It's nearly that time of year again. Time to celebrate with friends and family. Or, for some of us, time to hare about in a screaming panic, eyeing teetering piles of merchandise with increasing despair. Remember, it's all material. The exercises below are written in that spirit. And we hope you get round to the celebrating part of the holiday.
Pass it On
Why not try your hand at a daisy chain story? These are written as a series of small scenes and/or character stories with a linking element. Point of view shifts, where you jump into the head of each character and hear their thoughts, are positively encouraged in this type of story.
You could use an unwanted present as your linking element. Is it taken straight down to the charity shop, or wrapped up and passed on to someone else? Where does it go after that?
Or you could write a story about the presents that a family or set of friends give each other. The challenge is to say something about the character of the giver and the receiver in the choice of gift.
Gaie has written a chain story using a ten pound note. You can also use a gesture (a smile, a kiss), or show the knock-on effect of random encounters.
If you really want to give yourself a hard time, you can close the loop and get your final scene to link back to your first.
Christmas Gifts
Have a look at the suggested titles below, and use them as a starting point. They might be inspired by Christmas, but they don't have to lead to sparkly, twinkly stories. When you think about it, "Silent Night" could be quite sinister. Or maybe it's just us.
Twelve Days
Silent Night
The Gift
Homecoming
Fairy Lights
Feasting
Crowd Control
Bring a group of characters together for a celebration, and then prevent them leaving. Snow them in, break the airlock, becalm the ship. You can make the situation anywhere on the scale from inconvenient to life-threatening. Who takes action and who hits the bottle? Who says things that they can't take back? Who makes things worse?
Picture Seeds
Use one or more of the pictures below as a starting point and write for 15 minutes.
RSS Feed