BlockBuster

It’s been a while, but today’s #TuesdayTip is another Block Buster – a short exercise to either bust your writer’s block, or just a fun writing challenge to practise your skills.
If you’re anything like me, simply being handed a blank piece of paper and told “write a story” is a non-starter. I need some sort of prompt.
Since stories are, in essence, what happens when a character is placed in an situation, then if you have a character and a situation then you are most of the way there.
One easy way to do this is to generate a random number and use it to pick from a list. You can use dice or an online random number generator
(https://g.co/kgs/6NMQ8zx – this is a really simple, no bells, random number generator).
You can easily generate your own lists of characters and scenarios, but if you want a quick start, try the following.
Characters – pick a random number from 1 to 6.
1 – Old Man
2 – Small Child
3 – Alien visiting Earth
4- A Teacher
5 – A Busy Parent
6 – A Young Professional
Scenarios – pick a random number from 1 to 6.
1 – Trying to get the lid off a jar of pickles
2 – Trying on different hats
3 – Doing the grocery shop
4 – Trying to cross the road
5 – Negotiating with a toddler
6 – Choosing from the menu in a restaurant
Now you have your character and scenario, those are your prompts. Be creative!
You can substitute the characters and scenarios for ones that you think will work better, or if you decide to use a number generator, you can even write a longer list to choose from.
You will notice that the scenarios are rather banal – that’s deliberate. I find that forcing yourself to write an entertaining piece about a common, everyday occurrence requires one to be more creative than if you already have an exciting, thrilling setup. Obviously, you may decide that you would rather have something a bit more interesting, so go for it!
​Remember the rules:

• Set yourself a time limit.
• Write without stopping, editing or overthinking.
• Write whatever comes to mind and don’t worry if it doesn’t make sense.
• It doesn’t matter if it has nothing to do with the scene that you are stuck on.

If you are a writer with a tip to share, or fancy writing a fictional interview between you and one of your characters, please feel free to email me.

Have fun,
Paul

Today’s #TuesdayTip is another Block Buster – a short exercise to either bust your writer’s block, or just a fun writing challenge to practise your skills.
Last year, I set an exercise where you found a news story, extracted the key details, then wrote a fictionalised account of what happened. #Tip136 Getting To The Meat Of It.
Today’s tip is going to take that principle and strip it back even further.
Go to your favourite news source and pick a headline.
That’s it. Don’t even read the story.
Now use that headline to write your own news story.
The fun thing about this activity is that there are loads of ways to approach it.
For example:

• Take a headline that features names. Tabloids assume that their readers know who ‘Kate’ is. Will your story feature the Kate they are referencing, or are you going to feature a different Kate?
• Take a headline that doesn’t feature names. This frees you up to be as inventive as you like.
• Take a headline that just sounds quirky. Man finds Taylor Swift’s face in Greggs pasty is replete with possibilities.
• Take a headline that is banal and desperately dull. Planning committee to meet Tuesday. What are they planning? Why Tuesday?

Remember the rules:

• Set yourself a time limit.
• Write without stopping, editing or overthinking.
• Write whatever comes to mind and don’t worry if it doesn’t make sense.
• It doesn’t matter if it has nothing to do with the scene that you are stuck on.

If you are a writer with a tip to share, or fancy writing a fictional interview between you and one of your characters, please feel free to email me.

Have fun,
Paul

Welcome to this week’s Today’s #TuesdayTip. Since it’s still January and you might not be back into the swing of things yet, here is another Block Buster – a short exercise to either bust your writer’s block, or just a fun writing challenge to practise your skills.
Listings or classified ads have a long history. Originally found in the back of newspapers, they have now largely migrated online to sites such as Craigslist or Ebay or even Facebook Marketplace. They are a treasure trove of new and second-hand items for sale or even paid for services, such as gardening or decorating.
For today’s exercise, we are going to use one as a prompt.
First of all, choose a listings site. When you are satisfied, find three items for sale.
Now incorporate those three items into a short story.
For a bit of variety or extra challenge, why not include a paid-for service?
The exercise is replete with possibilities.

• Your characters could simply use those three objects.
• Or they could find themselves in need of those objects. Why?
• Alternately, you could turn it on its head and compose a piece about why those objects or services are being offered.
• What happens if the object they buy isn’t quite what they are expecting, or has a hidden past?

PS this exercise gives me the excuse to repeat one of my favourite writing stories.
It is claimed that Ernest Hemmingway once bet $10 he could write a story in no more than six words.
The result is a masterpiece, told in the form of a classified ad. His fellow writers paid up without argument.
For sale: baby shoes, never worn.
Whether or not it really was penned by Hemmingway is unknown. Either way, the author is an absolute genius.
Have fun!
Remember the rules:

• Set yourself a time limit.
• Write without stopping, editing or overthinking.
• Write whatever comes to mind and don’t worry if it doesn’t make sense.
• It doesn’t matter if it has nothing to do with the scene that you are stuck on.

If you are a writer with a tip to share, or fancy writing a fictional interview between you and one of your characters, please feel free to email me.
All the best, Paul.

Today’s #TuesdayTip is another Block Buster – a short exercise to either bust your writer’s block, or just a fun writing challenge to practise your skills.
There’s no avoiding the festive season, as it barrels its way towards us like a runaway freight train, so today’s exercise embraces the inevitable.
What is the story behind a Christmas carol or other festive tune? What made Good King Wenceslas look out his window? What is that poor little donkey thinking as he hauls a heavily pregnant woman from inn to inn? What were the shepherds chatting about as they watched their flocks by night (were they actually washing their socks?). What about songs from other festive traditions?
Remember the rules:

• Set yourself a time limit.
• Write without stopping, editing or overthinking.
• Write whatever comes to mind and don’t worry if it doesn’t make sense.
• It doesn’t matter if it has nothing to do with the scene that you are stuck on.

If you are a writer with a tip to share, or fancy writing a fictional interview between you and one of your characters, please feel free to email me.
As it is the festive season, and those mince pies aren’t going to eat themselves, the TuesdayTip will be taking a short break.
However you choose to celebrate (or avoid!) the festive season, I wish you all the best, and look forward to seeing you in the new year.
Paul

Today’s #TuesdayTip is a great way to generate word prompts for a creative writing piece.
What3Words.com is a revolutionary way of pinpointing a precise location anywhere on the earth’s surface. Rather than trying to rely on the vagaries of describing a place using street names and postcodes (which are subject to change and in some apps, simply wrong!) the makers of the service have divided the planet into 3 metre x 3 metre squares and assigned each a permanent, unique ‘address’ consisting of three random words.
The beauty of the system is that it allows the precise identification of a location, such as a doorway or entrance, or even the middle of a field!
Emergency services all over the world have adopted it, since you can easily pinpoint the precise position of a casualty, rather than relying on the caller describing their location. It works using GPS (which all smart phones have) and once you’ve installed the app, no further data connection is required – so as long as you are in a reasonably clear location and your phone can get a GPS satellite signal, it will tell you the unique combination of three words that identify your location.
You can also use their website to find a place and retrieve its 3 words. This is what I suggest you do today. For safety reasons, if you are going to make your story publicly available DO NOT USE YOUR HOME ADDRESS! Instead, why not find the 3 Words associated with your favourite landmark?
For example, one of the locations overlapping The Louvre Museum in Paris is ///seasons.sharper.scan
So there are my three word prompts. Now can I incorporate all three words into a short written piece?
​Remember the rules:

• Set yourself a time limit.
• Write without stopping, editing or overthinking.
• Write whatever comes to mind and don’t worry if it doesn’t make sense.
• It doesn’t matter if it has nothing to do with the scene that you are stuck on.

If you are a writer with a tip to share, or fancy writing a fictional interview between you and one of your characters, please feel free to email me.
Until next time,
Paul

Today’s #TuesdayTip is another Block Buster – a short exercise to either bust your writer’s block, or just a fun writing challenge to practise your skills. It follows on from last week’s tip about Spin-off series (#Tip162).

Spin-off TV series are all the rage these days, with original series based on characters or settings from existing film or TV franchises. Marvel’s Loki, Hawkeye and The Falcon and the Winter Soldier all take characters from the Marvel Cinematic Universe (which is itself inspired by the original comic book source material) and give them their own platform. Harlan Coben has written a novel, Win, based on Windsor Horne Lockwood III, a popular supporting character from his Myron Bolitar series. And a damn good read it is too!
Today’s exercise therefore, is to write a short piece based on a minor or secondary character from an existing work. The parameters of this activity are up to you.

• Will it be a short story or a character study of a couple of paragraphs?
• How minor is the character? – are they a named, secondary character, or just someone standing in the background?
• Will it be a retelling of an event, or will you write something entirely unrelated eg a day in the life of one of Jabba the Hutt’s musicians?

​Remember the rules:

• Set yourself a time limit.
• Write without stopping, editing or overthinking.
• Write whatever comes to mind and don’t worry if it doesn’t make sense.
• It doesn’t matter if it has nothing to do with the scene that you are stuck on.

If you are a writer with a tip to share, or fancy writing a fictional interview between you and one of your characters, please feel free to email me.
Until next time,
Paul

Today’s #TuesdayTip is another Block Buster – a short exercise to either bust your writer’s block, or just a fun writing challenge to practise your skills. It focuses on description.We’ve all stumbled across those late-night shopping channels on TV, where dangerously enthusiastic presenters attempt to sell us gadgets that we’ve never heard of or never realised we wanted. Even more impressive are those presenters who manage to wax lyrical for several minutes about something mind-numbingly tedious or ubiquitous, like a pillow. Helped by what appears to be a remarkably generous discount (often recouped by expensive postage and packaging), they extoll you to either phone now, or these days, visit their website. Given that they are largely competing against Amazon, with its free Prime delivery, you have to take your hats off to them for accepting the challenge.

The skill (aside from a level of excitement that makes you squint at the TV to see if their nostrils are red and their pupils dilated) lies in the description. And it is something they share with writers.

Part One: Choose an everyday object. To do this, perhaps look around where you are sitting or wander around the house. To increase the level of challenge, choose something really dull or which we buy because we have to and rarely give any thought to beyond price.
Now write a paragraph or two describing this item as if your audience can’t see it and have no idea what it is. Go into excruciating detail (to make it fun, you don’t have to be trying to sell it. Perhaps, the object is really rubbish and you are warning folks off.) Consider as many senses as appropriate (I’m going to assume that you don’t feel the need to taste a pillow).

Description is a vital skill for any writer, especially for written prose or audio drama, where one can’t rely on visual stimuli). But a book soon grinds to a halt and readers get bored if you over-write. So the next part of the activity hones the necessary skills to avoid tedium.

Part Two: Take your previous prose and distil it to two or even one sentence. What is the essence of the object? What does your reader need (or want) to know about? Let their imagination do the heavy lifting here. Everyone is familiar with pillows, so don’t waste time telling them what one is. Focus on describing it. The smell of a pillow is probably irrelevant – unless of course it has the scent of a lover’s perfume or the damp, shampoo smell from their still-wet hair.

If you want to extend this activity still further, you can repeat this second part of the activity for different audiences (or different characters). A detective looking at a crime scene, will be interested in different aspects of a pillow than someone checking into a hotel for a romantic evening.

Remember the rules:

• Set yourself a time limit.
• Write without stopping, editing or overthinking.
• Write whatever comes to mind and don’t worry if it doesn’t make sense.
• It doesn’t matter if it has nothing to do with the scene that you are stuck on.

If you are a writer with a tip to share, or fancy writing a fictional interview between you and one of your characters, please feel free to email me.

Until next time,
Paul