PROMPT ELEVEN – EXTREME HOLIDAY
 
            This prompt has some limitations because it deals with holidays. This is great if you plan to write for the Hallmark Channel and not so much if you deal mainly with science-fiction or horror.
            The idea is to take a holiday and push the traditions and celebrations surrounding it to the extreme. I find it best to focus your twisted imagination on only one aspect of the holiday, like the hunt for the perfect Christmas tree.
            Once you have the holiday-gone-wild concept worked out think of how it got that way and how it challenges your hero. Does your hero embrace the insanity and push the limits even farther or is he/she just trying to survive the event?
 
            Here are five holiday traditions.
 
            Turkey bowl
            The perfect Christmas tree       
            New Year resolutions
            Birthday cake
            Anniversary dinner
 
            Based on the annual block-wide football game I generated this elevator pitch.
 
The Family Bowl – One day each year determines a family’s fate until the next Thanksgiving. Life is great if your family wins the annual Family Bowl. For the rest of the year the people on your block are at your beck and call. But Josh was twelve and had only Mom and his sister, Stacy, to help him put together a grid-iron monster capable of beating the other families on the block. He needed a “Hail Mary” plan or his family would be on the bottom of the loser’s column . . . again.

         PROMPT TEN – DREAM GUIDE
 
            Many good stories start off as a dream. If you happen to remember your dreams then this can be a good source for plot ideas. In order to use this method effectively you will need to keep a pad and pencil next to your bed and train yourself to write down as many details of your dream as you can when you wake up.
            The advantage to this method is that it starts you off with a very strong image. There may also be powerful emotions that go along with the dream which you can then channel into your writing. The drawback is you will be trying to create a whole story from one, or two, scenes that might not make a lot of sense when you’re awake.
 
            I dreamed that I had two additional children. Boy they were a couple of cute little lads. They had names in the dream, but I didn’t follow my own advice and write them down when I woke. Based on that dream I developed this elevator pitch.
 
Dream Family – Danny woke up one morning to find he had two more children than he did the day before. Cute, vibrant, and loveable he bonds to them immediately. By the end of the day he wonders how his family and his life felt complete without them. But after he puts them to bed he receives a mysterious call which threatens the existence of his family—both the old and the new.

         PROMPT NINE – WHAT IF?
 
            This is similar to the stream of consciousness method of story generating. The difference is that you start with a topic and ask as many “What if” questions as you can. I love this prompt because I can do it when I am stuck in a traffic jam, waiting at the DMV, or otherwise bored. It’s especially helpful if you want to generate ideas in a specific area.
            Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday and a couple of years ago I protested that the Hallmark channel introduces several new, formulaic Christmas stories each year, but does nothing for my favorite celebration. So I decided to generate ideas which could be turned into screenplays about Thanksgiving.
 
            Here is an example of the ideas this prompt generated.
 
            What if Thanksgiving had a hero like Santa, but was a talking turkey?
            What if turkeys celebrated Thanksgiving with us?
            How would our pets celebrate Thanksgiving if they could?
            What if your family tried to re-enact the first Thanksgiving?
 
            Based on "What if Thanksgiving had a hero like Santa" I came up with the following elevator pitch for a children's story.
 
Tommy Gobble - The first turkey super hero, Tommy Gobble, flaps into action as all of the city's food banks have been robbed by the League of Grumpy Villains. With Thanksgiving  less than a week away, he must find the culprits and return the stolen dinners so that everyone a chance to gather over a hot meal and share their thanks on this most special of days. 

         PROMPT 8 – STORY STREAMING
 
            Although I haven’t tried this, I know that some authors use a stream of consciousness method to generate story ideas. For this prompt you find a spot to sit, place a pad of paper in front of you, and then write down whatever comes to mind. At some point one thought will lead to another, which will lead to another, and another. When you think you have enough ideas in front of you stop and look them over. Most of it will be a jumble of words, but a pattern should emerge that you can form into a story.
 
            Here are five words/concepts to start the stream of consciousness flowing.
 
            Death
            A doodle of a daisy
            Zzzzzzzzz
            An arrow pointing up
            Sound of a clock ticking
 
            Based on the sound of a ticking clock I generated the following pitch.
 
Clockwork War – Anthony has less than a month before he musters out of the army. Then during a routine patrol he runs across an enemy that makes a strange ticking sound when it moves. This strange mechanical army is marching towards the village where he lives. He must find a way to stop a seemingly unstoppable foe before everything he loves is destroyed.
 
(This was my train of thought that led to this story. Clock – clock in croc from Peter Pan - creatures/people walking with clocks in them.)

       PROMPT SEVEN – PLOT TRANSPLANTS
 
            This uses a similar concept as the Hollywood Style prompt that I covered previously. The idea is to take a story and transport it to a new time and/or location. One of my Creative Writing teachers showed me this prompt and she used fairytales to generate ideas, but really it works for any sort of story; historic tales, news features, and novels.
            Once you have picked a fairytale (or any story) and decided when and where to place it you then decide how the new setting affects how the story is told. And because of that it becomes a new story. For instance, what would happen if you took Hansel and Gretel and placed them in a wild-west frontier town? Hank and Gertie might be captured by a mystic Indian medicine-man, which changes the dynamics of the story immensely while still giving you a good starting place for the plot.
            Something else you can do with this concept is change one or more of the characters in the story. What would happen if Little Red Riding Hood climbed up the beanstalk and had to contend with the Wicked Witch of the West? Moving away from fairytales, imagine Dennis the Menace taking a basket of goodies to his grandmother across town.
            If you don’t write cutesy fairytales this method can still produce useable starter material. Take the story of Sleeping Beauty and turn it into a dystopian, science-fiction nightmare. Wouldn’t that be a kick?

 
            I chose a classic novel, Frankenstein, for my example.
 
Monsters on the Midway – Based loosely on Frankenstein this novel chronicles the story of a college football coach who is obsessed with creating the perfect football team. He introduces a new method of training the players that takes them beyond their normal limits and transforms them into machines of flesh and bone. Unfortunately, this training affects their lives outside the football stadium. Seeing his mistake, the coach attempts to resign from the team, but the players have other ideas about that. The players begin a psychological terror campaign designed to keep the coach in place and continue with their inhuman training.
 

     PROMPT 6 – NEWS MINING
 
            The news is a rich source of story material. Take a look through the news items in your paper, any online news source, television, or radio. Pick one of the news events and write a story based on the event having a much different cause than what was reported. In other words, give them a story that is a bit more fantastic than the truth.
            Another interesting aspect of this prompt is that the genre of the story you are planning to write will affect how you interpret the news items. The unfortunate news of a commuter train derailing will generate a much different story for romance than it will for a mystery or an action/suspense novel.
 
            The news item I used for my example involved the trading of political prisoners.            
 
            Based on that idea I generated the following elevator pitch.
 
 
Catch and Release – The President orders the military in Afghanistan to start secretly releasing dangerous prisoners in exchange for information from the terrorists about their rivals. On the surface this looks like a standard political move, but it is really a vicious program of annihilation. Each of the released prisoners has been infected with a virus that will spread death to the terrorist network and their families. The situation changes when several of the service men return home and die from the same engineered virus that they are supposed to be immune, except that this mutated strain no longer targets people that share DNA with the carrier.
 

          PROMPT FIVE – GIBBERISH TIMES FIVE
 
            This is probably the most common writing prompt that I’ve encountered. The human mind is very adept at making connections and that principle comes into play as you select five random words and attempt to make sense them in story form.
            Nouns works best, but verbs and adjectives are fine as long as you keep them to a minimum. One method of randomly selecting the words you will use it to leaf through the newspaper and take the first noun, verb, or adjective you see. You can also flip through the channels of your television or radio and just copy down whichever word catches your attention or ask five people for their favorite word.  
            Once you have decided on the number of words you can look them over. If a story idea doesn’t immediately jump out to you select one word at a time and determine if it represents a character, a placed, a motive, or a goal in the story. By the time you finish assigning a role to all of the words you should have an excellent idea what the story is all about.         
 
            Here are five words I selected by flipping through the television channels.
 
            Hunger
            Mood
            Price
            Electronics
            Federal
 
            Based on these five words I generated this following elevator pitch.
 
 
Hunger Strike – Joe Carson’s dreams of a daring career in the FBI vanished on the day they assigned him to be a supply clerk in a dead end post. Now the lead investigators in the office have mysteriously eaten themselves to death and Joe is the only person with a lead on what they were investigating when it happened.

Before I present today's writing prompt, I wanted to share a couple of pictures from Saturday's Ready - Set - Write conference. It was such a success that we have already scheduled the event for next year. So, mark your calendars for October 22nd and plan to hang out with the rest of us as we get ready for the NaNoWriMo challenge.

If you have any suggestions for classes that you would like repeated or new topics that you would like us to cover please send me an e-mail or post a comment.

The first picture was taken during my presentation while I was helping eager writers with their elevator pitches. The second picture is of my wife and daughter as they manned the book store.














 
           PROMPT FOUR – LYRICAL MUSE
 
            Songs are a great source of inspiration for story ideas. Not only can you generate ideas from the title, but the lyrics seem ideally suited for coming up with interesting story concepts. The music itself often translates directly into mood and setting.
            Listen to a few songs. If you have a rough idea of what you want write about you can even pick songs that have a tempo appropriate for the story. Since lyrics are interpreted differently by each individual the chances are good that it will lead you to create a unique storyline. I think the trick to this method is to think outside the box. Most songs have a message that is easily followed (when you can understand what they’re singing), but ignore that and really stretch your imagination on what it could mean.
 
            Here are a portion of the lyrics from a few songs.
  
1. Children of the Sun by Billy Thorpe
 
The people of the earth stood waiting
Watching as the ships came one by one
Setting fire to the sky as they landed
Carrying to the world children of the sun, children of the sun
   
2. My Generation by the Who
 
Why don't you all f-fade away (Talkin' 'bout my generation)
And don't try to dig what we all s-s-say (Talkin' 'bout my generation)
I'm not trying to cause a big s-s-sensation (Talkin' 'bout my generation)
I'm just talkin' 'bout my g-g-g-generation (Talkin' 'bout my generation)
  
3. Holiday by Green Day
 
There's a song sounding out of key
To a hymn called Faith and Misery (Hey!)
A plead, the company lost the war today

I beg to dream and differ from the hollow lies
This is the dawning of the rest of our lives
On holiday
  
4. Savin’ Me by Nickelback
 
Heaven's gates won't open up for me
With these broken wings I'm fallin'
And all I see is you
  
5. The Look by Roxette
 
She's got the look.
She's got the look.
What in the world can make a brown-eyed girl turn blue.
When everything I'll ever do I'll do for you
and I go: la la la la la
 
            Based on the lyrics above I generated the following elevator pitches.
  
Based on “My Generation” here is a pitch for a YA book. Most teenagers complain about their parents, but Jerrod may have the coolest parents on the planet. The problem is—they’re too cool. How can he convince his friends to pay more attention to him than his parents?
  
Based on “Holiday” here is a pitch for a dystopian book. After a brutal war, the Holy Voice has brought peace and harmony to the nation as it recovers from near annihilation. But when Sunflower’s parents mysteriously disappear she discovers a diary that chronicles their activities with a secret society intent on overthrowing the government. And that’s when the Holy Voice takes notice of her.

       PROMPT THREE – THE COVER STORY
 
            Titles are not the only way to find inspiration in the books and movies that already exist. Movie posters and book covers provide a visual stimulation for your creative juices. Look through the shelves of your local book store until you find a cover that grabs your attention. Ignore the title, ignore the back copy and decide what story that image speaks to you.
            The back cover can also give inspiration in the form of the story blurb. Obviously, you don’t want to steal their story idea, but something about the description might stand out and generate a unique concept of your own.
 
            Here are five classic movie posters
 
            Airplane (Plane tied in a knot)
            Vertigo (Man in a spiral)
            True Grit (Cowboy silhouette with eye patch)
            Singing in the Rain (Three people wearing rain coats and umbrella)
            The Shining (Twin girls blocking a hallway and boy on bigwheel)
 


















   


         Based on True Grit I generated the following pitch.
 
Cyber Eye – The eye always knows. Jake is a detective who doubles as a bounty hunter. Unfortunately, the bounty hunting business is booming. His cybernetic eye has made him the most sought after bounty hunter on the continent. Until he captures a criminal who claims to know where his dead wife is living.

PROMPT TWO – HOLLYWOOD STYLE
 
            This is by far my favorite writing prompt. In Hollywood, many movie deals are made from a simple comparison of two successful films. The banter for these pitches go something like this, “This is Driving Miss Daisy meets Silence of the Lambs.”
            For the best results use stories that have clearly different plots and settings. Then find a way to put them together in a way that blends the key elements from both stories, but in a way that gives you a finished product that is unique. As difficult as that may sound keep in mind there is a lot to work with in these stories: plot, theme, character, setting, mood, conflict, etc. There exist an endless number of possibilities that can be generated from any pairing.
            In my mind, the best thing about this sort of prompt is how it lends itself to creating cross-genre tales that stand out from the excessive clones and retellings of previously successful stories.
 
            Here are two Oscar winning movies.
 
Ben Hur (1959)
 
Titanic (1997)
 
            Based on a blend of these two films I generated the following elevator pitch.
 
Sea of Fire – After encountering a powerful religious leader, a fisherman and his family are converted to a faith that preaches peace and tolerance that are at odds with the vicious laws and violent nature of the country in which they live. A long time personal rival uses his position as a judge to falsely accuse the family of treason and they are forced to work as slaves during a barbaric race across the ocean. If they win they will be set free to colonize the newly discovered land. If not, they will remain as slaves or die in one of the many sea-battles that are a normal part of the race.
 
 
            Since I had so much fun with the first one I decided to combine these two films.
 
Gladiator (2000)
 
Chicago (2002)
 
 
I’m Spartacus – Cross Gladiator with Chicago and you get a musical set in the violent, bloodthirsty height of the Roman Empire. Sing along with the cast through rousing numbers such as No, No, I’m Spartacus and When In Rome – Kill the Romans. Follow Spartacus and his band of gladiators as they break out of the Roman prison and fight their way to Broadway where they realize their unspoken dreams and tell the story of their lives on stage.