mbarker: (Burp)
[personal profile] mbarker
Original Posting 2021/11/02
Whoops. It's November second here, and that means NaNoWriMo is off and limping! National Novel Writing Month! Get those keyboards smoking!

Let's see. There's a note from one published author asking what your starting line is, and musing on the importance of a good starting line. Of course, I kind of think that we could come back and fix that in revision, but... if you like, give this search a chance.

https://www.google.com/search?q=opening+line+generator

Or just go over to one of the many first line lists. Take a look at those, and see if something catches your eye. Then make a note, and start writing! Get yourself a character, or maybe a setting, or scene, or plot, and let the words flow!

That's probably one of the keys to success at nanowrimo is just going with the flow, again and again, all month. Oh, sure, feel free to try to lay out some kind of overall plot, and keep track of your characters, scenes, settings, and all that, but... let the words flow.

Actually, you might want to consider that M.I.C.E. stuff that they talked about recently on Writing Excuses (https://writingexcuses.com/ ). Think about the milieu (aka setting), inquiry (aka question and answer), character (aka who am I?), or event (aka change from the status quo), and see whether that prompts something you want to write about.

Oh, yeah. Drop by https://nanowrimo.org/ and join up or sign in. Then follow the yellow brick... well, prompts, anyway. What's your story about? And all that!
Keep those words coming! 
mbarker: (Me typing?)
[personal profile] mbarker
 Original posting 7/26/2019

Borrowing from a blog posting at https://madgeniusclub.com/2019/07/25/seeing-through-a-glass-darkly/...Here's the line I want you to use. I'd suggest as the first line, but probably at least somewhere near the start of your story.Henry put down his fork at the dinner party and announced, "I've just figured out how I want to kill Baron Jenneret."There you go. Now, feel free to mutate Henry into another character, and it really is up to you as to whether poor old Hank is just a writer who has suddenly figured out a plot point or someone who really does want to knock off Baron Jenneret. Heck, you can even turn the Baron into another character if you want. But... take that line and write, write, write until broad daylight! GO!
mbarker: (BrainUnderRepair)
[personal profile] mbarker
Original Posting Feb. 13, 2017

Digging through some old papers, and stumbled across this fragment. Feel free to finish it up, okay?

This is a story of long ago, when magic walked the Earth, and Luna was a young goddess who watched over her people. This is a story that cannot be told, and yet it must be. This is a story of...

Go on. A rope of straw? A ragged beggar's fondest wish? What do you want to tell us about?

WRITE!
tink


[identity profile] mbarker.livejournal.com
Original Posting July 28, 2016

I was poking around at some writing exercises, and it struck me...

How about proposing a first line? That's right, suggest a first line! I'd avoid "Call me Ishmael" but otherwise, sure, whatever you would like to suggest.

The fun, of course, would be if others here on the list took that first line and expanded it into a scene or something. You know, start with the line that someone suggests, and feel free to spend a couple hundred or more words helping us enjoy where it leads.

So, go ahead. Suggest a first line, and see what we make of it!

tink
[identity profile] mbarker.livejournal.com
Original Posting 29 March 2008

You're in luck. I stumbled across a cache of notes from some years back that seem to have odd hints and suggestions about some ideas for writing. So I thought perhaps I would use them as the basis for some new exercises. I know you've been waiting with trembling fingers. So let's get right to it.

Number one seems to have been me playing with variations on a phrase. Why don't you give it a try yourself? I was starting with "an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure." Since one of my pet peeves is the tendency to use punishment when reward will work better, I was mangling it somewhat like this:
1. An ounce of reward is worth a pound of punishment.
2. A pat of reward is worth more than a pound of punishment.
3. A small pat of reward outweighs a pound of punishment any time.
4. A light pat in reward does more than a hard pound of punishment.
5. A light rewarding pat keeps people going long after a hard pounding has stopped all effort.
Not quite ready for prime time, but certainly a lot of fun to play with. Take your own phrase and warp those words! Try to come up with an aphorism that will live through the ages, or at least until tomorrow.

Number two. How about picking a number between one and six? Okay? Here are some phrases I had scribbled down.
1. My deathday is coming
2. innocent until traumatized (or innocent until victimized? Pick the one you like better)
3. bums are subject to grime and banishment
4. extraordinary minus ordinary equals ???
5. He's a time bopper
6. It wasn't just a story, was it? (With thanks to The Adventures of Baron Munchausen?)
Now take that phrase and do something with it. Maybe start out by doing a little brainstorming about just what the heck it means, and what it might suggest about a story or poem. Perhaps about a character, or a scene? Go ahead, what happens next?

Number three seems to be a whole collection of odd titles. So for those of you who'd like a title to start your wheels churning, here you go. Pick one that resonates for you and scribble. Or pick a number from one to 11 and see which one you've stumbled across.
1. The Songs They Sing in Hell
2. Some Days You Can't Get Out Of the Blender
3. The Rainy Season of Martha
4. High Precipitation with a Chance of Statues
5. Equations That Bite
6. Bury Me at A Crossroads
7. A Murchison by Any Other Name
8. A Little Castration's Good for the Soul
9. Boots without Laces
10. The Bizarre Tale of Love and Kippers
11. The People's Libation Fount
There are more notes on this stack but I think I'll stop here and save some for later. So go ahead and write.

When we write, we let others imagine.
[identity profile] mbarker.livejournal.com
Original posting 21 Feb 2008

Wicked little cliffhanger . . .

Okay, here's the setup. There is a small group - say six or seven people - doing something together. In the show I was watching, they were having dinner together. And the phone rings. One of them answers it, says, "Hello. Oh. Yes." and turns and looks at the gathered people. Long pause.

And they ended today's episode, so we'll have to see what that was all about tomorrow!

So, your task, should you choose to accept it, is to lay out that scene. Have your people gather, and the phone rings. Given cell phones, this could happen almost anywhere. And someone answers it, says hello, and then . . . pause, look around, and . . .

This is where you decide. Do they hang up? Who was on the other end of the line? What was said that made them look around like that? What do they say to the people sitting there, and what is the reaction to all this? Do they take one person aside and whisper, do they simply blurt it out, what happens next?

One line?
We never thought that the phone ringing marked the end of our happiness.
Go, write!

When we write, we learn about ourselves.
[identity profile] mbarker.livejournal.com
Original posting 20 Feb 2008

Single Sentence Start?

    "Why didn't you buy it?" he said, and pulled the line.

What line? What happens when someone pulls the line? And who is he talking to, what didn't they buy, let the little gray cells agitate and spin dry, hear them fry in the crackling grease of your terrible hot pan?

I wonder just what kind of line he pulled, don't you?

When we write, we learn about ourselves.
[identity profile] mbarker.livejournal.com
Original posting 3 February 2008

How about this one? Start with:
I spent the evening trying to catch the rain.
And then let your fingers and imagination roam. Why was this person trying to catch the rain? Did they actually do it? How were they trying to catch it? What happened next? And who else is involved in this? Did someone drive them to this?

Go ahead, dream a bit, and then tell us about this person out trying to catch the rain.

When we write, we learn about ourselves.
[identity profile] mbarker.livejournal.com
Oh, that sounds like a good tale.
The Day That Lady Windwark Left the Bestiary Gate Undone
And what happened thereafter.

Now, should it be done in heroic verse or just plain text? And what was the list of the inhabitants of that bestiary? Were there green alligators, and long-necked geese, some humpty-backed camels and some chimpanzees? And was there a unicorn? Oh . . .

Tell me a story, do!
[identity profile] mbarker.livejournal.com
Original posting 9 November 2007

So, let's see. A bit of background. One of the local stations had an enka singer recently - enka is kind of Japanese blues, usually in a kimono, and often about the man who done me wrong and similar topics. Anyway, this one song caught my attention for some reason, with the refrain about the red thread.

So this morning, I wake up with the line
We sewed ourselves together with a red thread of despair
running through my noggin.

And chasing it was another line
We sowed our selves together with six red seeds of anger
Not sure why they go together, or even if they do, but what the heck. Use one or the other, or even use both together, and . . .

Start your poem or story? End your tale? Let them reverberate somewhere in the background? Twist some variation on the line(s) and use that?

There you are.
We sewed ourselves together with a red thread of despair

We sowed our selves together with six red seeds of anger
and write!
[identity profile] mbarker.livejournal.com
The pad by my bed says, "alien waiting room."

I keep a pad and pen by the bed just in case one of the thoughts that I stumble over while drifting between sleep and waking seems likely to be useful. I don't dream very much, or at least I don't remember my dreams very much, but occasionally something will come to mind in that half asleep half awake transition and seem like it should be useful. I've learned to scribble down a few words, and can usually figure out what they are later.

Last night, I realized that sometime this week I had scribbled something down. So I stopped to read it. "Alien waiting room." Unfortunately, this doesn't seem to resurrect the line of thought behind it. An alien in a waiting room? A waiting room in an alien society? Or is the waiting room alien itself? As an SF fan, I tend to think of alien as nonhuman, but it could be the simple foreigner -- an alien to the shore?

In any case, let's use it in a slightly expanded form as a prompt for writing. So, here is your one line starter.
She looked up and said, "There's an alien in the waiting room."
Feel free to give her a name. Oh, and why is she looking up? What kind of alien, the local foreigner or the more exotic visitor from the stars? And what kind of a waiting room is this, doctor, dentist, automobile repair, or something else?

You can use this one line as is to start a story or a poetry. You can modify it and use it somewhere in your writing. You can even simply let it inspire the writing, without ever explicitly using these words. But . . .

WRITE!

tink
(I shall try to avoid pondering just what I was thinking when I wrote "alien waiting room" on the pad by my bed. I'm sure I had something in mind, but it seems to be gone now. Oh, well. :-)
[identity profile] mbarker.livejournal.com
Originally posted 14 April 2007

[what?  a mustard seed to build a faith on?  well, if you insist...]
"Once upon a time..." he said, and stopped to wipe the tears from his eyes.
[who is he talking to?  why is he crying?  what will he say next?  see pop quiz above for more questions...and make those keyboards click!]

for those who haven't danced this way before--take the beginning line, and unroll your tale...

with a cheery grin hanging in the air, left behind by the cheshire cat
tink

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