Writing The Fiction Story

Let’s start the show with a few prompts today. Before we get to the prompts, however, let me hint where to get ideas.

Ideas for storylines are everywhere. Pick up a newspaper, scan the headings, and see what catches your eye. I remember reading about a case where parents, after ten years, held hope their daughter would be found, dead or alive. They needed closure, a body they can bury instead of the empty plot they visited. From this I enhanced my paranormal thriller, Doorman’s Creek, and included the murders of two girls from ten years ago.

Another popular method is using the ‘What If’ factor. Try this exercise:

Look straight ahead- what do you see? Now ask specific questions using ‘what if’ like this:

I see my patio doors-

· What if the image of a girl reflected from my patio doors?

· Who was she?

· Why did she appear to me?

· Did she used to live in my home?

From these questions I’ll seek to answer and outline a story surrounding them.

Another easy method to find stories is by listening carefully to people around you. Everyone has a tale about something or other, a fear they express, a hardship they’ve faced, a coincidental meeting/occurrence.

There is no reason not to have a storyline since we face storylines each day of our lives. In a future post we’ll investigate ‘Good Beginnings’, so make sure to come back often. Now on with our prompts to muse your writing.

· The senses of a blind person are strong. Have your blind character in a store while a murder happens. Use all of his/her senses to capture the essence of the killer and help the police track him down

· Sandra looked around one last time before sneaking out of the apartment

· Your characters are on a camping trip but get more than they bargained for

· Kids are driving mom/dad crazy and a wish is spoken. What is that wish? What happens?

· You discover an envelope with “To Charles, Love Laurie” addressed to your husband. Do you open it? What does it contain? Is it what you thought or something totally different and now you need to pretend you never read it in the first place?

· The doorbell rings…once…twice…three times. You answer it but no one is there. This happens several times during the day until you get a mysterious phone call. How do they connect?

· Mikey’ll eat it. Remember the commercial? Well, come up with a character who believes Mikey really exists and goes on a search to prove he does.

That’s it for now. Stay tuned for more prompts each week to help muse your Muse.

(Lea Schizas is an award-winning author and editor and founder of the Muse Online Writers Conference.)

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