In our quest for daily writing prompts for a year, we come to March 20th.
This entire week we have covered point of view (in the various forms that it represents). But this weekend, we will return to a more traditional prompt style.
I’ll keep this one short today, too. Just a little fun exercise to help you finish your week with a fresh mind and a little creative mojo running through your veins.
March 20
Using your phone, retype the last text message you sent. However, when halfway through, let predictive text take over. Finish a sentence and then turn that text into a scene.
Here, we have a bit of fun. You get to make something up, on the spot, based on something else that actually “makes sense.”
The idea here is just to run with it. You get a partial text, then some weirdness or something funny or something so off the wall it makes no sense at all.
Then, you will write a full scene using that new text.
While it can be funny and even a bit challenging, there is a purpose and a little lesson here.
One of the things I teach in the class here is to experiment with your project. Go off the wall and just give shit a try.
For example, one of the homework lessons in the class is to take your current chapter and come up with 25 new things that could happen instead.
As you can imagine, this becomes quite difficult after a while. Sure, you can easily come up with 5 or even 10 new directions that chapter could take. But by the time you are in the 20’s you are coming up with weird, random and off-beat things.
What is important about this lesson (and today’s prompt) is to recognize when you should go off the beaten path and have the bravery to see it through.
Will you ever write a chapter in your book using predictive text from your phone messages? Probably not. But if you get stuck or your story is dying out too quickly, it is a good way to practice keeping things interesting and alive.
The more you practice this, the easier it will be for you when it comes time to use little tricks to keep you motivated.
So have some fun with this prompt, and don’t forget to post your finished scenes in the comment section below!
