Writing exercise for the muse: picture prompt

Today's Pumping Your Muse prompt is a picture prompt writing exercise. I chose these images to challenge your muse to describe something new with elements of things familiar. As writers, no matter our genre, we will come across things we need to describe that stump us. The more we write, the more we learn to overcome these challenges. 

I remember when writing The Inheritance coming across a scene where it said the character gave an incredulous look. I stopped. The choice of words showed nothing. It screamed "passive telling." Something we don't want in our writing. I looked up the word hoping to find a something more descriptive but it didn't help. So I went into the bathroom and looked into the mirror and practiced giving an incredulous look. That visual helped me find the words I needed. You know, the lip curling into a sneer kind of thing.

Today's writing exercise: picture prompt

Using a picture prompt can do the same with your backdrop; your worldbuilding. I chose the image below because I think it is different enough to challenge most of you, but also creative enough to inspire fantasy writers and children's writers. The idea is to challenge your muse to describe what you see, but don't limit it to the sense of sight. Include strong verbs that let the reader feel, smell, and sense where they are. If this picture doesn't inspire, use one of the others above.

The benefit of this writing exercise

Why practice describing something unfamiliar, different, or unknown to you? Because you will come across such things in your writing. When I was ghostwriting western romance, I had plenty of things I had to research and describe. Like the inside of a train carrying passengers from New York to Cheyenne. As a fantasy writer, I often describe things not of this world. What does the portal look like? How does it work? Does it have a smell? Or showing how magic works. In my current WIP, one of the characters has the ability to make things grow, and when he comes across a swath of trees cut down by loggers, he uses his magic to tap into the life in the stumps and regrow the trees quickly. I thought time lapse photography, but what about how it feels? What about the smell? Include the senses as your write your description. Enjoy the journey!

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Image credit: Artist Iris Esther

Sense of touch writing prompt

As writers we seek to create words that leave the page and create an image in the mind of readers. Not a static image, but a moving picture that draws the reader into a corporeal experience. Russian born American writer Ayn Rand said it this way. "Words are a lens to focus one's mind." If the reader walks through a field with our character we want them to hear the crunch of snow under boots, or feel the stiff winter breeze make eyes water, smell the wood smoke in the crisp air, and when we spot the cabin in the distance we want them to draw a conclusion. In other words, we work to engage the senses and sometimes it’s not as easy as one would think.

Today’s writing prompt is and exercise in the sense of touch. It is designed to help practice putting into words tangible details of what our hands feel and the thought process as we take in that information. For instance, if you touch an orange, what does it feel like? It’s easy to come up with words for how it tastes: Tangy, tasty, sweet, sour, delicious, or juicy. But how does it feel? If I tossed one to you and you caught it, you might say it feels like a ball. But what of the texture and other features? Is it smooth, rough, or somewhere in between? What about its weight? What is its shape? Is it big or small? Wide or narrow? Squishy or hard? Solid or springy?

Sense of touch writing prompts

For this writing prompt, I offer a couple of possibilities.

1) For this first writing exercise it is helpful to have a buddy. Tell them you will be playing a game where you will be blindfolded and will have to guess what you are touching. Have them select random items and place them in a box. I suggest at least 10 things and a box at least the size of a shoe box.

 

Equipped with your box of things, video your blindfolded self guessing what it is you are touching. With each item, talk out loud about what you feel and what you think as you figure it out. What led you to your conclusion? That is the gold you seek in your writing. The details you want to include in your writing. 

 

 

2) The second writing prompt option is to do something new. Again, video yourself during the experience. Talk about what you feel and what you think. Here are a few ideas.

• Get a pedicure
• Go for a walk in the rain
• Get a massage
• Try waxing some part of your body
• Give yourself a facial

Practicing the expression of the thought process in relation to the sense of touch will help prepare you to bring life to your writing. Have fun with this one!

Story idea prompts for alternate history

Alternate history is a subgenre of science fiction, speculative fiction, and even finds its way in to some fantasy. To create an alternate all you have to do is change one historical decision or event. Prevent a person from arriving to where they were in real history. Two people who never meet can never have the child that will change or save the world. Think John Conor of the Terminator franchise.

 Writing alternate history can be fun and challenging writing exercise but once you get started, you'll find you have a preexisting world as your backdrop and the freedom to tweak it to fit your story. For today’s creative writing prompt, choose a person, place, or event as the springboard for your muse. Consider the following writing topics and select one.

Person: Col. John Stevens

For the first story prompt idea, consider Col. John Stevens, III (June 26, 1749-March 6, 1838: American lawyer, engineer, and inventor who constructed the first U.S. steam locomotive, first steam-powered ferry, and first U.S. commercial ferry service from his estate in Hoboken, and was influential in the creation of U.S. patent law. On October 17, 1782, he married Rachel Cox (1761–1839), the daughter of John Cox. She was a descendant of the Langeveldts (or Longfields) who originally settled New Brunswick, New Jersey. They had thirteen children of which seven were sons. 

 

This man lived a full, accomplished life which offers plenty of fodder for alternate history. For instance, it can lead to a new and unusual Western frontier inhabited by gargoyle like creatures that carry people away as they lay down the rails for the trains pulled by the steam locomotives. Or how about an accident on the ferry service? What would happen when they reached 1822 Manhattan on the other side and how would that change the future? You might consider writing an anthology of stories based on this one man with all these possibilities! It's a way to relate the unrelated and still have a theme.

Place: Ancient Site

This category is ripe for alternate history. Choose one site and decide: Were they created by humans? If so where did the technology come from, or why doesn’t anyone today know how it could be replicated. Is it instead an alien project of some sort? If so what was it’s purpose? What difference does it make to the world today? For your story create an advanced race that has the technology needed to create the site. Your challenge is to also create a plot that develops the reason they’ve build these mammoth structures. Did they accomplish their goal? Or is it something still unfolding like a ticking bomb.

• The Pyramids
• Stonehenge
• Monolithic human figures of Moai
• Or change it up with ancient hieroglyphics on Mars
• The Nazca Lines of southern Peru

 

World War I

The first World War was won by the Allies: the United Kingdom, France, United States, Japan, Italy. They defeated the Central Powers: Imperial Germany, Austro-Hungary Empire and the Ottoman Empire. It lasted from 1914 until the signing of the Versailles Peace Treaty in 1919. Check out this timeline of World War I and choose one item for your story's setting.

As you can see, alternate history requires knowledge of history. Equip yourself with enough details to make your story fit the time. Have fun as you travel back in time to create a new future!

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Writing for emotional impact

 
One of the most potent writing skills an author can possess is the ability to cause readers to empathize and feel with their characters. When readers choose a book they plan to be transported to a different place. Depending on the genre, it may be a different time or the same time, a different earthly culture or some alien culture, or even a whole new fantastical world. Wherever and whenever the story takes place, making that world come to life is important. One of the tools used to make that happen is the characters. Readers experience the world through the eyes of characters whether humans, animals, or some unexpected lifeforms. The details learned are filtered through what the characters hear, see, smell, touch, and taste. But along with the five senses, we learn through the characters’ emotions.

Character’s emotional responses

In real life, emotional responses influence our cognitive processes, including perception, attention, learning, memory, reasoning, and problem-solving. So as readers experience emotional responses of the character’s in your story, it creates a strong influence their on attention as it motivates the character to act in a particular way. Depending on the circumstances, emotion can either enhance or impair your character’s learning and long-term memory. All of this engages the reader to care, to speculate as to what will happen next.

Make the reader feel

Good writing makes the reader feel what your character is feeling. Imagine a character who faces a test. His/her emotional response as they anticipate the test reveals much. Do they fear? Are they anxious? Frustrated? Bored? Self-confident? Subject matter can elicit an emotional response peculiar to the character. It can even be anxiety regarding the sense of the unknown. Whatever the response, you want to make the reader feel it. This means you don’t just say they are frustrated. You show they are frustrated. They may lose their temper, drum their fingers, tap their foot, or sigh over and over. They might even get so frustrated they get up and leave. Inner dialog (thoughts) can show a lack of self-confidence. You might even show the character having trouble sleeping the night before the test, or turning to drugs or alcohol to help them calm down. Actions show the frustration and it engages the reader to feel the frustration.

Today’s Pumping Your Muse writing prompt – writing for emotional impact

Today’s writing prompt challenges you to show emotion based on one or more of the following photos. This is a free-write exercise. Seek to use strong verbs. Instead of saying, he was sighing loudly (week), something like, he heaved a deep sigh. I’ve chosen picture prompts of people and animals which will challenge on different levels. Have fun with this. Remember practice makes perfect!

Picture prompts 

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About Dragonborn by Donna Sundblad

Dragonborn conjures up a winning fantasy with dragons, humans, time travel, and magic. Follow the journey of the young prisonguard, Ervig Greenfields, as he seeks out dragons to remove a curse. The dragons offer him access to the Labyrinth of Times, which will purge the dark magic. But there’s a catch. Erving must take the Dragon Oath that requires allegiance--to fight alongside dragons for centuries, never to return to his own time. He and a handful of others take the selfless oath and become Dragonborn. The Dragonborn and their dragons become seeds of change, in this epic tale, of sacrifice for the greater good. Ride along with them as they slip through a tear in time to the past to change the future. 

Dragonborn is available on Kindle, paperback on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo (Christian fiction), Smashwords Apple and Google Books. When you read it, be sure to leave a review! Thanks for your support.

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