Novel Kicks Fiction Friday: Strange Shoes
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: In a strange pair of shoes…
You buy a pair of shoes from a charity shop. They look new and like they’ve never been worn.
However, when you wear them, you assume the identity traits of the person who owned them before.
Write about an incident or event that happens.
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Novel Kicks Fiction Friday: One Hundred
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 one hundred word story.
Choosing one of the prompts below, write a 100 word story.
September, 1960.
Iceland
A train during a long haul journey.
A car journey with the person you most dislike.
by Novel Kicks Writing Room – Firsts
Separating real life and fiction.
Think of a first in your life. A first kiss, the first holiday, the first argument you had, anything.
Write five hundred words with just facts about the incident. What happened, who was there and the outcome.
Now write it from the point of view of someone else. One of your characters? Add fictional elements this time. Also, how does this new person react to this situation? Any difference?
Like before, write about five hundred words.
by Novel Kicks Fiction Friday: The Things They’ve Seen
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: conversation about the things they’ve seen.
Your two characters work in an airport baggage inspection office. A few mysterious things have arrived including something that belongs to a celebrity.
by Novel Kicks Fiction Friday: Changing The Past
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 character is walking along and falls, hitting their head.
When they regain consciousness, it doesn’t take long to realise something is off. They’ve gone back in time and have revisited a major event in their life.
It could be only one major event or they could bounce around different times and events. Do they eventually make it back to their current time?
by Blog Tour: Come a Little Closer Writing Challenge
Come a Little Closer is the new DCI Tom Douglas novel from the fabulous Rachel Abbott and was released by Black Dot Publishing Ltd on 13 February 2018. Today, as part of her blog tour, I have been invited to take part in a writing challenge.
They will be coming soon. They come every night.
Snow is falling softly as a young woman takes her last breath.
Fifteen miles away, two women sit silently in a dark kitchen. They don’t speak, because there is nothing left to be said.
Another woman boards a plane to escape the man who is trying to steal her life. But she will have to return, sooner or later.
These strangers have one thing in common. They each made one bad choice – and now they have no choices left. Soon they won’t be strangers, they’ll be family…
When DCI Tom Douglas is called to the cold, lonely scene of a suspicious death, he is baffled. Who is she? Where did she come from? How did she get there? How many more must die?
Who is controlling them, and how can they be stopped?
Rachel provided the following writing prompt. The challenge was to finish the story. There were also four things we had to include.
Gemma had been afraid of the dark for as long as she could remember. As a child, she had blamed the cold, ancient house they had lived in – its endless corridors had too many closed doors for people to hide behind, too many secrets concealed in the shadows. But now there was no excuse. Her flat was modern, open, with huge windows.
It made no difference, though. Each night of the long winter months as she stood outside the block, she imagined all the doors she would have to pass before she reached her own, wondering if the lights in the hallway would be working, or whether they would flicker and go out, leaving her blind in the inky black void. Alone with her fear.
Perhaps she had always known that this day would come. She took a deep breath and stepped into the silent entrance, her heels tapping out a warning that she was coming on the polished concrete floor of the long corridor.
Odd snippets of TV shows and murmurs of conversation bled through as she walked down the dimly lit hallway past the identical black doors belonging to her neighbours. Gemma felt a tinge of envy toward the people inside who were getting the chance to live the mundane. Amy in number twenty-three will be putting her baby to bed. Mr Kennedy in number thirty will be sitting down in front of the news about now, a glass of sweet sherry clasped in his hand.
by Novel Kicks Fiction Friday: Groundhog Day
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.
As today is 2nd February and is Groundhog Day, today’s prompt is inspired by that.
Your character doesn’t have a very good day. He breaks up with his wife, looses his job and his pet runs away. When he wakes up on what he thinks is the following morning, he finds that there are things which are familiar to him. This is when he starts to re-live the same day but not all the people he interacts with are the same.
What happens on the first and second repeated day?
by Novel Kicks Writing Room: What about Bob?
It’s story time today.
Your character is called Bob. He likes routine. He likes order and he doesn’t like the unexpected. Bob is the kind of guy who counts his steps on the way to the bus stop and then to his office. He leaves work and counts. He has dinner at the same time every day.
Everything in his life is structured and organised down to the last detail.
One day, he is diverted due to a road closure. He then gets lost. He has not been in this part of town before.
What happens to Bob? You could even put him in a scenario where he walks into a different time or teleports to another place.
Minimum of five hundred words. Have fun with this.
by Novel Kicks Fiction Friday: Everything Comes With A Price
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 getting what you want but at what cost?
You wake up to find that you are the smartest person in the world. The knowledge you now have will allow you to get everything that you want. Fame, money, power. However, nothing is free. When someone gets luck, someone isn’t so lucky. Write from both perspectives with the two characters meeting up at the end.
by Novel Kicks Writing Room: Photo Inspiration
Images can conjure up a lot of inspiration.
Google all of the following words – forest, desert, highlands and ocean.
Pick one of the images that appears; the one that stands out the most. Write a story around it. What has it inspired? What has it made you think about?
Don’t edit, just imagine yourself within the picture.
Feel free to put two of the images together if you like.
by Novel Kicks Writing Room: Character Lists
This week, I want to look once again at creating characters.
I have featured a few ways of getting to know your character and today, I wanted to explore that further.
Using the prompts below, make lists as though you were your character. Do it for as many of your current characters as you like.
1. Pet Hates
2. What things worry you?
3. Your idea of a perfect day?
4. What are your wishes?
5. What are some of your favourite books?
6. What’s your favourite word?
7. What would you grab from a burning house?
8. What things would you do if you won the lottery?
9. What were your childhood dreams?
10. What things are you most afraid of?
by Novel Kicks Fiction Friday: 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 is about resolutions.
Your character starts the new year with no relationship and no job. They decide to make a list of new year resolutions and one by one, tick them off the list throughout the year.
Pick one of the resolutions and put your character in the situation where they are trying to complete it. Do they? What happens and what conflict arises?
by Novel Kicks Fiction Friday: Misdirected Festive Post
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 has a Christmas theme.
You wake up one morning to a mountain of post. Some of the post that was meant for Father Christmas at the North Pole has somehow been misdirected to your house. Your mission is to return the post to its rightful recipient. The trouble is, you don’t have a clue where to begin.
Continue the story.
by Novel Kicks Writing Room: Having Faith Whilst Writing
Part of the battle when writing is having faith in yourself.
The internal editor can be a very harsh critic. I know I am my own worst enemy when it comes to my own writing.
Whilst doing National Novel Writing Month this year, I struggled enormously to keep that pest of a nagging voice at bay long enough to get some words typed.
The advice many writers have given when doing interviews for this blog is to have faith and to not get too obsessed with making the first draft perfect.
One exercise I have found to be helpful when I’ve had trouble telling the editor in my head to kindly shut the hell up, is to open a new word document or find a blank piece of paper and just write.
However, the twist is that I close my eyes. It’s quite a fun thing to do.
by Novel Kicks Fiction Friday: An Empty Road
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 scene is a truck. It’s nighttime and apart from the truck, the road is deserted.
Your character can be of your own choosing. There is a gun and a rusty nail on the passenger seat.
The date is 8th December 1985….
Continue the story.
by Novel Kicks Writing Room: Structure and The Eight Point Arc
The structure of your novel is one of the most important things in novel writing.
It’s something I have been really trying to focus on whilst trying to write my first book.
The following is what is called the ‘eight point arc.’ I came across it in ‘Writing a Novel and Getting it Published’ by Nigel Watts. I’ve found this structure suggestion incredibly helpful and I feel it’s worth going though the following list and applying your current work in progress.
Stasis – this is the ‘every day’ in which your story is set. For example, Kat in District Twelve at the beginning of the Hunger Games or Harry Potter in Privet Drive. What is this in your book?
Trigger – this is the thing that happens that kick starts events for your character. This may be something that is beyond the control of your character.
The Quest – this could be something bad for the main character like breaking up with a spouse, loosing a job or a loved one or it could be winning the lottery.
Surprise – this is the obstacles to overcome; the conflicts and the hard choices. It could also include pleasant events but predictable should try to be avoided.
Critical Choice – This is where the character has to make a choice and we see what they are made of. These choices are often hard to make and overcome.
by Novel Kicks Fiction Friday: Over A Cliff
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 character finds himself/herself at the top of a cliff.
Below, there is a waterfall that is both beautiful and very noisy.
Your character is trying to hear what a friend (who is standing nearby) is saying but nothing can be heard over the crashing of the water.
Your character is holding something valuable. It is not yet known what the object is or how your character ended up on the edge.
Continue the story.
by Novel Kicks Writing Room: A Fifteen Step Plan
This time next week, many of us will be getting ready for National Novel Writing Month. It’s a big month in the world of writing and I for one can’t wait to get started.
At this point, we are all thinking about what we’re going to write. If you are planning on taking part, I have found that having a chapter plan really helps keep me going especially during week two and three where momentum can falter.
Whether you’re a pantster or not, in my experience in previous years, some sort of plan is a must.
Using the idea you’re using for NaNoWriMo (or any idea you have if you’re not planning on NaNo in November,) write a plan.
by Novel Kicks Writing Room: More Free Writing
Free writing can produce many ideas for fictional stories. If you’re familiar with the concept of morning pages then you will know that this is a valuable source of inspiration.
The writing exercise for the writing group this week is to try and free write over the next seven days for a minimum of five minutes a day or three pages of A4.
I’ve included a one word prompt list below if you wish to use them. Let yourself write without judgement or editing.
When you develop something in your free writing that interests you, just make a note of it.
Most important of all…. have fun.
Prompts:
Day one: Treasure
Day two: Orange
Day three: Mighty
Day four: Injury
Day five: Travel
by Novel Kicks Fiction Friday: Around The World
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… Around the World.
Your character has some sort of life changing event (a break up, a near death experience. It’s up to you.) They decide to make a list of all the things they’ve wanted to do but never had the courage to.
The list includes places they’ve wanted to visit and experiences they’ve always wanted to take part in. Their journey will take them around the world. The experiences could include sky diving, joining a theatre group. Anything.
In order to pick what is done next, they pick six things out of a hat and use a die to choose what comes next. The only rule is that a deadline has been set.
Where will the adventure take them? Use this to write one place and experience they take part in.
by Novel Kicks Fiction Friday: In-Between
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 character dies suddenly and ends up in a place between heaven and hell.
In order to be processed properly, they have to go through a series of tests to see whether they qualify to go up to heaven.
If they pass, they get to spend eternity in happiness. If they fail, they go to the other place.
Your character has just arrived for processing.
by Novel Kicks Writing Room: Knowing Your Market
I am a big reader. When asking published authors for advice, I think the majority of them have said that reading is one of the most important things a writer can do.
Also, knowing your market is always advantageous when deciding what genre to write in – knowing what works and the elements you need to write the best novel that you can.
That is what I thought we could look at today; Learning what is good or bad.
Pick ten books from the genre in which you want to write.
Read the blurbs and make a small two sentence summary about what it’s about.
What is it about these books that appeal to you?
What does not appeal about them?
by Novel Kicks Fiction Friday: A Forced Reality
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 picked at random to take part in a reality TV show that will be shown across the whole of the nation.
If you refuse, you will be put on trial and face a possible death sentence so you don’t have much choice but to take part.
You have to get past so many rounds and be the only one standing to win. Write a scene at a point in this story – the part that has appeals to you.
by Novel Kicks Writing Room: Visualising Your Novel
Visualising your novel as a movie.
As I begin to put my first novel together, I am increasingly finding that sitting and visualising a scene in the book like a movie helps in describing the scene.
Pick a bit of your work in progress or a favourite passage from a book and not only tell it from someone else’s point of view within the scene but write it like a script for a film.
Visualise the setting, the weather, which characters are there. What they look like, what they are wearing. What are the characters talking about?
Try to get over as much information and detail as possible in your dialogue.
by Novel Kicks Fiction Friday: Haunted Accusations
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: Haunted Accusations.
The scene is a courthouse. The weather outside is brisk and it threatens to rain. A crowd of people have gathered outside all waiting impatiently for the result.
Inside the courtroom, the happy go lucky guy sits as he waits for his trial to begin. He’s there because of a supposedly haunted object which he says carried out the crime he is being accused of.
Write this story.
by Novel Kicks Writing Room: A Character Bucket List
If your character was told they only had a small amount of time left, what would they do with the time?
The concept of the bucket list is well-known. There will be things you’ve thought about doing whilst you still have time. I have a list.
What would your character have on their bucket list? Travel to the Great Wall of China? Be the star in the circus? Want to travel to the moon?
With no financial or practical restrictions, create a bucket list for the protagonist and antagonist in a work in progress. Are they similar? Do they differ greatly? Write two short stories where each of your character picks something off their list.
by Novel Kicks Fiction Friday: Look, You’re a Superhero
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 We Could Be Superheroes.
When given some medication after giving blood, you develop a superpower. This superpower is not an ordinary super power. It is very easy for it to get misunderstood.
When you first discover you have this power, you’re in a public place. Write a story about what happens from a first person point of view.
by Novel Kicks Writing Room: Changing Point of View
For today’s prompt, we are looking at Point of View in novels.
This is an aspect of novel-writing I am struggling with as I attempt to write my first book. When talking to other authors, some find it easier to write in the first person, saying that it allows them to become more immersed in their character’s lives.
Others say they prefer to write in the third person and the general advice is that this is the recommended POV for first time writers.
For today’s exercise, take a book from your book shelf and open it to any page.
Whatever the current point of view of the page, re-write it from the other point of view (if it’s in first person, make it third. If it’s in third, make it first.)
How did you find this exercise?
by Novel Kicks Fiction Friday: An Icy Reunion
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 an icy reunion.
Four people arrive at an isolated beach house. They all seem surprised that the others are there as each couple thought they would be alone.
They have all met before. There are two women and two men. However, they have not always seen eye to eye.
They’ve not seen one another in a long time. Write about the day/evening they have. What kept them apart and why for so long?
by Novel Kicks Writing Room: Using Photos For Inspiration
This week, we are going to look again at characters you could potentially include in a novel.
Find a photo (an old family one or if it’s easier, one from the internet. There needs to be at least three people in it.)
Look at each individual person, list the following about them;
Ten characteristics.
Five hobbies.
Five likes and dislikes.
Ten things that they would own.
Do any of these people have similarities with any of the characters you are trying to develop?
Add anything to your notes that might be relevant.
by Novel Kicks Writing Room: Secondary Character Development
In today’s Writing Room, the focus is on character.
Pick a secondary character from your work in progress
Write down five things that have happened in their lives that have been significant. Be as specific as you can. Once you’re done, expand on the event that you are most drawn to. You can use a character in your favourite book if you’d prefer. When expanding on this event, also note down how this has impacted on your plot.
For example, in my work in progress, there is a character named Maggie. She’s the mother of my main character, Carrie.
Significant event – husband left her with two children.
by Novel Kicks Fiction Friday: Being The Smartest Person in the 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 is about getting what you want and the consequences.
You wake up to find that you are the smartest person in the world which will allow you to get everything that you want. Fame, money, power. However, nothing is free. When someone gets luck, someone isn’t so lucky. Write from both perspectives with the two characters meeting up at the end.
by Writing Room: Write Every Day For a Week.
This week in the Writing Room, I wanted to focus on getting into the habit of writing every day.
It can be hard to get into the routine of writing and usually if there is a lot going on, for me, the writing time is the first thing to get pushed to one side (which is not good.)
So, this is the best excuse to buy a new notebook and pen (if you’ve not already got one.)
Using the five prompts below, write for ten minutes every day. Don’t stop, don’t edit, just write. At the end of the week, do you have anything that could be developed further? Are there two days or more days that could be combined to make a better idea?
Tuesday: You are led into a room where a person sits behind a desk with their back to you.
Wednesday – You are on a game show where the stakes are more than just winning money.
Thursday – You run into your first love on the day you are getting married.
by Novel Kicks Fiction Friday: The Secret Mission
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 that secret mission.
You are carrying on your day as you normally do. You get up, have breakfast at the usual time and leave at 8.30am exactly.
However, as you pull out of your driveway, your car gets stopped by a black sports car. The passenger window opens.
‘Get in,’ says the stranger.
From there, you get pulled into a secret mission by accident and are forced to make up a new identity on the spot. Go!
by Novel Kicks Writing Room: Interview Questions and Answers
For today’s writing group exercise, you’ll be interviewing your character.
Create a bunch of interview questions for one of your characters – general CV stuff but also personal questions like likes, dislikes, fears etc.
Do this for a character you’re currently working on or if you’ve not got a character who is suitable, create one named Bob James.
Now interview your character, asking them these questions. It’s interesting to see how your character will answer.
by Novel Kicks Writing Room: Descriptive Alphabet
Today, we are going to write a descriptive alphabet.
On a piece of A4 paper, write the alphabet down the left side of the page. Leave enough room between letters to write a little glossary.
Now, look around the room you are in and fill in each letter with an object you can see.
Once you’ve done that, give each object a description. Give as much detail as you can in the small space you have.
You could also do another alphabet but this time, you could make up the objects and then descriptions for them.
by Novel Kicks Fiction Friday: Eavesdrop
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 gives you permission to eavesdrop.
Writers are good observers. Throughout today, try to catch people’s conversations. Write down any snippets that you find funny, outrageous or inspire something.
Once you have five, use them all in a fiction piece that begins with the following sentence:
‘I couldn’t believe she did it. I mean, the nerve.’
by Novel Kicks Fiction Friday: Use That Song
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 all about using song titles.
Use the song titles below in your piece of writing that begins with the line, ‘What do you know about it?’
The song titles are:
What Becomes of the Broken Hearted?
Respect.
Thriller.
Can’t Stop The Feeling.
by Novel Kicks Fiction Friday: Sliding Doors
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 going to ask what if?
Put your character in a situation where they have to make a split decision. Do they or do they not get on a specific train or bus? Do they decide to go out or stay in? Do or don’t they post an important letter or send an urgent e-mail. The situation can be anything you like.
Write two pieces. The first is if they did something and the second is from the point of view of if they didn’t do something – for example, the consequences for getting on and not getting on a train. How do the situations differ?
by Novel Kicks Writing Room: Editing
For today’s exercise, I thought we could look at editing.
This is one of the most important parts of the process. This is a chance to tidy and polish your piece of writing before it goes on to an editor or an agent.
How do you like to approach the process? Do you like to wait for a first draft or edit as you go?
Write a piece of fiction no more than seven hundred and fifty words. Start it using this sentence, ‘The front door was black with a copper horseshoe knocker.’
Once you are done, try to put it away for a couple of days.
When you are ready to come back to it, edit it down to five hundred words. Then, once you’re happy with it, pass it on to someone you trust for feedback.
How was it? Did you find it a simple process? An enjoyable one? Quite difficult?
by Book Club
