Clarion Call #4: Revolting Pupils

This week’s writing prompt is short and sweet.  Give us a few words about “revolting pupils”… however you interpret the phrase. There are only two rules for Clarion Calls: If you choose to try the assignment, do not read the comments section before you post yours. This is a critique-free zone, and that includes critique……

Clarion Call #3: The Quartet

For more socially-oriented writers, sometimes it’s easier to bounce off of another writer’s ideas than to come up with something out of thin air.  For that reason, Clarion Calls will occasionally throw out a scene fragment and ask you our readers to send it in whatever direction you wish.  You may add to the beginning,……

Clarion Writing Prompt #25 The Recap

Ah, the recap. How can you get on with the story when understanding depends on knowing what has come before? My trick is to make the recap do double-duty and even triple if possible. In the following lines, the reader is reminded of Ilse’s relationship to someone called “Horth”. But we also feel the strain……

Clarion Writing Prompt #24 Audience

This week’s writing prompt is provided by my daughter and fellow author: Jennifer Lott.   What is good writing? It’s always filtered through the lens of the reader. My sixteen-year-old sister is reading A Tale of Two Cities for English. To her credit, she is responding passionately to the injustices of the French Revolution. She……

Writing Prompt #18: SENSE ‘a’ Wonder

This post is going to be all about how to incorporate the senses in your writing.  But I want to share a hilarious, fun link that I found also.  This writing prompt generator is meant for K-12 classrooms and students, but it’s also fun.  Just one of its random results was a perfectly fine fantasy……

Writing Prompt #17: Read Aloud

Reading aloud to supporters charges your batteries.

Writing Prompt #16: Fake Conversations

Many books of writing advice suggest that authors visit public places – Starbucks, a park, outdoor cafes, etc., and write down people’s conversations.  The purpose of this activity is to familiarize writers with the indirect nature of speech.  People don’t talk in a straight line, and conversations don’t proceed back-and-forth like a tennis match. Famously,……