6 New Original Fiction Writing Prompts!

They just keep on coming, these writing prompts! Get them while they’re fresh and while the floodgates are open. I may have a dry spell that lasts months after this! Then again, maybe not.

These could inspire suspense, coming of age, romance, fantasy - because after all, isn’t everything fantasy?

If you’d like to check out earlier prompts that are strictly fantasy, click here.

6 Post-Breakup Freedom Drunk Writing Prompts Because I Can! And They're Original!

Breakups come with dubious advantages. Here, one advantage is that I find it a safe distraction to make up writing prompts that have nothing to do with my ex-relationship. Since I’m having a hard time concentrating on everything else, this is a gift for other writers.

These prompts work for fantasy, romance, suspense, adventure, and journaling - which could help with memoir or even fresh ideas for a novel. It all depends on YOU and your inspiration!

Perhaps you’d like to check out my novel, “Ella Bandita and the Wanderer.” If so, click here!

If you’d prefer a freebie (Part 1) to check it out, click here!

In the meantime, enjoy these prompts and I hope they inspire you!

What a Fabulous Conversation! 5 Tips on How to Write Gripping Dialogue.

I love dialogue.

Of all the elements of fiction, dialogue is my favorite as both a writer and a reader. I get excited when a come across a long stretch of dialogue in a novel, and as a writer, I work on dialogue for hours.

There is no resistance. I love picturing these scintillating conversations between characters, and I have no complaints working out the kinks as I put those talks to paper.

If anybody has come across some of my work-in-progress excerpts, you would find a lot of dialogue because I love it so much. If you’d like to check that out, go here.

Maybe I should have been a screenwriter. Because splendid dialogue between characters on a movie screen makes me high for days.

For example, Pulp Fiction is one of the best dialogue movies I’ve ever seen. Without the exquisite dialogue in every single scene of the movie, Pulp Fiction would have been awful.

As far as the characters and the plot are concerned, the stories are disturbing. Generally speaking, all the characters are out for themselves and nobody has a moral compass.

There are exceptional scenes of personal growth, like the choice Butch made to save Marcellus Wallace from a hideous fate, even though Marcellus Wallace had put a hit on him.

Also, the epiphany of Jules to quit the hit man’s life, walk the earth as a holy man, in the final scene when he spares the lives of Pumpkin and Honey Bunny, made a breathtaking end to a film that boggled the minds of most people who saw it.

Pulp Fiction took black humor to a new level. Throughout the many psychotic and psychopathic events, the audience laughed hysterically and savored every moment (or almost every moment), and I believe it was because the dialogue was that brilliant.

This was during the days when Quentin Tarantino collaborated with Roger Avary. Either Avary was the dialogue genius, or the two of them needed each other for that magical precision of back and forth verbal volley between characters. All I know is the dialogue in Tarantino’s films has made me cringe once they fell out and parted ways. Too many monologues.

I love good dialogue in a novel. I relish the chance to imagine these fictional conversations in my mind and put myself in the story as one of the characters.

The dialogue in Tom Robbins’ work (Even Cowgirls Get the Blues, Jitterbug Perfume, Still Life With Woodpecker) makes me want to dance and celebrate the glory of life. But his characters and his plots are every bit as magnificent as the dialogue they speak.

Back in the day, Jane Austen had some pretty luscious dialogues set in Regency England. But Jane Austen had far more fodder to work with. We’ve gotten lazy and unskilled in the act of communication. For centuries, conversation was an art that most people wanted to excel at.

Now that my rant about my love of dialogue is finished, the nuggets of advice I can offer on how to pen dialogue are:

1) Practice Writing Dialogue. Even if you suck at it, or think you do, make this a regular part of your writing practice.

2) Recall the most recent boring, inane small talk you engaged in recently (happens a lot in life), and throw in an unexpected twist. From there, one key word becomes several key words that feed the following next lines until you have a dialogue the flows like a cascade of dominoes.

For instance:

“I’m so sick of all this rain, aren’t you?”

“I’m sick of my husband’s farts in the middle of the night. Makes me want to sleep in the rain.”

“Oh really? My boyfriend talks dirty in his sleep. I wouldn’t mind so much if he wasn’t talking dirty to some chick named Agnes.”

“Who the hell talks dirty to girls named Agnes?”

“I know, right? Agnes sounds like somebody’s granny!”

“My grammy’s name was Serena.”

“That’s a sexy name.”

“Hey! That’s my grammy you’re talking about!”

“Maybe Agnes should change her name to Serena.”

“Why? She’s doing just fine if your boyfriend is talking dirty to her in his sleep.”

“Then I should change my name to Agnes.”

“That’s crazy! Maybe you should break up with your boyfriend.”

“Yeah, that may not be a bad idea. My boyfriend has a micropenis on top of all this.”

“That explains why he’s talking dirty to a chick named Agnes in his sleep.”

You don’t have to use this in anything. So relax, play with words and images, simply to see where the flow takes you. If you practice writing unexpected dialogue, eventually you will make magic happen in the dialogue of the stories you care about.

3) Eavesdrop. Listen in on conversations you find juicy, fascinating, or even irritating. Then write as much of them down from memory the best you can. Since chances are good (unless you have a 100% photographic memory ) you won’t recall everything, you’ll have to improvise.

Feel free to use step #2 above to take it in a different direction, and thus make the dialogue your own.

4) Read Your Dialogue Out Loud. That’s the only way you can hear the rhythm and flow of a conversation. You’ll catch any glitches or things that sound false.

5) For anybody who really struggles with dialogue, I suggest writing dialogue between the writerly YOU and your principal characters.

I suggest doing this one character at a time, to open yourself up to an impression of who they are as people and how they sound, even their quirky and unique expressions.

A few exercises like this and you’ll be creating luscious dialogue between your characters with little to no trouble.

I’m also happy to share a lovely article that gives other detailed tips on dialogue. Click here.

6 Lovely Writing Prompts for Fantasy, Romance, Journaling!

Time for some more writing prompts! Here are some luscious ones that could inspire fantasy, romance, love story (my personal favorite), journaling, or even memoir. It’s all up to you. If you like these, click here for the writing prompts that came before. I may offer more this month simply just because…

For the Love of BackStory!

Fiction has changed a lot, and really, not necessarily for the better.

My ex-fiancée used to teach high school English, so she stayed current on YA fiction. She has a particular love for YA dystopian fiction, but she even read YA fiction she didn’t like to stay on top of what her students were reading.

Like me, she has loved to read her all her life. But I have given up on most contemporary fiction because I think most of it has gone down the toilet. She agrees, and insists that most of the great writing right now is happening in YA.

If I had to guess, I bet one of the reasons why is YA doesn’t cut out backstory.

I read voraciously when I was a kid. Growing up, I read mostly commercial junk and did not become actively interested in the classics until I was in college.

But one thing most of my favorites novels had in common was that the backstory was a crucial part of developing the core plot. Novels were often hundreds of pages long, and far longer than the 100,000-120,000 word limit of what is now considered an epic.

What made up all those pages and words? Backstory. The backstory of each of the characters before they came to be a part of the main plot line was anything but shortchanged, and usually described in great detail.

These were incredible stories and I loved falling into those worlds.

The biggest mistake I made with my first novel of the Ella Bandita stories (Ella Bandita and the Wanderer) was cutting out so much backstory. The reason why? Because I was trying to get traditionally published, and all the agents and editors insisted on a word count between 70,000 and 110,000 words.

Sometime after the 80’s, novels became shorter; backstory was only a succinct mention, and in many cases all but disappeared. If the story is one that takes place in a short frame of time, that would work fine most of the time. But how can anybody have the space to disappear into another world when that universe is so constricted?

It didn’t work for me.

The criticism pointed out the most often in my reviews is due to the lack of backstory. The critical readers expressed an inability to connect or understand the main character.

For a long time, I’ve known I need go back and rewrite it, add that backstory. But I simply couldn’t do it. I wrote and rewrote and cut out large chunks of that first novel so many times, the thought of working on it anymore made me weary.

There comes a time when you have to move on to the next book, so I did. Lesson learned, but ouch, that hurt.

Then it occurred to me that I could add to it.

Since Ella Bandita and the Wanderer was written as novella segments, I could take those 75 pages that had been cut, mainly written from the The Horse Trainer’s point-of-view, and put them before Birthing Ella Bandita.

I could also write a novella in the 1st person from her mother’s point-of-view, in the final days of her pregnancy, knowing that childbirth was going to kill her. That could be at the beginning. The main character would still be at the start of the story, even if she’s in utero.

Of course, this changes the entire tone of the novel, and the name needs to change. I think the name of the final novella of the novel as it is right now would work beautifully - The Heart of the Lone Wolf.

It makes sense, really. All the important characters in this novel are alone.

Right now I’m working on the 2nd draft of the 2nd novel in the Ella Bandita stories. When I finish, I’ll take a break from it and go back to the 1st novel and make those additions. It shouldn’t take too long and it will make a nice break from this draft.

As far as the 2nd novel work-in-progress is concerned, my working titles are: The Shepherd and the Courtesan, or The Art of Taking Chances.

Oh and the Courtesan has a juicy backstory. Even if the transformation of an ugly peasant girl named Addie into the legendary Adrianna the Beautiful has nothing to little to do with the main plot, I’m writing it and it’s staying.

Why? Because it’s good. Even if it makes the novel more expensive to print, it’s going in. Besides that’s the beauty of ebooks.

Maybe the glorious backstory can find its way back in to the pages of novels, now that printing may not be such an expense.

Adventure or Stability? Writer's Life.

Experience feeds the muse. I’m a strong believer in experience as fodder for writing. I firmly believe writers get their best ideas from those times spent outside the comfort zone – taking risks, learning new things, experimentation, travel, trying new experiences, trying things one thinks one couldn’t do. For writing, it’s even better when things blow up in one’s face because chances are there will be a story to tell later. All these experiences can and will pass through the funnel of our conscious and unconscious mind and the result could always end up as wonderful fiction.

I’ve been blessed with many unique experiences because I’ve made unusual choices in my life. I’ve taken a lot of chances, embarrassed myself more often than I like to admit, suffered plenty, and tried to make sense of it all. Most scenarios did not work out in my favor. But I found inspiration in those moments of mortification and pieces of pain. I also discovered that although I may have had the fleeting wish to die of embarrassment, none of that killed me, or my sense of self.

Yet when it comes to being productive, I have recently found that stability has made me more productive. Right now, I’m engaged, have a stepdaughter, and 5 cats. My traveling is in-state most of the time, and my escapades tend to be shorter in duration. In other words, my life is not as exciting as it used to be. Yet my life is also a lot less lonely, and loneliness gave me the worst writer’s block of my life.

With all my core needs met, I’m stable and I’m writing more often than I have in years. I’m actually optimistic that I am finally going to finish the 2nd novel in a series of 4 that I couldn’t bring myself to write for years.

So the paradox is interesting, and more than a little frustrating. Adventure gave me a lot of the stories, but I was too immersed in what was happening to write it down. It has been stability that gave me the breathing room to write and rewrite them down. Also, sometimes distance helps.

I wonder how many of us can write prolifically while having an adventure, or do you need stillness and steadiness to write?

Read a Lot and Write a Lot

Stephen King offered this pithy gem of advice in his fabulous book for scribes, “On Writing,” and he considered it crucial enough that he repeated “read a lot and write a lot” throughout the book. As much as I admire Mr. King for “On Writing,” “The Shawshank Redemption,” and the sheer mass of work he produced (I’m not a fan of horror), I have a slight tweak to add.

Read a lot, but read selectively. Write a lot.

The reason why is that I have found that whatever I’m reading affects the way I write. Although it probably affects character and plot development in ways that I’m not aware of, my biggest concern is the effect on the beauty and quality of the writing. In other words, if I’m indulging in a juicy piece of mind candy to escape from reality – and we all do it, chances are it’s not written in the gorgeous style of quality literary fiction. Chances are, the editing may not be that great either. But if the story is engaging, pulls me in, and I’m enjoying the read, I don’t care because I’m getting what I want out of it. However, I’m not thrilled when that less than high quality style of writing is coming from my fingers as I’m typing happily, especially if I’m in the 3rd or 4th rewrite. So it’s probably best to read the most sumptuous, lyrical, poetic prose I can get my hands on, especially while I’m in the later stages of rewriting, editing, and polishing.

I have found that what we read influences not just what we write, but how. This is especially true of the fiction we read while growing up. For instance, before I found my niche where I belonged, I tried my hand at writing a mystery. Why? Because I grew up reading Agatha Christie mysteries. I read all of them by the time I finished my teens. Between the pages of those deceptively simple tomes was a brilliant brainteaser of a Whodunit. Nobody did the Whodunit better than Agatha Christie. Nobody even came close. And the reason why is because it’s f***ing difficult. It wasn’t long before I found out that I sucked at writing mysteries in general, and the Whodonit in particular. 

Yet there was no way I wasn’t influenced by Agatha Christie’s work. I read too much of her when I was young for any other outcome. How? What gift did I receive from the pages of those mystery novels I couldn’t write? Strict and obsessive attention to detail. From what I read, Agatha Christie didn’t neglect a single detail in her books, that’s why when the reader and the innocent characters in her stories finally got to Whodunit, every detail offered up was presented, including the details that she sneaked in. Not a single detail was wasted, whether it was to throw us off the path, or stacked to build a case for the murderer who had actually done it.

As a reader, I notice the abandonment of details - usually in subplot storylines that don’t conclude or even in the main story itself – and every time, I’m irritated with the sloppy, lazy writing and editing. I’m especially annoyed because those works actually got published. As a writer, I do my best to avoid that. Hopefully, I succeed in the goal of getting all stories and details to round out to a satisfying ending. 

So those influences come out in sneaky and surprising ways.

Read a lot and write a lot. But be selective in your reading choices.

If you would like more of Mr. King’s pithy advice about writing, read his book, “On Writing.” In the meantime, here’s this blog: https://jerryjenkins.com/stephen-king-writing-advice/