Recently in Writing Prompts Category

Writing Prompt: Snack Food

By Susan on May 30, 2009 7:31 PM | Click here to post a comment
There are two ways you can use this writing prompt. One, actually do some writing, and two, head straight for the fridge and procrastinate.  Your choice.

Fiction: your character has a sudden need for a snack. Take this as far as it will go. If in nature, small rodents are acceptable. If in the city, larger rodents may be more commonly available. Or choose your own snack.

Nonfiction: If looking for a topic, find a snack food in the supermarket, and research its history. If possible, connect this snack food to your own life. Then eat several portions of the snack food and see if anything comes to you. If nothing does, go to the gym and work out until the snack food is no longer attached to your hips.

Below: giraffe snacking at the Minnesota Zoo last week. Giraffe in question was brought here via specialized Giraffe Truck, which apparently is an actual thing. Giraffe enjoys eating giraffe biscuits fed to him by tourists for $2.50 each. Giraffe goes back to warmer climes during the winter due to Minnesota's general incompatibility with Giraffes.

minnesota zoo giraffe summer 2009.jpg

Giant Fiberglass Writing Prompts

By Susan on March 14, 2009 7:58 PM | Click here to post a comment
I was surfing the net today and re-discovered the delightful Roadside America site, which meticulously catalogs all the oddball attractions the American people have created to draw interest to their towns and neighborhoods.  Writers are always looking things to inspire the written word, but what if your writer's block is really, really bad?

Well, go to Roadsideamerica.com and find a giant fiberglass wonder near you. Go there. Sit under it. If nothing comes to you, at least you can write a pithy essay on the experience. If you sit next to one of these things long enough, you're gonna see SOMETHING worth writing about.

Oh, and don't miss Roadside America's hilarious blog.

Here's the most recent one of these monuments to American culture that I found: 

garrison walleye.jpg
Oddly, according to Roadside America there is some controversy over the Garrison, MN giant fiberglass walleye, as there is another town named Garrison in North Dakota that has one too. Both towns claim to be the "Walleye Capitol of the World". I was unaware of this dispute when I casually posed before the Minnesota walleye. Walleye, for those of you from elsewhere, is the native fish of the north country, a mild white fish that fries up just nicely. 

Not content to take the usual tourist shot, I decided to get "artistic" with the giant fiberglass fish and focus on its awe-inspiring head.

garrison walleye closeup head.jpg
See the mighty fish struggle for breath! The temperature is about 5 degrees Fahrenheit, which is a bit chilly for a fish.  But we must consider yet another view.

garrison walleye closeup tail.jpg
Yes, the tail, and in the background, the frozen lake, and the shoreline of Bemidji, and the wistful dreams of all Walleye hanging with the ice-fog on the distant shore...ooooooh, SO much bad writing can come out of a fiberglass fish. Excellent.

Writing Prompt: Precarious Paths

By Susan on February 15, 2009 11:12 PM | 1 Comment
You do know that the entire reason I do these writing prompts is to procrastinate my own writing, don't you? So ironic. But here I am again, procrastinating.  Here is a photograph I took a few weeks ago at the Grand Canyon of a path, right along the edge, covered in ice. Perfect conditions for taking a "long trip" if you will. So here's your prompts.  Fiction: Send your character on a precarious path, on the edge of something. Will they fall off? Aaah, that would be short story. For a longer effort, you'll have to find a way to get them to hang on.  Make it literal or figurative. Push them as close to the edge as you can. 

Nonfiction: What precarious paths are there in your neighborhood, your town, your city, your childhood? 

Three minutes after the picture below was taken, a large hippopotamus wandered up the path, slipped, and disappeared. About half an hour later we heard a big "splat". (ok, I made that up. I've decided to "Fabulous" my life to make it more interesting).

path with snow at grand canyon.jpg

Writing Prompt: Grand Canyon

By Susan on January 27, 2009 6:27 PM | Click here to post a comment
Somebody lost something down there. What is it? Who lost it? Will it ever be found? Is someone looking for it? How did it get there? Well, there you go. Now you have something to write about. And I managed to procrastinate for the five minutes it took me to post this. 

red ridge grand canyon east.jpg

The Internet Gods Taketh Away

By Susan on January 8, 2009 11:52 AM | Click here to post a comment

Well, my internet access has been down for a couple of days, and I'm going to be out of touch for a few after this, so the blog will start up again the weekend of January 17th.  Expect some spectacular new pics and some interesting stories.  If you need a writing prompt, think about villains in the post below...expand on the ones you have, or find a real-life villain to generate a nonfiction idea.

Writing prompts: dams

By Susan on December 23, 2008 9:13 PM | Click here to post a comment
An ongoing series here at Northern Word will be Writing Prompts, which are designed to help unstick you from whatever stickiness is interfering with your craft. Let's try a dam writing prompt, shall we?

stcroixfalls-wi-dam.jpg
Fiction: add a dam scene to your story, for godsakes. And don't go all "Fugitive" on us. Your main character is lost and detours near a dam, and meets someone unexpectedly. Or a dam is being built, and one of your secondary characters is a construction worker who gets injured. Or a dam is destroyed and the havoc sweeps your characters downstream. Somehow, a dam gets into your damn story. Four paragraphs before you stop. Keep going if you can.

Nonfiction: find a dam somewhere near what you're writing about. It probably won't help, but it'll give you something to do and by the time you're done you'll have thought of something to get you through your stickiness. If you're looking for a new topic, find your local dam, and there will be something there, trust me. Write four paragraphs.

Science Fiction/Fantasy: There is something in a nearby dam that shouldn't be, and your character just found out about it. Does he or she go there to find out more? Does what is in the dam come to him or her? Four paragraphs, soldier! What, you don't think they have dams in fantasy stories? Where do you think the damn elves get all their water?

Romance: I really don't read romance, but if I did, I suppose a dam would be a decent place for some sort of clandestine meeting with the right sort of fellow. Four paragraphs. As naughty as you like.

Poetry: Write ten lines about this picture, and then write ten more lines about what the picture would look like without the dam. Then put it all into a villanelle. Just kidding. About the villanelle.

Photo above: hydroelectric dam at St. Croix Falls, Wisconsin, on the St. Croix River.
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Welcome to Northern Word, the online home of writer Susan McNerney. Northern Word features lots of photography, words on the business and process of writing, original bits of fiction and nonfiction, travelogues and travel writing, and anything else that Susan feels like posting. Browse the categories on the left (or the topic cloud below) to see previous episodes, and don't miss the two big travelogues: A Week in Rome and A Great Southwest Road Trip. Susan is originally from the redwood regions of Northern California, but now lives and writes in chilly Minnesota.

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