Novel Kicks Writing Room: Develop Your Writing Habit
Today in our writing room, I wanted to talk about how important it is to develop a writing habit.
I am very guilty of not giving myself enough of a routine and being strict about it. It can be so easy for life to get in the way; that washing needs putting in, I need to tidy. It’s been a long day and i just want to have a bath and go to bed. The list can go on and on but you get the idea. A lot of my procrastination is also fear. A whole novel seems such a big task doesn’t it?
It’s time to look at it as smaller chunks of writing.
This week, look at your current writing habit. Does your current routine allow time to write? Are you finding you don’t have as much time as you’d like and the writing is the first thing to be put to one side?
by 
Novel Kicks Fiction Friday: You’re Animated
Friday 3rd February 2017: You’re Animated.
Fiction Friday is our weekly writing prompt. The aim is to write for a minimum of five minutes and then keep going for as long as you can. Once you’ve finished, don’t edit, just post in the comments box below.
Today’s prompt: you are animated.
Make a list of all your favourite animations (or as many as you can remember.)
Pull all the aspects that interest you about each one together into one world and then plonk yourself as an animated character right in the middle of it.
Write about one of the adventures that finds you whilst there.
by Novel Kicks Writing Room: Writing To Your Various Selves.
Wednesday 2nd February 2017: writing to your various selves.
Write a letter to you future self. What would you say? Once you’ve done that, write a letter to your sixteen year old self?
Try and make the letters at least one complete side of A4.
Is there anything different between the two letters? What advice would you give to either self?
If you want, you could then repeat this exercise but write from the perspective of one or more of your characters.
by Novel Kicks Fiction Friday: Eight Sentences and Paragraphs.
Friday 27th January 2017: Eight Sentences and Paragraphs.
Fiction Friday is our weekly writing prompt. The aim is to write for a minimum of five minutes and then keep going for as long as you can. Once you’ve finished, don’t edit, just post in the comments box below.
I find the news as depressing as you’d expect, especially at the moment. That is why I try to see story ideas within it. I love looking through articles. You don’t know what is going to trigger a story.
Today, head to a news site or grab a newspaper. Pick eight different news stories and write down the eighth line from each.
Use each sentence in a story. Each one should be the start of a new paragraph. Try and figure out a way to connect all of these random sentences.
by Novel Kicks Writing Room: Starting in the Middle
Tuesday 24th January 2017: starting in the middle.
A lot of writers, including myself, get hung up on that first sentence. I have restarted the first paragraph so many times I have lost count. The ending can also be hard to finalise. It’s sometimes tricky to know where you’re going.
When you’re writing a first draft, it is hard to allow yourself to just write.
I have a first sentence and a last sentence. The exercise today is to fill in the bit in the middle.
First sentence: Come on. We have to go else or we are not going to survive.
Last sentence: I was now by myself. I would have to set out to find them alone.
I know that on the surface it seems like it is a scientific-fi novel but you don’t have to keep it that way if you don’t want to. Have fun with it. Also, try not to edit whilst writing.
by Novel Kicks Fiction Friday: Fiction Becomes Real Life.
Friday 20th January 2017: fiction becomes real life.
Fiction Friday is our weekly writing prompt. The aim is to write for a minimum of five minutes and then keep going for as long as you can. Once you’ve finished, don’t edit, just post in the comments box below.
Today’s prompt is about fiction becoming real life. Make a list of your favourite fictional characters. Now put them all together in a story. Somehow, they all end up in your living room. Write a scene involving them all. What happens? Who gets on and who doesn’t?
by Novel Kicks Writing Room: Introduce Yourself
Tuesday 17th January 2017: Introduce Yourself.
Creating characters is one of the most important things when writing a novel. A writer needs to know their characters. They need to know their likes, dislikes, what scares them or what motivates them.
The more you know your characters, the more developed they will feel or at least that is what I am finding. Today, I thought it would be fun to introduce yourself. Write a biography with you as the character. To help, I’ve included some questions below. Then you could also pick one of your characters and complete this for them. Add more questions if you wish.
Name.
Age
Date of Birth
Education.
Favourite books, music and films.
Dislikes.
by Friday 13th January 2017: A Dangerous Adventure.
Friday 13th January 2017: It’s Time To Go On A Dangerous Adventure.
Fiction Friday is our weekly writing prompt. The aim is to write for a minimum of five minutes and then keep going for as long as you can. Once you’ve finished, don’t edit, just post in the comments box below.
There is a group of five. Three boys and two girls. They find a map that claims to lead them to a vast fortune. They begin to follow it blindly. It leads them deeper underground and far away from the small town they live in.
Things are not as they seem though. One by one, something begins to happen to each of them.
Write this story. How does it end?
by Novel Kicks Writing Room: Poetry into Prose
Tuesday 10th January 2016: Poetry into Prose.
Today, I thought it would be fun to look at changing poetry into a short story.
Pick a favourite poem (although it might also be interesting to pick one you don’t like.) The theme and the content can be up to you.
Convert the poem into a short story. Write up to 2,000 words. You can change the plot around as well as the characters.
Have fun with it.
by Novel Kicks Fiction Friday: Resolutions
Friday 6th January 2016: Resolutions
Fiction Friday is our weekly writing prompt. The aim is to write for a minimum of five minutes and then keep going for as long as you can. Once you’ve finished, don’t edit, just post in the comments box below.
Today’s prompt: The new year has rolled around but it is not the usual happy event people have got to know. After the war ended, a law was made that every new year, people should make a list of things they have done wrong throughout the year and for each one, a punishment is administered.
Write about one person who goes against the law and what the consequences are.
by Novel Kicks Fiction Friday: Christmas Carol
Friday 23rd December 2016: Christmas Carol.
Fiction Friday is our weekly writing prompt. The aim is to write for a minimum of five minutes and then keep going for as long as you can. Once you’ve finished, don’t edit, just post in the comments box below.
Today’s prompt: As there are only two days to go, I couldn’t resist making the Fiction Friday Christmas themed.
We all know the story of The Christmas Carol. Scrooge, Jacob Marley, The ghost of past, present and future and the eventual redemption.
This week, update the Christmas Carol to make it modern.
Your character is not liked. He’s not a nice person. He/she shuns their family, friends and the Christmas season. Your character is greedy and uncharitable. They are visited by four ghosts. However, what if he is forced to become one of the ghosts for a while? What if he somehow gets the power to transport someone else?
by Novel Kicks Writing Room: Writing Achievements and Goals
Thursday 22nd December 2016: Writing Achievements of 2016 and Goals for 2017.
As this is the last writing group exercise of 2016, I thought it would be good to look back at your year of writing and achievements and then look ahead to the new year.
Divide the page into two. In the first column, write down all the things you’ve achieved this year. It can be anything. For example, that you managed to write every day for a week.
Once you’ve done that, in the other column, write down all of your writing goals for the coming year. Do you finally want to start your book? Write more short stories?
Write everything down. Keep it somewhere safe where you can go back and look at it when you need a boost.
by Novel Kicks Fiction Friday: Someone Is Keeping A Secret
Fiction Friday is our weekly writing prompt. The aim is to write for a minimum of five minutes and then keep going for as long as you can. Once you’ve finished, don’t edit, just post in the comments box below.
Today’s prompt: Someone is keeping a secret.
It is time for the family to get together before Christmas arrives. It doesn’t usually take long for tensions to run high as Mum and Dad and five siblings come back under one roof.
Something someone wants to keep secret is quickly revealed but who’s secret is it?
by Novel Kicks Writing Room: Beginning and The End
Tuesday 13th December 2016: Beginning and the End.
Today, think about an idea for a story. It could be one you’ve only been inspired to write today or an idea you’ve been thinking about for a while.
Make a few notes about the beginning and the end. Write a couple of hundred words each – how you want it to begin and how you want it to end.
Now set a timer for thirty minutes and make as many notes as you can about the middle. You know how it is going to end but how is the middle going to go?
by Novel Kicks Fiction Friday: Both Sides
Fiction Friday is our weekly writing prompt. The aim is to write for a minimum of five minutes and then keep going for as long as you can. Once you’ve finished, don’t edit, just post in the comments box below.
Today’s prompt: Both Sides.
Your story is going to be told from the perspective of a couple in a relationship. Write five hundred words minimum for each person. When writing from the man’s point of view, he was paid to go out with the woman in the relationship for a bet.
When writing from the woman’s perspective, she has just found out.
Tell it from both sides.
by Novel Kicks Writing Room: A Different Way
Tuesday 6th December 2016: A Different Way…
Today’s exercise requires you to think of an event/memory from your childhood. This should be one where you made a decision that affected the outcome of the event.
Write a story using this memory but you made a different decision. It ended a different way.
Did you decide to stand up to a bully? Did you not take a part in a play at school because you were scared?
How does making a different decision change it?
by Matthew Redford Talks About His Approach To Writing Short Stories
I’m pleased to welcome Matthew Redford to Novel Kicks today. His festive food related crime investigation short story is due for release by Clink Street Publishing in paperback and electronically own 6th December.
Tenacious carrot, detective inspector Willie Wortell is back to reveal the deviously delicious mind behind the crime of the festive season in this hugely entertaining, and utterly unconventional, short story.
When Mitchell the Mince Spy is horrifically murdered by being over baked in a fan oven, it falls to the Food Related Crime team to investigate this heinous act. Why was Mitchell killed? Who is the mysterious man with a long white beard and why does he carry a syringe? Why is it that the death of a mince spy smells so good?
Detective Inspector Willie Wortel, the best food sapiens police officer, once again leads his team into a series of crazy escapades. Supported by his able homo sapiens sergeant Dorothy Knox and his less able fruit officers Oranges and Lemons, they encounter
Snow White and the seven dwarf cabbages as well as having a run in with the food sapiens secret service, MI GasMark5.
With a thigh slap here, and a thigh slap there, the team know Christmas is coming as the upper classes are acting strangely – why else would there be lords a leaping, ladies dancing and maids a milking?
And if that wasn’t enough, the Government Minister for the Department of Fisheries, Agriculture and Rural Trade (DAFaRT) has only gone and given the turkeys a vote on whether they are for or against Christmas.
Let the madness begin!
Matthew has joined me today to talk about his approach to writing short stories…
When I was asked to draft an article on my approach to writing a short story, I thought this would be a doddle. I mean, after all, I have written a short story – Who Killed the Mince Spy? – which is coming out in December 2016. Well, how wrong I was.
How do I approach writing a short story? Well, that is a really interesting question and it is not one which I have thought about before and I don’t recall having been asked the question before either. And when I sat down with the iPad in front of me ready to write my answer, I realised I didn’t know where to start!
So let’s go back to basics. How do I come up with my ideas? Well, I write about food sapiens, those walking, talking food items which live and work along us all. There are some famous food sapiens such as the musicians Polenta Faith and Fizzy Pop Gillespie. And with that in mind, I think about all of the different food items and try to come up with story titles which I think are either topical, interesting or, hopefully, both.
Let’s take Christmas. Mince pies are a staple Christmas food item. Simply switch the word, pie to spy and you’ve a living, breathing food sapiens creature which you can take on a creative journey. Or in my case, straight into a fan oven where the poor little blighter is horrifically murdered.
by Novel Kicks Fiction Friday: The Call
Fiction Friday is our weekly writing prompt. The aim is to write for a minimum of five minutes and then keep going for as long as you can. Once you’ve finished, don’t edit, just post in the comments box below.
Today’s prompt: The Call.
You are trying to get to sleep. Your phone rings. It’s from an unknown number but because you’re half asleep, you answer it when you normally wouldn’t.
You answer and say ‘hello.’
There is a pause.
‘We need you,’ is the response before the caller hangs up and you are left with a dial tone.
by Novel Kicks Fiction Friday: Interrogation Room
Fiction Friday is our weekly writing prompt. The aim is to write for a minimum of five minutes and then keep going for as long as you can. Once you’ve finished, don’t edit, just post in the comments box below.
Today’s prompt: Interrogation.
You are in a police interrogation room. You can decide whether you want to write from the point of view of the accused or the accuser.
Decide what the crime has been. Serious or petty?
Write a conversation between the accused and accuser but try not to disclose what crime has been committed.
by Novel Kicks Fiction Friday: Space Race
Fiction Friday is our weekly writing prompt. The aim is to write for a minimum of five minutes and then keep going for as long as you can. Once you’ve finished, don’t edit, just post in the comments box below.
Today’s prompt is about a space race.
In the eleventh hour before a big race across space, you are fired from the team. On the morning of the race, you’re hired by the rival team. Your presence does not go down well with your former teammates. The stakes are high and the prize is life changing. The race is about to begin. On your marks, get set….
What happens in this race? Does anything underhand happen?
by Novel Kicks Writing Room: Sitting and Listening
Tuesday 25th October 2016: Sitting and Listening.
For today’s prompt, it’s about getting out and about and listening.
When you have a few spare moments, go and take a bus journey or sit in a coffee shop. In fact, any busy area will do.
Try to make notes of what people are talking about. How are they speaking? How do they say things? Try to take as many notes of conversation snippets as you can (but not making obvious you are spying on people.)
Once you’ve done that, make up a story based around some of the dialogue you’ve picked up.
by Novel Kicks Fiction Friday: Very Short Story
Fiction Friday is our weekly writing prompt. The aim is to write for a minimum of five minutes and then keep going for as long as you can. Once you’ve finished, don’t edit, just post in the comments box below.
Today’s prompt is not a long story.
Write a short story in a hundred words or less. Subject, characters and setting is your choice but it has to be told in a hundred words or less. If you need some inspiration, there are some prompts below.
Two members of the public are stuck in a lift with a celebrity.
The door at the end of a very dark corridor suddenly opens.
For one hour, you find you can suddenly see and talk to that one person you miss.
by Novel Kicks Writing Room: Observation
Tuesday 18th October 2016: Observation.
Choose any colour. You can pick your favourite but it could be interesting to pick one you don’t like so much?
Now, either walk around your home, outside or take a break around your place of work for up to fifteen minutes. How many times have you seen that colour? Takes notes as you go around if you like.
Once you’re done, write about what you saw in as much detail as you can.
by Novel Kicks Writing Room: Backwards Coming Forward.
Wednesday 5th October 2016: Backwards Coming Forward.
Today’s writing prompt is about writing and starting at the end. Go through your ideas journal and pick a story that sparks inspiration.
Now, begin writing it but start at the end and work your way back. Start with the last line and end with your first line.
Then, once you’ve finished, read it forward.
If you need a little inspiration, try these….
A clown who ends up with his own circus but starts out as a lawyer.
A family who end up living on another planet because they’ve had to abandon their own.
by Novel Kicks Fiction Friday: Wedding Lottery
Fiction Friday is our weekly writing prompt. The aim is to write for a minimum of five minutes and then keep going for as long as you can. Once you’ve finished, don’t edit, just post in the comments box below.
Today’s prompt involves a wedding lottery.
A system is introduced that means marriage partners are chosen by a lottery.
You don’t meet your spouse to be until the day of the wedding.
Write about one wedding. What happens? What conflict emerges?
by Novel Kicks Writing Room: Looking Ahead
Tuesday 27th September 2016: Future Predictions
Today’s Prompt is looking into the future of your characters.
Make a list of your main characters in a work in progress or favourite novel.
Pick a year in the future (make it at least thirty years.)
Write about what the world would be like?
What will your characters be like?
What would they be doing?
Is it a future where technology has expanded even more? Has everything gone back to basics? Dystopian? Expanded to other planets?
by Novel Kicks Fiction Friday: Planets Meeting
Fiction Friday is our weekly writing prompt. The aim is to write for a minimum of five minutes and then keep going for as long as you can. Once you’ve finished, don’t edit, just post in the comments box below.
Today’s prompt is about the planets around us.
The planets are all getting together for their annual solar system conference. What they talk about and where they meet is up to you.
However, the only rules…. Venus likes Mercury. Jupiter is grumpy and Neptune doesn’t like Earth (is jealous of earth,) so they can’t sit next to one another.
by Writing Room: Seeing Is Not Always Believing
Tuesday 20th September 2016.
Today’s prompt: Seeing is not always believing.
Senses are obviously very important. Visual is what we most rely on.
For today’s exercise, describe a place of importance but only use smell, hearing, touch or taste.
Anything but visual descriptions.
by Novel Kicks Fiction Friday: Woods For The Trees
Fiction Friday is our weekly writing prompt. The aim is to write for a minimum of five minutes and then keep going for as long as you can. Once you’ve finished, don’t edit, just post in the comments box below.
Today’s Prompt: Woods for the trees.
What does the picture inspire?
If you need further inspiration, how about this… There are two characters – one male and one female and they are just about to enter the woods. It is up to you whether this man and woman get on and why they are going into the woods. It is also up to you what happens once they go into the woods.
by Novel Kicks Writing Room: Setting
Tuesday 13th September 2016: Setting.
For today’s writing exercise, we’re going to be looking at setting.
Choose a place that you know well. Place your work in progress or an idea you’re thinking about developing into this setting.
Now think of an event that began up to a month before the beginning of your story.
Then, by only describing the place/setting reveal as much as you can about the story and the characters.
by Novel Kicks Writing Room: Coming Home
Tuesday 6th September 2016: Coming Home
Write a story about a man named Max. He is twenty-six years old. He’s just returned home after a ten year absence. He’s returned for his mother’s funeral.
What is the reaction of the people he returns to? Why has he not been back for so long? What made him leave home at sixteen?
Write in the first person and up to two thousand words.
What if it was a twenty-six year old girl named Rachel? How would the story be different?
by Novel Kicks Writing Room: Titles and Dedications
Novel Kicks Writing Room: Tuesday 30th August 2016.
Today’s prompt is a little different.
Today, jot down ten potential book titles for a current or future work in progress. Once you have ten, pick the one you think is most suitable.
Also write your acknowledgements page and dedication for the novel you’re working on or just about to start.
Once you’ve done that, pick a title and keep that, the acknowledgements and dedication somewhere nearby for when you need a boost and or inspiration.
You can do this!
by Novel Kicks Fiction Friday: A Villain With A Happy Ending?
Fiction Friday is our weekly writing prompt. The aim is to write for a minimum of five minutes and then keep going for as long as you can. Once you’ve finished, don’t edit, just post in the comments box below.
Today’s Prompt: A Villain with a Happy Ending.
It’s always good to see things from another point of view. What is the villain in fairy tales got their happy ending? What if they are not evil but been misunderstood. Rewrite a fairy tale from the villains point of view.
What is going on with the evil stepmother? Is she evil or is Cinderella not as nice as she seems? What about the ugly step sisters? What if Gaston told his story? The witch in Hansel and Gretel? How different would the stories be if the villains got the happy ending?
by Novel Kicks Writing Room: Childhood Stories
Tuesday 23rd August 2016: Childhood Stories.
Think about a story you used to be told when you were little about something that happened in your parents or grandparents childhood.
Write down as much information as you can remember.
Now take that incident and write about it in the first person and present tense. Who was there? What happened?
by Novel Kicks Fiction Friday: Mythical Creatures
Fiction Friday is our weekly writing prompt. The aim is to write for a minimum of five minutes and then keep going for as long as you can. Once you’ve finished, don’t edit, just post in the comments box below.
Today’s Prompt: Mythical Creatures.
There is a meeting today. The attendees are a dragon, a fairy, a mermaid, a unicorn and bigfoot. They are all meeting up for their weekly catch up over a drink.
Write about their evening. What would they talk about? Do they get on well? What would their day have been like?
Write up to 1,700 words.
by Writing Room: Magazine Roulette
Tuesday 16th August 2016: Magazines Roulette.
For today’s prompt, we’re taking inspiration from magazines.
Try and gather up as many magazines as you can.
Cut out anything that catches your eye; pictures, words, phrases. (If you have no magazines, you could always use what is available online and write down any ideas on small bits of paper.)
Put them all into a bowl. Pick out two or three and write a short story based on each.
Don’t write more than three hundred words per story.
by Novel Kicks Fiction Friday: A Different Fate?
Fiction Friday is our weekly writing prompt. The aim is to write for a minimum of five minutes and then keep going for as long as you can. Once you’ve finished, don’t edit, just post in the comments box below.
I adore reading. I love getting to the stage where I can see where the character has ended up. However, I know I will sometimes read a book and wonder what would have happened had the story gone the way I thought it was going to go and didn’t.
Think about one of the books you’ve read where the ending didn’t finish the way you wanted.
Rework it the way you wanted it to play out rather than how it ended.
by Novel Kicks Fiction Friday: String a Sentence Together
Fiction Friday is our weekly writing prompt. The aim is to write for a minimum of five minutes and then keep going for as long as you can. Once you’ve finished, don’t edit, just post in the comments box below.
Today’s Prompt: String a Sentence Together…
For today’s prompt, use the following three sentences in a story.
‘The most beautiful smile I ever saw.’
‘Emma found something buried in the garden.’
‘Finally, the key gave way.’
by Novel Kicks Writing Room: Opposing Characters Writing Exercise
Tuesday 2nd August 2016: Opposing Characters.
Today is about creating a brand new character. To do this, use people you know.
Create a character that is based on the personality traits of someone that means a lot to you but has the physical attributes of someone you don’t like.
You could also reverse it…. the physical traits of someone you love but the personality of someone you’re not so keen on.
by Novel Kicks Fiction Friday: Exam Time
Fiction Friday is our weekly writing prompt. The aim is to write for a minimum of five minutes and then keep going for as long as you can. Once you’ve finished, don’t edit, just post in the comments box below.
Today’s Prompt: Exam Time
You are one of five candidates for a job. You’re lead to a room where you are told you need to sit an exam. The first person to finish gets the job. You are not allowed to take anything with you. There are five desks, five exam papers but only one pen…
by Novel Kicks Fiction Friday: Super Sibling Rivalry
Fiction Friday is our weekly writing prompt. The aim is to write for a minimum of five minutes and then keep going for as long as you can. Once you’ve finished, don’t edit, just post in the comments box below.
Today’s prompt: It’s Christmas Day. Your character is a superhero and has gone home to see the family for the day.
Their sibling is also there. This sibling happens to be an evil supervillain. Write about what happens over dinner.
by Writing Room: Musical Inspiration
Wednesday 20th July 2016: Musical Inspiration.
Turn on the radio and listen to the next three songs that come on.
Whilst listening, take down as much as you can about the themes of the songs, whether they tell a story and what you think about when you listen to them?
Also think about the subject of the song. For example, if it’s a love song, what about the person being sung about?
Use your notes to begin a short story.
by Novel Kicks Fiction Friday: Mirror Mirror…
Fiction Friday is our weekly writing prompt. The aim is to write for a minimum of five minutes and then keep going for as long as you can. Once you’ve finished, don’t edit, just post in the comments box below.
Today’s prompt:
Your mirror begins to talk to you and tells you that you’re the fairest of them all. You believe it. It also says that it can grant wishes. You get a wish every day. All you have to do is say the words ‘mirror mirror on the wall who is the fairest of them all?’
All is going well to begin with but then….
by Writing Room: Introducing Something Unexpected
Tuesday 12th July 2016:
Today’s writing group exercise is about introducing something unexpected.
Take something you’re working on at the moment. Make a copy of it (one that you can discard after.)
Now, using that copy, pick a major point in the story and introduce something unexpected into it. If it’s a serious subject, introduce something crazy like a talking animal circus or if it’s a lighthearted plot, introduce something serious into it. What if a unicorn suddenly popped up in a history lesson where your character has just assured the students that unicorns don’t exist?
How do your characters react to the change?
by Blog Tour: Whyte Lies by KC Acton – Writing Process and Review
I’m pleased to be welcoming KC Acton to Novel Kicks today and the blog tour for her novel, Whyte Lies. This is the first novel in the Whyte Lies series and introduces us to DCI Faith Whyte.
About Whyte Lies:
The perfect family? Or the perfect lie? Gunshots ring out on the sweltering summer air, shattering the peaceful silence. The stench of exhaust fumes and burning rubber fill the humid breeze as the car’s wheels spin against the embankment.
In front of the car, a girl lies hunched, her blonde hair stained red. Her light summer dress is torn. She’s missing a sandal. Part of her wishes she were dead. Inside the car, the girl’s father is slumped over the steering wheel. Behind him, the girl’s mother lies motionless.
The forest is eerily quiet, silenced by the violence, while the shadows of the trees protect the carnage. Crime and justice are Detective Faith Whyte’s business. Murder is her speciality. Faith thinks she has seen it all, until she investigates the brutal killing of a family in Killarney National Park. However, the killer is closer than she thinks, and Faith must open her eyes before someone else becomes the victim of a dark and deadly mind.
Faith has spent a lifetime running, but the past is about to catch up with her. Now, she must surrender to the present and trust her instincts more than ever. What happens when the present collides with the secrets of the past?
I’ve reviewed the book below but first, KC Acton talks us through her writing process and what she thinks makes a good thriller…
I’ve just published my first book, Whyte Lies, and am almost finished the first draft of my second book, Whyte Heat, so I suppose I’m still experimenting with my writing process. I try to focus on getting a certain number of words written per day, for me that’s usually around 2,000 words. I tend to write better in the late morning because it takes a while for my brain to get going. No matter how much sleep I get, I usually wake up feeling like I’ve been smacked in the face with a frying pain. Needless to say, I am not a morning person! I usually can’t manage much more than a few muttered words until I’ve downed my second coffee–the stronger, the better.
by Writing Room: Time Line
Tuesday 5th July: Time Line.
Write out a time line of your current WIP. If you can, write each major event on post-its so they can be easily moved around. If you’re a stationary nut then this exercise is a good excuse to go out and buy all different colour post-its.
If you have multiple characters and time lines, use different colours.
Once you’ve done this, put them all out in a line and study it. Does anything need to be moved around, taken out, replaced with something else?
Does anything need to be added or extended on? You can do this with a favourite novel if you’re currently not working on anything.
by Novel Kicks Fiction Friday: Alien Question Time
Fiction Friday is our weekly writing prompt. The aim is to write for a minimum of five minutes and then keep going for as long as you can. Once you’ve finished, don’t edit, just post in the comments box below.
An alien invites you to dinner. You are told you can ask him/her five questions. Using dialogue, create those questions and then get the alien to answer them. What is the aliens reaction to your questions? Is the alien friendly?
by Novel Kicks Writing Room: Write Down The Conversation
Tuesday 28th June 2016: Write Down The Conversation.
Today’s prompt..
Create two characters. One wants to do something and the other one doesn’t. Each decision has consequences.
Each person believes that they have the winning argument.
Write an exchange between these two people showing the conflict and allowing each to get their argument across.
Don’t use anything but dialogue.
Do they resolve things?
Try to write at least five hundred words.
by Novel Kicks Fiction Friday: Fill in the Gaps
Fiction Friday is our weekly writing prompt. The aim is to write for a minimum of five minutes and then keep going for as long as you can. Once you’ve finished, don’t edit, just post in the comments box below.
Today’s Prompt: Fill in the Gaps:
Fill in the gaps in this story. There should be five words (of any length) between each of them and it has to make sense.
….. ….. ….. ….. ….. snowfall ….. ….. ….. ….. …..elephant ….. ….. ….. ….. ….. double ….. ….. ….. ….. ….. massive ….. ….. ….. …… ….. again ….. ….. ….. ….. ….. clown ….. …… …… …… ….. disagreed ….. ….. ….. ….. ….. health ….. ….. ….. ….. ….. travel ….. ….. ….. ….. ….. season.
by Writing Room: One and Then The Other…
Tuesday 21st June 2016:
Today’s prompt – One and Then The Other…
Find a news article that catches your eye. This news article needs to involve more than one person. It can be from a newspaper or an online site.
Write 500-700 words about the incident from someone involved. Whether you write in the first or third person is up to you.
Once you’ve done that, write 500 – 700 words again but from the point of view of another person mentioned in the article.
Re-read both of the pieces you’ve written. Are there any differences or similarities?
If you like, you could now merge them together with dialogue between the two.
by Novel Kicks Fiction Friday: Turn To Your Right…
Fiction Friday is our weekly writing prompt. The aim is to write for a minimum of five minutes and then keep going for as long as you can. Once you’ve finished, don’t edit, just post in the comments box below.
Today’s Prompt: Turn to the Right.
Write about the thing you see when you turn immediately to the right. Write down as much detail as you can.
Is it a person or an object? What happens if this object suddenly begins to start moving by itself?
Give this object an actual name.
by Writing Room: Getting Down To Detail
Tuesday 14th June 2016: Getting Down To Detail.
Today’s exercise: Write about five hundred words about yourself, a friend or someone you don’t like. It can also be about a character in progress. Write about physical appearance, likes, dislikes, hobbies etc.
If you can, once you’re done, try to then leave your writing for twenty-four hours.
Once you’ve returned to it, re-read it. Edit it down. Cut it in half to two hundred and fifty words. Only leave in what is necessary.
by Novel Kicks Fiction Friday: Looking at Things From a Different Angle.
Fiction Friday is our weekly writing prompt. The aim is to write for a minimum of five minutes and then keep going for as long as you can. Once you’ve finished, don’t edit, just post in the comments box below.
Today’s prompt: Pick a situation from real life experience or from somewhere online like a news article or maybe take a section of your favourite story.
Look at the story from a different angle. Write it as though something in the story happened differently. For example, what if it were the white rabbit just sat there reading and minding his own business outside his burrow in Wonderland and Alice walks by. The rabbit then follows her into our world. What if the villain is really the good guy and vice versa?
by Novel Kicks Writing Room: You’re The Boss.
Tuesday 7th June 2016: You’re the boss.
Today’s prompt: Write about a day in your life if you were running a country. What would you do if you were in charge for a day?
Write from 8am until 23.59pm. Write in the first person.
Include as much as you can about your surroundings, how you feel, who you work with and what you have to deal with.
What kind of leader are you? Continue reading
by Writing Room: Pictures Say a Thousand Words
Wednesday 30th March 2016.
Today’s prompt is about using pictures. Look through the internet (Pinterest and Tumblr are good for images.) Find pictures that inspire or interest you.
Taking each one in turn, note down what you like or don’t like so much about the image. What drew you to it and whether it inspires anything.
Does anything inspire a story? Using the image that you’re drawn to or inspires you the most, begin a short story.
by Novel Kicks Fiction Friday: Animals
Fiction Friday is our weekly writing prompt. The aim is to write for a minimum of five minutes and then keep going for as long as you can. Once you’ve finished, don’t edit, just post in the comments box below.
Today’s prompt is about animals.
Your characters all share a house. They don’t always get on but are forced to interact. Your characters are a cat, a dog, a hamster and a snake. Your first line is ‘I can’t live with him anymore.’
by Writing Room: Starting at the Close
Tuesday 22nd March 2016.
Today’s prompt is all about starting at the close.
Take your current work in progress or an idea to which you have an idea of a beginning, middle and ending.
Pick a section or write a small section. Rewrite it or start it from the end and work your way backwards.
As always, if you’d like to share your work, put it in the comments section below.
by Writing Room: Freestyle
Tuesday 15th March 2016: Freestyle.
It’s all about just letting yourself write today. Set a timer for ten minutes.
Using the word ‘block’ as inspiration, write solidly for ten minutes. Don’t think, just write.
It’s up to you whether you read what you’ve written once you’re done.
How did that go?
by Novel Kicks Fiction Friday: Stranger Than Fiction
Friday 11th March 2016: Stranger Than Fiction
Fiction Friday is our weekly writing prompt. The aim is to write for a minimum of five minutes and then keep going for as long as you can. Once you’ve finished, don’t edit, just post in the comments box below.
Today’s Prompt: Pick a book you’ve recently read. It doesn’t have to be one that you liked. The plot of this book has suddenly become your character’s reality. What is your character like, how do they react and what happens to them?
by Writing Room: Working on Plot
Tuesday 8th March 2016: Working on Plot.
For today’s writing room, write down eight major plot points on your current work in progress, (you can use a published novel if you prefer,) onto individual cards and lay them in the current order.
Once you’ve put them in order, spend five minutes moving them around and putting them in different orders.
Has this improved the plot sequence of your novel/story? Is there anything you need to add or take away?
by Book Club
