Secret Admirer

 

You or your character has a secret admirer. How do you know this?  What do you do to find out who it is? Do you find out? How are you changed by this?

Character

Think about both the person who is admired and the admirer. What do you know about them physically, intellectually and emotionally? What is their personality like? What is their greatest fear and what is their greatest desire? What do they want and what do they need? You probably know about both characters.  The admired person doesn’t know about the admirer, but they admirer does know about the admired.  

Story

What happens first? How does the story build? Think of perhaps three growing complexities. How is the admiration expressed? Is it pleasant or sinister for the admired person? How do things come to a head? What does the protagonist do about it?

Will your story have au upbeat or dark ending?

Form

Will you write a story, script or poem?  Or has this actually happened to you? Can you write a piece of memoir?

You can also turn it all on its head and write the story from the point of view of the admirer. Or could you show both points of view?

Fabulous show

 

Article ideas:

·         Write about the best show you’ve ever been to. 

·         Write an article about a theatre or concert hall you love

·         Write about why you love or hate live entertainment

·         Research why we have theatre (Aristotle? Socrates?)

 

Poem:

·         Try to record the atmosphere of a theatre or concert hall.

·         Capture the excitement of attending a live performance

·         Could you write a song or two to turn a straight play into a musical? (Don’t  worry we won’t ask you to sing it though you can if you like) 

 

Script:

·         Write a sketch about a theatre / concert hall visit.

·         Write a five to ten minute sketch about a creative writing group that isn’t as nice as ours

·         Shakespeare peppered his plays with “masques” – plays within plays. Can you create a masque?

      

Story:

·         Write a story about a character who goes to the theatre for the first time.  What do they see? What does the theatre seem like to them? Does it change them?

·         Write a story about a performance that goes wrong

·         Write a story about the village amateur dramatic group – who eventually put on a fabulous show.  

 

Fundraising

Write an article, poem, script or story about this.  What’s the cause? What are the obstacles? What is the outcome?

Article ideas

Why do we fund raise?   What are the ethics of it? Should there be a need or should society work in such a way that the funds are always there for whatever is needed? Why do charities exist?

What about the mechanics of fund-raising? Could you develop a tip sheet?

If you’ve done some fund-raising, simply describe this.

Poetry ideas

Could you write a poem about the tension as the raffle is drawn? Or about the hours of work it takes to write a bid for a funding body? What about the journey of a fund-raiser? Can you crystalize that into a couple of pages of verse?

Script ideas

Perhaps you can introduce some humour as the committee decides on how to run the summer fete and how they are going to use any funds.  

What about if someone embezzles the funds that have been raised? How do you find out? Do you get the money back?

Story ideas

Who is raising some funds and what for? Which obstacles do they face? Is there a surprise – an unlikely contributor, perhaps? Does it work out in the end? What do they achieve? How does it change them?    

Your writing comes true

Write about this occurring   - and hope it doesn’t happen while you’re writing this time! Maybe you’re writing about a storm and it starts thundering and pouring with rain outside.  Maybe someone who is just like one of your characters moves into your neighbourhood.  Or maybe your crime novel helps solve an actual case.  

Writers are good sleuths anyway

We know how to observe. We watch people all the time. We can’t help ourselves.  We look for the stories behind what we see.  Why is that young woman crying as she talks to the older man sitting opposite her? How did the old woman sleeping in the doorway of the local supermarket become homeless? How did the local car dealer build up his business?  

Write what you knew in order to find out what you don’t know  

So, for instance, you’re writing about a certain time in history and you know about some of the foods they ate but not about others. What would go with those products? How come they have those and not others we know? Work this all out form you own knowledge of how the world works.

Some near futures

Look at something that is happening now and project it forward. Covid and Monkey Pox may be here to stay. How does that affect day to day lives? Can they be the centres of a story? Climate change can’t be avoided.  How do we adapt the way we live? Can we resolve or reverse it?  The cyber world carries on growing. How will we interact with artificial intelligence?

You are god

We create our worlds. They must have an inner logic but as long as that is there, anything goes. You make the rules. How far can you push your imagination? And a little uncanny: “In the beginning was the Word ….”

Go, write your world and maybe you’ll make it happen.  

The To Do List

 

You character is obsessed with to do lists.  They even write down things they have done so that they can cross them off.  This gets them into trouble one day. What is the list about? Do they get many of the things on it done? What happens as a consequence of completing or not completing the list?

Idea for a character

Can you create a character by showing your reader what is on their to do list and how they go about completing each task?

Do they rebel against their list and destroy it when it gets too much?

Or does writing a to do list in fact help them in the end?

You and your to do list

As a writer do you keep a to do list? What’s on it at the moment? Do you use any special software for controlling it? Could you write an article about the business side of writing that includes this element? Maybe you could write a blog post about this or submit it to a writing magazine?  

Script idea

Could the items on a to do list create the scenes in some sort of script? How could you insert dramatic tension into doing this?    

Coping with to do lists?

How about ordering your list in terms of what is interesting useful, fun, important and urgent?

The Story of the Shoes

 

You take a walk in the spring along a dried-up river bed in a hot country.  You see hundreds of abandoned shoes, sometimes in pairs sometimes not.  What’s the explanation? How do you find out? Who do you meet in the process?

Article ideas

Find out why people abandon shoes. Can you explore the benefits and dangers of walking without shoes? Or discuss the type of shoes for walking along a dry river bed?

Poetry ideas

Find a picture of some abandoned shoes and write an ode to them. Write verses to the people who abandoned the shoes. Write about the shoes themselves. Think of the colours, textures, and shapes.

Script ideas

Perhaps a two-hander of two people walking a river-bed (radio play?). One of your characters abandons their shoes. Why?  What is the relationship between the two people? Are they changed by the end?

Story ideas

Your characters come across the shoes and form their own ideas about what’s happened.  They ask various other people and get many different explanations. They finally find out the truth which is surprising. How does this change them?  How do they grow?             

Urban disaster

 

Something major goes wrong where you live that makes you have to leave home in the middle of the night. Perhaps there is a flood, an explosion or a major fire. What is the evacuation like? Who do you meet? When and how are you allowed back to your homes?  What happens in the aftermath?

Article ideas

Start off  the most significant issue and report it with a bit of colour – use the senses, perhaps capture the drama, talk about the people

Now report any verifiable facts.

Add some quotes from experts.

Discuss any moral dilemma.

Come back with some more colour.

Poetry ideas

Work with the senses, describe the physical event,  can you capture the emotions?

Script ideas

Perhaps write a script from a rescuer’s point of view. Is there a sub plot? Is this incident part of something bigger and does the incident uncover this.

Fiction ideas

What does your protagonist learn through the incident? Do they grow? Could you consider writing this story form the point of view of a child? Or would you consider a dramatic monologue?