Generating and Using Writing Prompts

Tags

creativity, fiction, Flash Fiction, novels, writing, writing groups, writing prompts

Not everyone finds writing prompts helpful – but I do. I belong to two writers’ groups, and between them they generate a lot of prompts, either by someone suggesting a phrase or by group members choosing a word each to include in a piece of writing. Either method can be very productive.

A third, rather more time-consuming method, is for everyone to bring along a list of ten words, write them all out on a single sheet, and then spend a little time making phrases incorporating at least two of the words. This can produce some sparkling and quite poetic results, so it’ll be no surprise to hear that I learned it at a song-writing workshop. Even with only half-a-dozen people taking part, you can generate a long list of prompts that will keep you writing for months.

I find these prompts intensely useful when I am working on a long term project, especially in the early stages when I might be looking for ideas and subplots. My current book, The Chesil Apothecary, for example, consists of short pieces, nearly all inspired by writing prompts from meetings of Weymouth Writing Matters or Off The Cuff writers’ groups – all I had to do is blend them together. In this story, a large and important subplot was triggered by the prompt ‘love is a disease’.

I know my writing friends use prompts successfully, too, and pieces ranging from flash fiction to a trilogy of novels have begun life in this way. If you have characters and a situation in mind, the prompt can provide just the nudge you need to move forward.

So, as a writing prompt enthusiast, I volunteered to post twice-weekly prompts on the Dorset Writers’ Network Facebook page and Twitter feed. Some are phrases and some are three-word prompts, all of them sourced from meetings of my two groups. There are no competitions or prizes – it’s just a little service to help trigger ideas for our writer friends. They can be found at the links below. There’s quite a collection of them now, if you scroll back. I hope you find them as productive and helpful as I did.

Dorset Writers Network Facebook Page

Dorset Writers Network, Twitter      @dorsetwriternet

 

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The First Page

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bookbinding, illustration, prioritising

I’m sure you all know how easy it is to begin a project – and how difficult it can be to complete it. Well begun is half done, as the old saying goes. I found myself with a whole bunch of uncompleted projects, and was adding new ones at high speed. Even an organised person can find themselves, as I did, dipping into one project or another and making very little headway.

The first page takes shape…

It took a visit to the optician recently to concentrate my mind on what to do next. I was diagnosed with a cataract in one eye. This is at its very early stages, fortunately, and can take, as the optician told me, anything from ten to twenty years to reach the point where anything needs to be done. I doubt if any damage to my eyesight will prevent me from writing – modern technology will provide! – but later on it might interfere with my artwork and bookbinding activities. It was a no-brainer – let’s complete the drawings for the new hand-bound book, The Chesil Apothecary, in case of any eyesight difficulties to come. So that’s the project to work on first.

My first hand-bound book, The Herbarium, taught me a great deal about illustration, and also about printing and layout. I went into it blind, so to speak, but the light of experience is hanging helpfully over the new project. For instance, keeping the drawings narrow and having a care about how much black background I use will significantly reduce the amount of black ink needed to print them. That’s a notable expense, so it matters. Re-using parts of the drawings for secondary purposes, chapter endings for example, can help keep the workload manageable. This paid off in completing the first drawing, for my main character Dr Thrift – it was quick to produce and looks neat, as well as establishing the seaside atmosphere I was looking for. Within a day or so I was able to set it in place in the text. The basic layout, fonts etc are the same as The Herbarium, this being intended as a companion volume, so there is less work to do there, too. Plus, I am really enjoying doing it. The first page is in place, and providing a handy pattern for the rest of the book. I can hardly wait to see the completed work.

Sometimes it takes a little shock to help you sort out your priorities – to shine a light on what really matters most. It worked for me, and the first page is the proof. Now then, on with page two…

Telling Fact from Fiction

Tags

Environment, fiction, writing

What is fiction for? This is a question I’m occasionally asked, usually by people who don’t read it. There are many answers to this – the main one being that it’s for entertainment. Nothing wrong with that, but writers down the centuries have often used that entertainment as a vehicle for new ideas, or to question established truths. You can, of course, put words into the mouths of fictional characters that could get you into considerable trouble if you said them yourself, particularly on social media. It’s generally a lot safer to question things via fiction.

Anyone who read my recent post The Bat Man (published October 10) will have observed that it isn’t my usual style. Very true. It’s a sort of ecological/environmental thriller – or it will be, if I’m brave enough to write the rest of it. Why did I write this story? Well, in short, I was alarmed by some of the highly emotive headlines on environmental matters that I saw on social media. One of these seemed so wrong that it led me, as a lifelong (amateur) student of plants, to check it out thoroughly. The very best you could say of this oft-repeated idea is that it’s a considerable exaggeration. At worst it’s deliberately misleading. As to why anyone would wish to mislead people in this way, I can only speculate. I’ll leave it at that – but it made me wonder how many more ‘accepted facts’ couched in emotive, easy-to-remember slogans are equally exaggerated, or even downright untrue. And that’s what led me to write The Bat Man.

The story (I sincerely hope) is pure fiction, but it explores the way in which partial-truths, or indeed complete fabrications, can quickly be promoted to full facts via social media, with appalling consequences. My good friend Albert described the story as ‘thought-provoking’. Thanks, Albert, that’s exactly what I intended. Will I write more of this, you ask? I already have. Will I publish it? I have asked myself whether it’s actually safe to do so – not a question I have asked previously in all my years of writing. I’m still thinking about it.

But maybe that’s what fiction is actually for – to encourage people to ask searching questions, particularly, these days, regarding the information they are spoon-fed on social media – to check it out before they accept it, to make sure it’s actually true. It takes a bit more effort, but I for one will be regarding all emotive headlines with healthy suspicion. Social media can be so powerful in fixing people’s opinions – but perhaps it’s possible for a little thoughtful fiction to help redress the balance. I hope so.

The Bat Man – A Tale for Modern Times

Tags

Internet, short fiction

A piece of fiction from me today – at least, I hope it’s fiction…

The Bat Man

‘Hey, Fred.’

‘Hmm. What?’ Fred was deep into preparing his funding bid. This study on the dietary habits of pipistrelles would keep him in work for a couple of years.

‘Fred. Look.’ He glanced up. His colleague Nell was leaning over the desk holding out her mobile phone. In the middle of the screen was a black box. The white text in the middle read ‘Kill the bee-murdering bats’.

‘What is this?’ said Fred, frowning, ‘some sort of joke?’

‘No, Fred. Social media.’

‘I don’t do social media.’

‘That much is obvious,’ said Nell, ‘or you’d have seen it for yourself. This has gone viral.’

Viral? Fred knew enough to understand that it had been spread worldwide. ‘But what does it mean?’

‘It means,’ said Nell, ‘that we’re in big trouble.’

‘But really,’ said Fred, ‘kill the bee-murdering bats’? It’s nonsensical. Where does it come from?’

Nell sighed. ‘I traced it back to an article on a student website. Seems someone picked up a dead bat and dissected it. They found a bee in its stomach. The bee had stung the bat on the way down, and…’

‘The bat died of anaphylactic shock? Yeah, that figures.’ Fred was paying full attention now. ‘But what study is this from? I’ve never seen it.’

‘Doesn’t say.’ Nell shrugged.

‘You mean there is no accredited study? No references at all?’

Nell shook her head.

‘So that story is no more than hearsay – or even pure invention. Surely no-one would take it seriously?’

Nell shrugged again. ‘The wackier environmental groups do, Fred, and they make full use of social media. You know how touchy people are about bees. No bees, no food. You must have heard that.’

Fred nodded. ‘Yeah. Bit extreme. But bats don’t eat bees. Well, maybe the odd bat tries to eat the odd bee – but it’s not normally part of the diet, is it? Besides, bees are diurnal…’

‘And bats are nocturnal, yes,’ said Nell. ‘They don’t overlap too much, time-of-day-wise. I know that, you know that. But it cuts no ice with the social media mob, Fred. As far as they’re concerned they have proof of a single instance of a bat eating a bee and that means that all bats are evil bee-murderers.’

‘But it’s not true!’

‘Oh, Fred,’ said Nell, ‘you really are behind the times. Don’t you get it? They feel justified. Bees good, bats bad. Protect the life-giving bee at all costs, and they will.’

There was a queasy feeling making its way into Fred’s stomach. ‘What do you mean?’

‘I mean,’ said Nell, ‘that there are bat-killing vigilante groups going out at night. They’re netting the entrances to the roosts.’

‘What? I mean, what? They can’t do that, not in this country – they’re protected species, all of them.’

‘It’s happening, Fred. The police don’t dare to try and stop them – they’d be denounced as a bunch of bee-hating fascists. No, I’m not joking. The law is immaterial. The truth is immaterial. And it’s not just here, it’s worldwide. There are reports of fruit bats being killed in Africa.’

Fred’s head was beginning to spin. ‘Fruit bats? But… but they’re not even…’

‘Insectivores, no,’ said Nell. ‘All tarred with the same brush, I’m afraid. Bees good, bats bad.’

Fred was on his feet now. ‘But someone’s got to stand up and tell the truth! I will.’

Nell shook her head in disbelief. ‘You don’t know social media, Fred. Once everyone jumps aboard these crusades, there’s no gainsaying them. People want to be told they’re justified, not told they’re wrong. I wouldn’t be the one to stick my head above the parapet and defend the ‘bee-murdering bats’ if I were you. Not unless you want to be pilloried, threatened and have your career ruined. It’d bring discredit on this lab, too, and that wouldn’t bode well for you.’

Fred was aghast. ‘Is it really that bad?’

Nell nodded. ‘It is, Fred, it is.’

He slumped back into his seat, thought a moment, and then said, ‘Bats have been my specialisation – my whole life – I’ve studied them, lived around them, protected their colonies. I’ve worked so hard, Nell. And I know they’re no real threat to bees. What can I do if I can’t tell the truth?’

She pursed her lips, glanced at the papers spread in front of him. ‘Your funding bid – dietary habits of pipistrelles, isn’t it?’ Fred nodded, not seeing where this was leading. ‘There’s a memo going round, Fred – you’d have seen it if you ever checked your emails. There will be no funding available for upcoming bat studies unless they set out to prove that bats do eat bees. Politically unsafe to do otherwise with this social media campaign going on. So I suggest you change the emphasis on your bid if you want to keep working. Go prove that bats do eat bees.’

‘But it’s not true!’

Nell shook her head again. ‘I wish you’d stop saying that, Fred. You’ll get yourself into trouble. Besides, if you do as I suggest, you might – just might – find a way to limit the damage. Prove it’s the wrong sort of bees they’re eating or something.’

‘And if I don’t?’

‘The vigilantes are remorseless, Fred. Be prepared for a lot of bat population extinctions.’ She put away her mobile phone and turned to leave. ‘I should be prepared for that anyway,’ she said over her shoulder, and left him to contemplate his options in the grotesque new landscape of scientific study predicated on mob rule and political expediency that was opening up before him, a landscape where truth had ceased to have any importance at all.

 

Take control back from the machines – it’s good for you!

Tags

bookbinding, creativity, smart devices

Whenever I see some new ‘smart’ device advertised, I think of the blubbery, helpless humans depicted in that wonderful movie WALL-E. These people are infantilised by robots that do everything for them. It’s a sad reminder of what the future could hold for us: why do anything at all for yourself if a machine can do it better?

It’s a question I’ve been asked. Why bind your own books when a machine, courtesy of the local print-shop, could do it much faster and more accurately? Why not turn out hundreds of copies of The Herbarium instead of just the few you can make yourself? Find a wider audience for it? Make some money, maybe? Well, I might do that one day.

But it’s fair to say that going through the whole process, from the first idea for a story through to the completion of the bound book (however few there might be of them!) has taught me some wonderful lessons. And remembering to think for myself, rather than handing over to ‘experts’ – or machines – has certainly been one of them. Yes, in the early stages of learning the binding process I had the assistance of a kind friend, and one or two useful videos on YouTube – but beyond that, I figured it out for myself. I have refined and adapted the bookbinding method I learned, through numerous experiments and much head-scratching, to suit myself – to make the process a little easier/cheaper/faster. Sometimes I got it right, and sometimes I certainly didn’t. Every mistake taught me something. I even devised my own simple packaging for the books, and again, this was something I could have bought in. It was far more interesting to pull a paper bag to pieces and find out exactly how it was made so I could make my own.

Could a machine have done it all better? Sure. But handing over to a machine would have deprived me of so much – of thinking for myself and of the self-reliance that it quickly generated. Every copy of The Herbarium is an individual, and each one has taught me something: perseverance, problem-solving, inventiveness – all very good qualities to cultivate. Binding my own books makes me feel good, and capable, too – that’s why I do it. So I highly recommend doing a few more things for yourself, taking some control back from the bossy ‘smart’ machines. The results may not be quite as good, but it’ll definitely be good for you.