For World Book Day on Thurs 2 March our theme was readers, writers, texts and manuscripts, fictional characters who come to life, bookshops, libraries and anything else associated with the written word.
Check out our prompts below:
1/ Your character is an author who has given up on their current project and doesn’t know if they’ll ever complete it. One night, two dodgy characters of the author’s own creation turn up at the door wanting a word...
2/ Your character discovers an old diary (their own or someone else's) and begins to read…
3/ Take a real author (dead or alive) and make them the subject of a story. Bonus points for anything that includes time-travel or culture clash. (What would Jane Austen be like on Insta…?
4/ Someone your character went to school with has, unexpectedly, become a famous and lauded novelist. There’s a Netflix adaptation in the works. Your character reads the book and is convinced that the main character is based on them…
5/ Your character finds what looks like the completed manuscript for a novel in a bag on a bus. (For a brilliant treatment of a similar premise, see Morven Callar by Alan Warner or Lila, Lila by Martin Suter)
6/ Your character is an aspiring author. But instead of concentrating on the book they dream of writing, they have become obsessed with getting their author’s biog or cover blurb perfect…
7/ In the library you pick up a random novel and start leafing through it. Folded into the pages is an anonymously written letter that begins ‘Dear Reader, Congratulations, you have found me…’
8/ Write a piece that is somehow about a single word. It can be a real word, or you can make up your own, complete with definition and examples of usage.
9/ Your character has been given the job of ghost-writing the memoir of someone famous or notorious in their field with a reputation for not suffering fools.. Write a scene where the two of them meet for the first time…
10/ A not-very-successful novelist is picking up a bottle of wine at the self-service kiosk in Tesco when someone taps them on the shoulder and says, “Hey! I can’t believe it. Are you really…?”
We had a spectacular turn-out of new and familiar faces for our first meeting of the year. Thanks to all who came.
Below are details on a playwriting course run by Phil Setren, who shared a brilliant piece of work in progress.
And below are the prompts we used for this session. (Or, in fact, mostly didn't use, because everyone who came already had brilliant ideas of their own.) Nevertheless, we scatter them to the internet, like seeds in the park, in the hope that they may yet bear fruit for others.
/Your character has just let themselves into a new room/flat/house for the first time. They are alone, with a single suitcase….
/Describe a chance first meeting between two characters which will lead to something profound for one of them. Don’t worry if you don’t know what happens next. Concentrate on developing the two characters…
/Your character is about to give away or destroy something of great personal significance. What and why?
/Your character HAS JUST ABOUT HAD ENOUGH OF THIS! Write about the moment something snaps and they walk away from a toxic situation...
/Your character meets an old friend. It’s the first time they have seen each other in several years. It soon becomes apparent that the friend has had some kind of transformative experience and is now a very different person from the one the other remembers.
/Imagine a movie trailer in which your character is walking casually away from a burning building holding the object of your choice. (An umbrella? A teddy bear? A tennis racket?) What’s the story? Bonus points if you can actually find a role for the object. Further bonus points for the most over-the-top Hollywood blockbuster movie title.
/A group of characters (two or more) witness something which they all know will change their relationship - and maybe their lives - forever…
/Your character is a teenager who finds themselves living as part of a new family unit with a radically different set of social or cultural expectations from those they are used to…
/Your character decides to adopt a totally new and possibly outrageous style of dress. Why are they doing this now? How do people respond?
/Describe the moments leading up to an incident that will change the course of your character’s life. Fill your piece with clues and foreshadowing, but stop before you get to the incident itself, and leave the reader guessing…
