creative writing

How Well-Written Prose Elicits Emotions and Draws Out Passion









Prompt: Sensations Without Sight

The prompt this week was:

Think of an episode or event in life, childhood, or adulthood. Think of where it occurred, when, what season, and those involved. Think in terms of senses other than sight. If you were a sculpture, what would the texture be for the sculpture you would make of this? What are the sounds, smells, touch, sensations other than sight? Use sight minimally or not at all to tell your story.

NaNoWriMo Tips: Unleash Your Descriptive Inner Voice

As you work your way through NaNoWriMo and your novel, memoir, or whatever writing you choose during the November writing sprint, unleash your inner descriptive voice and make your sentences more interesting by adding more descriptors. Look for words or phrases that paint a picture.

The ball hit the window.

The black and white soccer ball Bob kicked with all his might hit the Peterson’s large front picture window with a dull thud.

Close your eyes and picture the scene. Pay attention to all your senses. Can you hear the sound Bob might make as he kicked the ball? Can you hear the thud of the window rebounding from the collision? Can you see Bob? Is he dripping with sweat or have glowing red cheeks from the exertion?

Let your imagination become a paint brush with strokes that put us in the middle of the action, feeling everything you do in the moment.


Meeting Our Selves

The following was written and submitted by our Writer’s in the Grove member, Ralph Cuellar.

Our “selves” are like spirits
Until we meet in the flesh
and misunderstand each other
When we’re offered information
we’d rather not accept
When we’re confronted with alternate
versions of our dreamed reality.
Our external world is like a series of
collisions in a bumper car amusement ride.

Prompt: Limerick

The prompt this week was to write a limerick. A limerick is a poem style that gained popularity in the early 18th century and has a strict form and rhythm. It is such an accepted form of poetry, many can finish the last line if the writing compels them to do so with rhythm and rime.

According to Wikipedia:

Limerick is a form of poetry, especially one in five-line, predominantly anapestic meter with a strict rhyme scheme (AABBA), which is sometimes obscene with humorous intent. The third and fourth lines are usually shorter than the other three.

According to some experts, a limerick isn’t a true or pure limerick unless it has an obscene element, and that clean limericks were just a “passing fad.” Edward Lear (19th century poet) truly popularized the form and was published in the papers, though he claimed these were not limericks.

An example of an early form of limerick by an unknown author is:

The limerick packs laughs anatomical
Into space that is quite economical.
But the good ones I’ve seen
So seldom are clean
And the clean ones so seldom are comical.

A limerick consists of the standard form of a stanza of five lines. Using the measurement of a “foot” as the limerick’s meter and pattern, it is ta-ta-TUM, an anapaest. The first, second, and fifth rhyme with each other and have three “feet of three syllables each.” The third and forth lines are shorter and rhyme together with two “feet of three syllabus.”

The storytelling order of a limerick is:

  1. Introduce a person and a place, with the place words at the end of the first line.
  2. Line two continues the action, and rhymes with line one.
  3. The third line sets up the “fall” of the person and is short and sets up the rhyme for the next line.
  4. Another short line continues the action and rhymes with the line above it.
  5. The last line is the punch line, and rhymes with the first and second lines. Sometimes this is a repeat of the first line through a twist of works, but not always.

One of the most famous examples of limerick forms is:

There was an Old Man of Nantucket
Who kept all his cash in a bucket.
His daughter, called Nan,
Ran away with a man,
And as for the bucket, Nantucket.
– Anonymous

The prompt was to write a limerick. Play with rhymes and storytelling, and attempt to create a twist at the end.

Prompt: The Haven




Writing Tips for June 2015

Our writing tips posts usually feature a variety of articles from around the web offering great tips for writers, specifically those writing fiction and memoir. Today we’re going to do things a little differently because we’ve found a great resource stuffed with writing tips.

Botham Writers offers “Writing Tips from the Masters,” a collection of writing tips and advice from top authors including Neil Gaiman, P.D. James, Jack Kerouac, Michael Moorcock, Elmore Leonard, Billy Wilder, Joyce Carol Oats, Henry Miller, Joss Wedon, Struck & White, and a wide variety of classic and modern writers. It covers all types of writing, from general writing and professional writing tips to writing scripts and published material.

Examples include:

Get through all of these and you might find the secret sauce in good writing.

Prompt: Bystanders

The prompt for this week’s Monday Writers in the Grove Workshop was:

Bystanders are sometimes more than passive, they can be perpetrators, people who inject themselves into the story. Write a short piece on how a bystander moves from outside of the event to inside.

If you would like to participate in these prompts, please do so on your site or personal journal. If you would like to discuss them, please comment below.