A story within a story

Over at Writer’s Village University, I rub elbows with plenty of writers. In a recent exchange with a fellow writer, he talked about mining his book manuscripts for short story ideas related to his longer works. It’s a way to make additional money and even promote his books. 

I’m doing something similar with my novel, Dragonborn. In it, a book of evil plays a big role. The Book Darkmore holds the spirits of the people who used its powers and are no longer living. The spirits live within the pages of the book eternally, but when a new host gives itself to the book, the spirits of the book and its dark magic influence that human host. I have come up with a slew of creative writing prompts and am writing a collection of stories related to the Book Darkmore. Readers will learn of its origins as well as the history of the hosts as well as their spirits. It’s not something you’d have to read to understand the story of Dragonborn, but the stories make it a perfect companion book for Dragonborn fans and will cover all four with books of the series.

Today’s Writing Prompt challenge

Today’s writing prompt challenges you to find a story within a story. It doesn’t matter if the original story is yours or not. For instance, you could pull a story from something like the Wizard of Oz. The first that comes to my mind is, “The House that Fell.” It reminds me of when I lived through a category 4 hurricane. That memory is rife with story prompts. I could make it fiction or non-fiction. It might even involve something like time travel and the opportunity to do things differently before the storm hits. Follow your imagination. If you are stuck, go to one of your favorite fairy tales. The possibilities are endless

Harvest at least one possible story idea from another work. It can be your original work or from somewhere else. But I recommend you make a list of your creative writing ideas. Keep them in your story writing topics folder. Then if/when you feel writer’s block nipping at your muse, pull from your ideas folder and start writing something new. It will get the juices flowing and you’ll be ready to go back to writing what you were working on.

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