people – if they have the resources for such luxury – create personal retreats where their muses are inspired by every aspect of their surroundings.

Don’t forget, however, that Immersive Writing isn't some technique that only the rich and well-traveled can practice. The farthest any person can ever travel is within their own mind after all. Don’t forget that you have experiences, sites, and sounds that you can mine every day for your writing. Just because we take them for granted does not mean they aren't special.

Just the other day I stood with my brother and my sister-in-law in the parking lot behind a cute, little-known local attraction: a cherry red caboose, topped in mounds of fake whipped cream and sprinkles, that perches on the side of the road in a nearby Antique district. It serves as one of the most unique ice cream stops in Atlanta (and frankly the ice cream can’t be beat either). We stood there eating monstrous amounts of Oreo and birthday-cake and watched the summer storm clouds passing over the city in the distance. For some reason we got around to picking out one particular cloud that was towering in the sunlight, discussing how we were going to redesign it into a house complete with a water slide.

This sort of experience is writing gold – I can just imagine it serving as a perfect little scene in a young adult novel, or a children’s book. And it’s also the kind of memory that fades away with enough time, unless you document it somehow. I’m not necessarily advocating that you use real people to populate your fiction. But if you open your eyes just right, you can find interesting scenarios and beautiful scenery as you go about your daily business.

Remember it – jot it down – dress it up to match your genre. Don’t get so lost in the effort to be completely unique that you forget how beautiful the outside world is. It’s not as mundane as we make it out to be sometimes.

Filling the Word Well – How Reading Supports Your Writing

Last week we discussed what you can do to distract yourself while you’re waiting for those submission responses to come in. One invaluable activity that was not included in the list was, of course, to read! When asked for advice about writing, it seems most writers forget this crucial technique, but I suspect that is simply because it is so obvious to us that we do not often remember to mention it.

If you’re a writer of any level, one can assume that your reading pile is large and from time to time can be neglected in favor of slaving over the latest project. Once you've submitted your work, however, and have a minute to breathe, you should try to knock a few of the most exciting tiles off the stack. Or if you’re caught up in the middle of a piece and can’t seem to move past a tricky section, take a moment to pick up a book that isn't your own.  Reading, if anything, is one of the most valuable things a writer can do, both during and after the process of writing.

Remember, there is not a single person alive or dead who can teach you how to write. But an entire library can teach you why you should write and give you the tools to do so in short order. Reading expands our minds, exercises our word databases, and shows us all the exciting techniques that other writers have tried before. We can see what works and what doesn't work, what characters sound true and which ones are mere caricatures. Our brains take stories, feed them to our muses, and work them into something new.

Author Roz Morris sums it up beautifully when she says that reading “develops your palate for all the tricks that writers have invented over the years. You can learn from textbooks about the writing craft, but there’s no substitute for discovering for yourself how a writer pulls off a trick. Then that becomes part of your experience.”

In the meantime, reading is also a joyful experience. It can be difficult, if you prefer to exercise your brain with content that is outside your comfort zone. Choosing a book because you know it will be hard to understand is a lofty goal! Everyone should try it sometime. But many books, especially the ones that are written particularly well and exist inside your genre of interest, can be inhaled by an avid reader. Reading after spending a great deal of time writing can feel like coming up for air.

“Writing is often hell, but reading is almost always a pleasure if you are discerning.” – Evan Maloney

Personally, I’m celebrating my submission by attempting to kill two birds with one stone. I’m about halfway through reading Orson Scott Card’s Xenocide – the third book in a series I've been in love with for years now. Somehow I've just never gotten around to reading the final two books. Part of this is just for entertainment and for the sake of filling up “the word well.” But I also have hope that some of the themes in Xenocide will help me get through an outlining barrier in the novel I’m currently planning. After I finish Xenocide, I intend to polish off the science fiction anthology I've been chewing on and then at long last read the legendary Good Omens by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman.

Just remember to come back to the real world before too long. Libraries must be filled, and you’re part of the solution! Once you've had a chance to recharge, hopefully you will return with your mind buzzing and your heart full. Both make writing a lot easier and a lot more fun.

Waiting on Single Submissions

Feeling a little under the weather today as we head into yet another glorious, jam-packed weekend. Alas that there will be no rest for the weary. However, one thing that won’t be on my list of things to work on will be the revision of my most recent project. I have spent the last few weeks updating and lengthening a short story I wrote a few years ago, prepping it for publication. And this week I put the final touches on it and at long last let it go!

The piece went from about 5,500 words to 10,700 words in a matter of days. Clearly, that story had more to say than I thought.

And now that it has been polished, stretched, corrected, and otherwise smoothed to perfection (as close as I can manage without the eye of an industry professional), it’s time to concentrate on submissions.

I’ve already sent the piece off to my top choice. The beautiful thing about writing short stories for publication is that it’s incredibly easy to get them submitted. Most journals will only accept electronic submissions these days, and complex cover letters and queries are a thing of the past for their over-worked editorial offices. You simply give them the basic data (word count, genre, etc), send them a file that fits their specifications (usually .doc or .rtf) and voila! The piece is on its way, out in the big bad world of editorial consideration.

One truly unfortunate thing about writing short stories, however, is that you can wait just as long, if not longer, to hear from a literary journal considering your 10,000 word piece as you can wait to hear from a literary agent considering your 100,000 word piece. Except in the journals world, most Editors specifically frown down upon simultaneous submissions.

Submitting a work to many different Editors at once is the practical, efficient way to get published from an author’s point of view. This is the name of the game when you are submitting work to literary agents and publishing houses directly. Similarly, if you have a group of five journals that are all equally prestigious, it makes sense to send the piece to all five at once, rather than spend the next two years waiting on three to six month reading periods from each one. For one story.

The problem is, if you are the type of writer who cares at all about reading the author guidelines, you’ll probably notice that a great many will assert that this behavior is not allowed. If an Editor finally decides that they want your work, and you return saying that you have already sold it elsewhere, they will remember that. Some say they will remember it forever.

In a smaller community (such as, oh, say, science fiction short story journals) that blot on your name will get passed around, and may end up biting you in the butt for the rest of your career.

Am I being hyperbolic? Perhaps. But most of the advice that I have seen on the subject agrees with the above scenario. Editors do not like wasting their limited time chasing after authors who have already passed on to someone else. It is expected in this line of work that authors submitting to journals should wait on each rejection one by one.

Is this fair? Not necessarily. Waiting to hear from a journal about your work is excruciating and tense. I sent my submission not two days ago and I’m already feeling the strain. And my first choice journal has a maximum wait time of about seven months. The fact that I could be celebrating Christmas again before I hear about a rejection or acceptance does grind my gears just a bit.

But I would rather do the time and be respectful to the rules of this particular journal than risk burning a bridge by jumping the gun and sending the story off to many journals at once. After all, the story can only be published in one of them. It is better to make one Editor happy than make six Editors mad. Do the math.

Also, don’t be tempted to pester the Editors with follow-up emails. No answer means no answer – very few offices will forget to respond to your work in some form or fashion, even if that means a stock rejection letter. You should only start considering a follow up if the average wait time has passed. If a journal estimates that it takes them about seven months maximum to respond to all submissions, send them a line in month eight. Not before.

Don’t be disheartened though! You are in good company while you wait, and there are things that you can do to pass the time. Most importantly, you can get to work on that next project. Just because you finished one thing and are waiting to see it published doesn’t mean that you don’t have other things you can be working on. If you want to really distract yourself from checking your email every two seconds for the next five months, playing a billion games of Solitaire is probably not the answer. I highly recommend you pick another project and throw yourself into it.

For me, that will be returning to the outlining phase of my first novel. That’s still on the books, and I’m really looking forward to it. There are a few pages written here and there, and half the outline is done. We’re making good progress, and it will certainly be a great distraction from the waiting game.

Let me know what you do to keep yourself busy while you wait for those rejection/acceptance letters! Comment below or send me a line directly via email.

Keep writing! Keep reading!