Around the Block with Guest Blogger: Kaye Spencer

Win a Free copy of The Dance and Learn about how to get around Writer's Block with guest author Kaye Spencer!

Welcome, Kaye!

Here's what she had to say...



Prompting Yourself out of Writer’s Block with Story Prompts


Writer’s block happens. Fortunately, as a writer I’ve never hit that brick wall, but as an English teacher (junior high through community college), I’ve encountered many students who, when faced with a creative writing assignment, complain that they can’t think of anything to write about. So to help nudge them out of their writing reluctance, I give them story prompts (story starters) to kick-start their metaphoric writing motorcycles. I’m always amazed at the different perspectives that result from the same story prompt.

Several of my own stories began as story prompts, although my prompts tend to visit me via pictures/images, song lyrics, and off-hand comments. I tuck these ideas away until the time comes when I need a story idea, then I pull one out and dig in. This works so well for me that I have a 100K+ words western historical, Broken Bridges, that spawned from a picture of a man and woman leaning out of the windows of parallel taxis and barely able to reach each other for a kiss (I turned the taxis into carriages). Everything in this story grew from that single picture.

My current book at Cobblestone Press, The Dance, began as a writing prompt for a contest. This was the prompt: Character A is a quirky critic who's secretly attracted to Character B, an eccentric artist who lives in the apartment right above Character A. Character A is on a deadline to get her review finished but Character B is making a lot of noise and it's very distracting.

In fact, my next book will launch the western line at Breathless Press in November 2010, and it also began as a story prompt.

Here is an example of the story starter activity I use my students:

Choose one of the five story starters/prompts listed below. Write a 500-1000 word opening for your story using that story starter somewhere very close to the beginning of your story. Try using the prompt as the very first line of your story, but it’s not critical that you do so. [note: for extra creative fun, come up with story “enders”]

The prompts are in 3rd Person, but you are at complete creative liberty (and encouraged) to change the Point of View (POV), change the genders, and tweak the story starter itself to suit your inner Muse.

Remember, the story starter you choose should be the opening line of your story, however, to paraphrase Captain Barbossa…the word count and exact wording of the story starter are more what you’d call guidelines than actual rules…so don’t let either limit or hamper your creativity.

1. They had nothing to say to each other…
2. The last time he saw her, she…
3. Ghostly shadows quivered on the wall, the storm raged outside, battering the castle walls. She moved her chair closer to the fireplace, desperately wishing…
4. Trembling and blinking back tears, she punched his number into the phone…
5. She tore down the alley, burst through a darkened doorway and crouched low. Behind her, the noise escalated…

So, let your creative thoughts run freely and don’t hamper the words with grammar, conventions, and mechanics at this point. JUST WRITE!!! When you’ve finished your mini-story, tuck it away for that rainy writer’s block day when you need just a nudge of inspiration to begin writing your next book.

A Note from the Book Boost: This is amazing advice, Kaye! Thank you so much for sharing your teaching expertise with us. I'm sure a lot of folks will find this very helpful. For me, I don't have trouble knowing what to write only finding time to actually write it all! LOL Thanks for joining us and please tell us more about The Dance.


Blurb:

Janae Palmer, a reclusive city girl facing a book review deadline, is at her wit's end with her upstairs neighbor, rodeo bullfighter Owen Quinlan. He's cranked-up his music, and she's on a mission to give him a lesson in manners. Having fantasized about getting him in bed, she gets more than she'd planned after a knock-out introduction. Owen is more than willing to share in her fantasies, but when his rodeo life comes between them, the words of a song will either give them the courage to go on together or leave them with only bittersweet memories of The Dance.


Excerpt:

Her eyes popped open. Divorce? That would account for why he hadn’t seen his boys for a while. Running back through the days since she’d discovered Owen Quinlan’s existence, she couldn’t recall a woman or children visiting him and, having been so fervently confident that he was single, she’d never noticed if he wore a wedding ring. Craning her neck, she peered at him, but he’d shoved his left hand into his front pocket. Giving the living room a cursory appraisal, she found no evidence of a family. No pictures or toys and certainly nothing suggesting a female influence, but a trip to the bathroom would tell her for sure, and she appeased her conscience with the excuse that she wanted to see her face so it wasn’t really snooping. Besides, he had told her to make herself at home.

Dropping her key lanyard on the end table, she made her way to the bathroom and closed the door. While soaking a washcloth in warm water, she tilted her head to inspect the reddish-purple mark rising over the bridge of her nose and the tiny hint of bruising developing under her eyes. She wiped away the remnants of dried blood, but gave her shirt up as hopelessly stained. Satisfied she’d cleaned herself as best she could, a quick search of the bathroom drawers and medicine cabinet revealed only a sundry of the usual male toiletries. A glimmer of hope returned. Spying a bottle of Brut cologne, she removed the lid and breathed in the heady aroma. Closing her eyes, she imagined smelling this on Owen’s skin. Good God, this scent should be illegal.

Leaving the bathroom, she peeked into his bedroom and a perfunctory scan lifted her spirits further. It was definitely a guy’s bedroom. Stealing a sheepish glance over her shoulder, she tiptoed into the bedroom to check it out more thoroughly. Boots and jeans were in a heap by the opened closet door. A cowboy hat was perched on its crown on the dresser. There were rodeo photographs tacked to the walls and stacks of magazines and books beside the unmade bed. She ran her fingers along the sheets where the slight indention of his body remained then lifted a pillow to her face and breathed in the lingering scent of his cologne.

With a reluctant sigh, she replaced the pillow and returned to the living room, this time to look around with serious interest at the myriad of rodeo paintings and photographs propped, hanging, or strewn about the room. Eventually, her gaze came to rest on the easel and the eight-by-ten, black and white photograph tacked to the wall beside it. Walking to the canvas, she studied both painting and picture with the slow realization that Owen was creating a color rendition of the moment in time when a bucking bull charged a rodeo clown leaping to the aid of a cowboy tangled in the rope around the bull’s girth. Under closer scrutiny, she recognized him under the grease paint, spandex, and baggy cut-off overalls.

Owen strode into room, alternately talking and listening, and stopped beside her. Stealing a peek at his left hand, she bit her bottom lip to conceal her delight that he didn’t wear a ring while jealously wishing the smile on his face was for her and not for the woman on the phone.

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