Category: Writing Help

Seven Story Prompts for Romance Writers

9/9/2017

In her article for Writers Digest, Leigh Michaels lays down "The Essential Elements of Writing a Romance Novel." This nice overview concentrates on the following requirements:

A hero and a heroine to fall in love
A problem that creates conflict and tension between them and threatens to keep them apart
A developing love that is so special it comes about only once in a lifetime
A resolution in which the problem is solved and the couple is united

Point number 2, the problem and conflict must also include the context in which the conflict happens. In providing this context, the reader often learns about new places, businesses, or fields of inquiry, making the story both educational and emotional.

Think of the context as the cup that constrains and shapes the story. We all want to consume goodness that lives within the cup, but the experience is enhanced by presenting that goodness in a pretty or interesting vessel.

The goal of this post is to describe several different storytelling vessels that could be used to shape your next romantic story.

Boxers and Briefs
The protagonists include a sports attorney and an injured boxer or mixed martial arts fighter. Lots of room for backstory, contrasting worlds, intrigue, and conflict.

What the Frack!
The protagonists are an oil-field geologist and an environmentalist. They initially square off during a fact-finding meeting run by a state oversight committee. Thrown together during an Oklahoma earthquake, their personal interaction reaches the smoking point and eventually catches fire.

Altering Your Genes
Set amid the raging controversy on human genetic alterations, this story has many potential protagonists including single parent(s) whose child(ren) is/are impaired by a genetic mutation, the genetic purists who believe we shouldn't play God with the genetic code, the scientific team who developed methods for making the genetic changes, and political appointees have their own agenda. Look at CRISPR/Cas9 news articles for more background information.

Three Sheets to the Wind
The protagonists are a crusty marine racing engineer and a female racing captain. The woman is struggling to get ahead in this high-stakes, male-dominated field.

Mechanical Advantage
The protagonists in this story are a psychologist and a mechanical engineer. They are part of a team working with Gulf War veterans to develop better artificial limbs. They disagree on the ultimate goal of the project. Should they strive to create a prosthesis that mimics the flesh and blood version or should they push the envelope, giving the recipient enhanced strength and durability? How would these changes affect the injured soldier? Cyborg controversy. Would you be willing to have a normal arm amputated if replacement arm gave you enhanced abilities?

Backstory
A research librarian takes a historical fiction novelist to task for inaccuracies in his/her newest work. Respect and love blossom during their public/private arguments. The couple find they have more in common than they initially thought.

The Woollie Womb
With the recent sequencing of the woolly mammoth genome, there is an increasing desire to bring back these extinct animals. The protagonists are a genetic engineer and a large animal zoologist specializing in elephants. To bring back a woolly, the embryo would have to be carried in an elephant womb. This could have disastrous consequences for the host. Heated arguments turn into another kind of heat as the story progresses. Follow the links for more information. http://bit.ly/2xlKAPO and http://bit.ly/2xW5Pov

Well, there you have it-- seven settings for building your next romance story. Let me know how you like them.

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Writing When You Don’t Have Time to Write

3/12/2016

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Let’s face it, we all want to write the next best-selling novel but most of us have jobs, families, and other commitments that eat into our writing time. For many aspiring writers, the solid blocks of time we need to plan, plot, and write a novel either don’t exist or they’re too infrequent to provide continuity between writing sessions.

Yes, I’ve read the writing advice that tells us to make a writing appointment each day and just do it, get your butt in the chair and WRITE! All I can say is, “Get real!” That advice was written by professional writers whose main job is writing and writing-related activities. The rest of us need to fit writing activities into our daily routine, at least until we make it big and writing is our job.

Before someone goes all huffy on me, let me explain that the professional writing advice is well-intentioned, sage and meaningful. We need to practice writing, editing, and the myriad skills that go into crafting a story. There are no secret passages or magic carpets that will shorten our journey. My point is that we don’t have to perfect all these things at the same time. When we are time-challenged, we can break our writing activities into manageable bits that don’t require large time commitments. Sure, it takes longer to get to our final goal, but practicing when we can allows us to write more effectively when we have larger blocks of time.

Let’s explore how this might work. Let’s say we’re waiting for our turn in the dental chair. We can pull out our pad and write a short meaningful conversation, a description, or a character’s inner thoughts. Put the pad away and edit it during the next small window. Once we have the vignette polished, we give it a meaningful name (e.g., “Mother and Active Child in the Dentist’s Office” or “Smells from the Dentist’s Office”) and share it with our readers. Can they relate to the description? Is it meaningful?

At this point, you might be asking, “How does this get my novel written?” To address this question, I’m going to refer to advice given to aspiring photographers by the photography greats. Like writing, photography has technical (f/stop, shutter speed, depth of field) and artistic components that must come together to create an outstanding image. Professional photographers tell us to practice with our camera until we don’t have to think about the technical aspects. When we automatically know how to isolate two people from a busy background, we can concentrate on the artistry of two lovers meeting in a park. Pros rarely look at the back of the camera to see if they have the technical aspects dialed in. Well, they may do one quick check, but after that their eye is glued to the viewfinder, working the artistic side of the equation.

Writing descriptions, conversations, and scenes are akin to learning the camera. Once we know how to do these things effectively, we can concentrate on the story and its artistry. Besides, our collection of polished vignettes can be re-purposed in future works or they may become story inspirations.

I’ve included a few supplemental writing prompts to get us started.

Descriptions That Introduce a Character
Saying without saying - Describe someone who is ______ without saying the word(s).

Angry
Romantically interested in someone
Obsessive and controlling
40-60 years old
Unliked by your POV character
Convinced they are unjustly accused
Repentant for a recent deed
Noticed for their attractiveness rather than their ability
Habitually unnoticed by others
Depressed
Mourning the death of a spouse/child/dog/gerbil
Emotionally absent
A jock

Physical Descriptions – Describe someone focusing on:

A distracting mannerism
How they smell (breath, body, hair, etc.)
Their eating habits
Their shoes
The clothes they are wearing
Facial hair
Voice and/or speaking style
Posture
One body part (hands, face, eyes, feet, fingers, arms, etc.)
The tech they have/display (phone, tablet, watch, glasses, Bluetooth, etc.)
How they resemble their pet
Glass/prosthetic/cybernetically-enhanced eye
Characteristic facial expression

Positive and Negative – Describe a scene positively and negatively

Sunset
Urban street scene
Punk with blue Mohawk, leather, piercing/branding, in the front row of a small town church.
The POV character opening the front door of their house.
Policeman talking with a teenager
Rocket launch
Four men with hard hats staring into a hole in front of a house
A line of people waiting to buy a movie ticket
Coffee shop at 8 PM
Produce/meat/deli section of a grocery store
Airport waiting area on Christmas eve
Family driving to the in-law’s house for dinner
A horse farm next to a subdivision/apartment complex
The bus stop in the morning

The bottom line here is twofold; (1) we don’t have to abandon our writing aspirations when we don’t have large blocks of time and (2) moving forward in small steps is better than not moving at all.

Well folks, what do you think? Do you have time management techniques you’d like to share with busy writers? Do you have some intriguing prompts that might make the exercise more interesting?

I’d love to hear from you.

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Building Tension in Short Adventure Stories

2/6/2016

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Short stories have been an increasingly important part of my science fiction reading for the past few years. One reason for this change is research—I’ve been reacquainting myself with stories and themes published during the “Golden Age of Science Fiction.” Another reason involves my job as editor and anthologist for Far Orbit Speculative Space Adventures, Far Orbit Apogee, and Far Orbit: Last Outpost.

As I read through these stories, I’ve found that the most effective short adventure stories have a common structure that ratchets up the tension through repeated try/fail cycles until the conflict is finally resolved in the climatic action scene. The stakes increase with each try/fail cycle and the pressure builds to the climax. The wrap up sequence (i.e., falling action or denouement) lowers the intensity somewhat, but it never returns to the base levels.

My mental image of this process is that of a trebuchet or ballista where the crew works together to create tension on the ropes. Cogs click and clank, preserving their progress. The crew pauses a moment then struggles anew. They crank until the machine groans from the strain, teetering between action and destruction. With a stroke, the tension released and the projectile is hurled into the distance. That’s my kind of story.

This action cycle is works well in every speculative fiction genre and in traditional action-adventure stories. Try/fail cycles certainly aren’t an absolute recipe for success. You still need story craft, a hook at the beginning, meaningful characters, compelling story, and a killer ending but the tension needs to build, one try/fail cycle at a time.

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December Writing Prompt

12/6/2015

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Cameras as historians and time machines.

What if we could take the PC card from a camera and insert it into a time machine? What if the machine could take us back to that moment?

Would we be observers or participants in the moment?
Could it be used to investigate crimes?
Would there be a market for visiting historic events? Sex videos? Lost family members?

Do cameras capture your soul? Are the eyes the windows to the soul?

If you look into a camera lens, are you vulnerable to soul snatching?
Is the soul one thing or is it divisible? Would picture-taking be akin to stealing the loose change from your pocket; small unnoticed thefts that compound over time?
How would this affect the “ghost” industry that attempts to photograph ghosts, apparitions, and other spiritually-derived entities? Would the spirit live in the camera?
What would this mean for our “Selfie” generation or our surveillance culture? Is our population spiraling toward soullessness one click or traffic cam image at a time?
Could a nefarious adept reprocess cell phones and cameras, collecting the stolen bits of soul and re-purpose them to animate golems? AI constructs? The recently dead? His/her home automation system? Ghosts? A lost lover?

About this Photo

The photo that inspired the December prompt is a Canon AT-1 camera with a manual focus 50mm FD Macro lens. This camera spent much of its working life in the morgue at St. Joseph Mercy Hospital in Ann Arbor taking photos of ... parts, people parts. Cameras are the ultimate historian, capturing slices of time with every click. This particular camera did more so than most; it was the intimate historian for thousands of individuals, documenting their illness, disease progression, and ultimately, their demise. The stories it could tell…

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Catch and Release Storytelling

5/27/2015

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“I can hypnotize a rabbit.”

This statement conjures a host of responses from incredulity, curiosity, and exasperation, to concerns about the sanity of the speaker. But it’s also an example of a narrative hook I once used to get my audience interested in what comes next.

Picture if you will, an extended family dinner with 10 or 12 people at the grownup table and at least that many at the kids’ table. There was the usual level of noise and commotion associated with a large family dinner but there was also an air of curiosity--my nephew had brought his new girlfriend home to meet the family. She was an undergraduate science major and she had been told that I was a research and development scientist. So, as you might expect, she asked me what I did at the R&D center. I really didn’t want to put on my scientist’s hat at the dinner table so I responded that I did a lot of different things.

Undeterred, she said, “Tell us about one of them.”

And yes, I told everyone that I could hypnotize a rabbit.

My second point is that you have to know your audience. I could have talked about gene expression, viral antigen production, protein purification and a host of other things, but my non-science audience would have been bored to tears. Instead, I said something interesting--something unexpected--and after the hooting subsided, I was able tell my story about how I learned this unusual skill and why it was necessary.

Short story writing is much like telling a tale at dinner. You have to quickly engage the audience, keep the narrative brief and lively, and have a satisfying ending. The ending is as important as the hook because storytelling is catch and release fishing. You need to release them in good condition so you can hook 'em again later.

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6 Tech-Based SciFi Writing Prompts

8/15/2014

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The Plastisphere
Scientists at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution have discovered a diverse group of microbes thriving on flecks of plastic that pollute the oceans. Most of the flecks are about a millimeter in diameter. This newly dubbed “Plastisphere” has created new habitats for microorganisms that are different from those found in the surrounding seawater. Researchers have found at least 1000 different types of bacteria thus far including many individual species that have not been previously identified. How will these new microbial communities affect the ecosystem? Can we exploit the plastisphere to sequester carbon dioxide and combat global warming? Will someone exploit the plastisphere for nefarious purposes (i.e., transporting toxigenic or pathogenic organisms, plugging up harbors, polluting beaches, or contaminating water intakes)?
http://www.whoi.edu/news-release/plastisphere

Embrace the Bugs
About a trillion microorganisms colonize our bodies making each of us a walking, talking “superorganism.” Our microscopic passengers play an important role health as well as disease. When our microbiome is imbalanced, we are prone to inflammation, arthritis and toxic megacolon. We also have a decreased ability to digest and utilize vital nutrients. Rebalancing the microbiome seems to be important and medical scientists are now using fecal transplant pills—yup, pills containing concentrated fecal bacteria -- to stop recurrent Clostridium difficile infections of the gut. Our sanitized, disinfectant- and antibiotic-laden Western culture is waging war on the superorganism and the bugs are fighting back! What would happen if we embraced the bugs? Could we use bioengineering to augment our individual microbiomes? Would we become superbeings or organic sludge? Could this be used for nefarious purposes?

Micoorganisms That Eat Fireworks
Every year millions of people flock to their local parks to watch firework celebrations. We’re not the only species that likes fireworks; some bacteria are able to eat the oxidizers (perclorates) used to generate these pyrotechnic displays, What if there were bugs that could eat gunpowder, explosives, and other things that go boom? How would that change our world?
http://www.biotechniques.com/news/A-Microbe-that-Likes-Fireworks/biotechniques-344646.html?utm_source=BioTechniques+Newsletters+%26+e-Alerts&utm_campaign=b0f4ef3d71-daily&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_5f518744d7-b0f4ef3d71-87750825

High Tech Space Debris
When NASA landed the one-ton, nuclear-powered Curiosity rover on the Red Planet, heaps of debris were scattered across the Martian landscape. We have landed tons of foreign substances (including radioisotopes) on the surface of Mars since 1971. We know that organisms adapt to new challenges. What if this new set of foreign nutrients stimulates the growth of organisms that thrive on these substances? How would that affect colonization? How would they affect spacecraft returning to Earth from the red planet? Does Mars need its own Environmental Protection Agency? Other foreign objects have been landed or crashed on other planetary bodies, the moon being the largest receptacle of space debris.
http://io9.com/5966206/this-is-all-the-beautiful-space-litter-left-on-mars-by-nasas-curiosity-rover/

Tatoo-based Biobatteries
Sounds strange but the science is real. Could these be used to power wearable or implantable electronic devices?
http://www.edn.com/electronics-blogs/tech-edge/4433475/Tattoo-bio-batteries-produce-power-f rom-sweat-

Urban heat’s effect on the environment
Urban environments are hotter than rural environments. This changes the normal flora and fauna. Urban vermin (a catchy name) are not subjected to the harsh winter temperatures that their rural brethren face so they live longer and breed more. What happens to us as the world becomes more urbanized? Sounds like a dystopian theme.
http://www.rdmag.com/news/2014/07/urban-heat%E2%80%99s-effect-environment?et_cid=4064233&et_rid=490707858&location=top

Self-healing smart beads detect and repair corrosion
What if humans are considered corrosive influences to buildings and pipes?
http://www.battelle.org/media/press-releases/battelle-develops-self-healing-smart-corrosion-beads

You may be interested in the following SciFi Writing Topics…
6 Tech-based Writing Prompts
5 Books for Aspiring SciFi Writers

…and general SciFi articles.
SciFi Writers – The Shamans of Modernity
SciFi and the Dangerfield Effect
SciFi Authors and Editors as Agents of Change
What Would Your Robot Say?
What Were the First SciFi Stories You Read?
Earth Day – April 22, 2014

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Seven Story Prompts for Romance Writers

Writing When You Don’t Have Time to Write

Building Tension in Short Adventure Stories

December Writing Prompt

Catch and Release Storytelling

6 Tech-Based SciFi Writing Prompts

@BascombJ

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Seven Story Prompts for Romance Writers

Writing When You Don’t Have Time to Write

Building Tension in Short Adventure Stories

December Writing Prompt

Catch and Release Storytelling

6 Tech-Based SciFi Writing Prompts

​@BascombJ

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Categories

@BascombJ