Last one! I made it! Woohoo! (If you’re wondering why this is #51 instead of #52, it’s because somewhere back around scene prompt #8, I did an #8.5. I don’t know what I was thinking. But I’m not going to take the time to fix it, so . . . Anyhoo . . .) This … Continue reading Scene Prompt #51: Conflicted
The penultimate prompt! This is more of a revision process than a prompt, and you can use whatever scene you want–or all of them, because they all need what? Scene Questions. What’s your scene question? Often it’s the scene goal restated as a question with a yes or no answer. For this exercise, you’ll follow … Continue reading Scene Prompt #50: What was the question?
For this prompt, pick a scene where the point-of-view character needs to realize something. Or, if you’re revising, pick a scene where the character has an epiphany but the execution is pretty clumsy right now. (Need help finding such a scene? I’m thinking of the scene after the Dark Night of the Soul, where the … Continue reading Scene Prompt #49: Epiphany Time
For this prompt, pick a scene that you know your story needs but you don’t know much about. Or, if you’re revising, pick a scene that came out fairly bare. This would work well for a scene that has some substance, but is lacking, so far, in details. Maybe you don’t know where to best … Continue reading Scene Prompt #48: Clustered
You can pick any scene for this prompt, written already or not, but it might be easiest to pick a scene that you know results in a clear twist. But all scenes should be somewhat surprising, so any scene will do. We’re going to make that twist as twisty as it can be. How? Through … Continue reading Scene Prompt #47: So Frustrated
This is more of a revision prompt, and I’m taking it wholesale from Jack Bickham. You want to make sure, at the beginning of every new scene, that the readers are oriented. How do you do this? By making sure you let the reader know the scene’s 5Ws. The reader of your novel has to … Continue reading Scene Prompt #46: Show Me First
For this prompt, pick a scene you may be resisting because you’re not sure how to write it. I’ve got one right now that I should be writing that I haven’t written (yet!) because it’s “big.” Let’s tackle that scene. How? By asking ourselves: What is the core of this scene? There are several ways … Continue reading Scene Prompt #45: Storyboard
How does your story end? I was reminded of how JK Rowling said, somewhere, that she wrote the epilogue of the Harry Potter series first, before writing book 1. She knew she wanted Ginny and Harry to end up together, that kind of thing. So how does your story end? How do your characters continue … Continue reading Scene Prompt #44: Resolution
For these last couple months’ worth of scene prompts, I’m going to throw in some prompts that might actually work better as scene revision passes rather than prompts for new scenes. But you do whatever you want. So, if you’re ready to write a new scene, have it in mind. Otherwise, pick a scene you’ve … Continue reading Scene Prompt #43: In the mood
Sometimes, and I don’t know about you, but sometimes we get so caught up in creating a perfect story, a perfectly salable product, that we aren’t willing to allow ourselves to fail and discover happy accidents of genius (that would probably make for a more salable product). So today, we’re going to step back from … Continue reading Scene Prompt #42: No Pressure
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