WRITE HERE
Writing Prompts: Take a Mini-Masterclass
This week’s writing prompts are creativity tips from craft masters
Welcome back, Write Here crew! Welcome, new Write Here creators who made a New Year’s resolution to write more in 2022! (Just a guess.) For this week’s prompts, I did something a little different than usual. I selected some writing exercise ideas from a few great authors who have shared craft advice here on Medium.
Take a look, publish your responses to these prompts on Medium, and tag them #Writehere so we can all find each others’ work on the Write Here page.
THIS WEEK’S PROMPTS
Be a Copycat
Bestselling author and New Yorker staff writer Susan Orlean once wrote on Medium that literally typing out favorite passages written by your favorite author is a great way to absorb their style. Try this, and see if you agree. Then, write out a new piece trying to imitate this author’s style — think about their word choices, sentence lengths, how much detail they do or don’t include. (An important part of this exercise is to clearly note who you are imitating on your post! There’s educational homage and then there’s plagiarism…obviously we’re going for educational homage here.)
Sing a Song
Novelist and screenwriter Michael Chabon writes on Medium about how his work has been inspired by song lyrics as much as any other literary form. (The whole piece is well worth reading, full of interesting craft lessons learned from studying rock and pop songs.) For this prompt, take a favorite line from a song, and use it (with attribution) as the first line for your piece. This can be a work of fiction, a meditation on what this song means to you — or wherever your mind takes you.
Smell Your Way In
This one comes from Alexander Chee, award-winning novelist and essayist. Chee writes on Medium: “you may tell yourself you don’t remember what you felt about being on a swim team in high school but then you remember the smell of the chlorine at morning practice, the way the smell of it seemed to singe the hair on your nose as you walked beside the pool, and then turned to walk down the boys locker room hallway under the florescent lights, the hissing sound of the showers getting louder as you approach, the turn into the tiled main room and your team mates looking at you or not looking at you, their locker doors open, their winter coats hanging on them, sitting or standing near the wooden benches in front of each row of lockers.”
Now you try it! Recall a smell that is meaningful to you and/or reminds you of something specific. Write about it.
QUESTIONS ABOUT WRITE HERE?
Leave them in the responses and we will try to address them all. Don’t forget to check back here every Monday for new prompts and tips.
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