The Fiction Seed

Part of taking on any writing challenge is admitting how much time you have to commit. Writing is one of those skills that takes time both to learn and utilize. Ignoring that fact won’t necessarily harm your writing, but it does make writing challenges much more difficult. Here’s a super simple tracker for the June 30 days to 60k challenge designed to help you be a little more realistic. By…

If you’re one of the many people who’s told a writer ‘I have an idea for a story’ then congratulations! You’ve just offered them a writing prompt. Unlike those annoying in-laws who try to get you to write their story for them however, writing prompts are often found in a multitude places and often for free or nearly free. The reason being that writing prompts aren’t meant to tell the whole…

We’re almost in June! I hope you’re ready for a longer writing challenge. This month we’re going big. I mean bigger than other, more famous writing challenges. We’re going….. 30 days to 60k. June 1st to June 30th. That’s how long you have to go from zero (or near zero) to 60,000 words. Two thousand words daily. If the thought of doing that’s not exciting enough, you also have a plethora of…

Get ready to deepen your settings! Worldbuilding doesn’t just revolve around the setting, it also helps inform what your characters would know and believe about their world. To help find out what superstitions and beliefs they might have, try answering these five questions: What items symbolize good luck? Bad luck? What rituals are there for fortune telling? What rituals are associated with…

We’re revisiting a previous location to help with a sensory exercise.  Your challenge: Write 100 words each for sights, sounds, smells, touches and tastes a character can experience at:  The Fishbone Pool Rapid currents and sharp rocks make this a dangerous pool for swimmers and for fish. The tops of many of the rocks jut over the water, some still terribly sharp and others smoothed enough to…

Long before the written word was invented, humans were telling each other stories. In fact, humans have been telling stories for so long that we’ve come up with every variation of a story there is. Whether your dystopian protagonist is fighting a faceless government corporation (man vs. society), your pre-historic antagonist is struggling through a winter (man vs nature), or even your sci-fi…

Ready for another flash fiction weekend? Your challenge is to write up to 1500 words by Sunday night. This prompt works a little differently. Below you’ll find a table. You must select one character, one destination, one encounter and one item. However, you’re restricted: you may not select from any row more than twice. Ready? Build your prompt and go! Character…..On their way to…..Encounters…

Get to know your characters a little better: you can choose to answer these questions as if giving a character interview, or use the questions as flash fiction prompts. What is the silliest thing your character wishes for? How do they like to make wishes? (Blowing out candles, shooting stars, etc.) What do they regret wishing for? Would they choose fufilling their deepest desire over saving…

This week’s micro challenge focuses on dialogue! Below you’ll find five dialogue prompts and three people. Choose any prompt you like from the list and a speaker. Choose a second person to be your addressee. Write a conversation—that is, dialogue only!—in which your chosen prompt is spoken. Aim for about 500 words. Finished? Rewrite the conversation with a different speaker and addressee. Posting…

Inspiration is often thought of as an unpredictable force. Creative ideas are mistakenly thought to come and go with no predictable pattern or reason. It’s a common and entirely incorrect assumption that writers get ‘struck by’ inspiration. There’s the entire myth of the muse and many writers and artists even claim to have lost their muse. By definition, inspiration is being creatively…

Stuck on plot? Take five minutes and write down your answers to the questions below. See what new ideas come out of examining your structure. What is the first conflict your characters must resolve? How does your protagonist’s attempt to overcome the first obstacle strengthen them? What long-term goals must your character(s) give up to succeed? Which characters have directly opposing goals at…