Search Results for 'writing prompts'

More short story starters

No Comments »15th May, 2019; Category: Short Fiction, Short Stories, Short Story Starters, Writing prompts

Over the many years of writing articles on this site, I have written many posts listing what I call Short Story Starters. They have proved to be some of the most popular articles that I have written.

Frustration

One of the frustrating things that sometimes faces writers is coming up with ideas. These story starters aim to prompt your thinking so that a story flows easily from the way I have started it off. Sometimes, that it all we need – just a simple starting point and the creative mind kicks in and the imagination soars like an eagle. I hope one (or more) of these writing prompts help you to soar, too.

How to use these starters

Read through the list of suggestions. Choose one that you think you can use. Start your story using the idea you have chosen, changing anything you want. Start on your story and write, write, write.

Hint: Don’t edit your work at this early stage: JUST WRITE. The editing stage comes later.

Short Story Starters:

Ali couldn’t decide which book to read next – the page-turning thriller or the murder mystery. She…
Callum grabbed the letters from his mailbox. He shuffled through them until he came to the envelope he had been expecting now for over a week.
Eloise couldn’t believe her eyes. What was her best friend carrying?
After the party, Grant was totally confused by the events which had just taken place.
It wasn’t like Harry to forget an appointment, but on this occasion, it was quite understandable.
Josh and Jerry were inseparable friends until the day Kevin entered their lives.
A sudden crash woke Loretta from her deep sleep. She sat up in bed, grogginess swirling in her head.
She stopped, looked back and saw Margie following her. ‘Go away!’ she shouted. Margie kept coming closer.
As the train loomed closer, Paul accelerated frantically.
Despite searching all over the house, Rowena could not find her cat.

More short story starters and writing prompts:

You can find many more ideas for writing stories here.

Conditions of use:

Feel free to use any of the story starters listed above.
Change anything to suit your needs.
Give it your best shot.
Edit your work carefully before sending it off to a publisher or posting it on your blog.
Let me know in the comments section how it went.
If you publish your story on your web site or on your blog let me know so I can make a link to it for others to read.

Congratulations and Happy Anniversary

No Comments »6th March, 2017; Category: Blogging, Books, Events

This site, Trevor’s Writing, is celebrating its 11th Anniversary today.

It hardly seems like eleven years, but time flies when you are having fun. The start of this blog was soon after I retired from 35 years of teaching. (You can read more about me here and here)

Loyal readers – I salute you

Over the years I have been adding various articles here about writing, reading, publishing and many other things along the way. Sometimes I have posted regularly every few days; at other times I have gone weeks and sometimes months between posts. To anyone who has remained a regular reader – I salute you. Such patience and loyalty should be rewarded, but sadly, all I have to offer you are promises.

Works in progress

Over recent days and weeks, I have been working on a short novel for children. I hope to publish this soon, first as an eBook and then as a print book. Stay tuned. I have many more plans to self- publish many of my works of fiction, non-fiction and poetry. As a side project, I am also adding occasional entries to my memoirs. At this point, I am not sure if this will be a limited publication for family and friends only, or more widely available. We will see how it turns out.

Works still to come

I have plans for many more posts here on this site, as well as plenty of self-published eBooks and print on demand books. I can see an exciting future ahead, so stay with me. Over the last 25 years, I have written well over three million words, a good proportion of those words are on my blog sites. In addition to blogging, however, I have many unpublished works – novels, short stories, poems, articles and plays. Many of these I plan to polish, edit and publish, with a little rewriting as needed. I also have a half dozen picture book texts waiting to be sent off to traditional publishers.

Imagination

On top of all of the above writing, rewriting, editing, proofreading and so on, my fertile imagination won’t just stop. It keeps on coming up with great ideas to write about. Several ideas for novels have been bubbling away in my subconscious for months – some even years. Somehow, they must get written and out there for the world to enjoy.

Meanwhile…

I will keep the posts coming on a wide variety of topics, from publishing and writing hints, story ideas, writing prompts, poems, short fiction, book and film reviews and more.

Newsletter

Go to the sidebar or below the comments to sign up for my regular newsletter. It has been so regular, in fact, that issue #1 still hasn’t been written. (Sigh – that’s another thing I plan to write.)

Why not stop by and leave a comment or two?

Good reading, Good writing,

Trevor

Further reading:

Archives – over a thousand articles on this site – and counting.
Short story starters – these are always very popular with my readers; they are designed to start you off with your stories.
Poetry – read samples of my poetry
Short fiction – read some of my short fiction
Trevor’s Birding – my blog about Australian birds
Trevor’s Travels – my blog about our travels in Australia, Thailand, Nepal, Ethiopia, Morocco and Spain.

Short story starters

No Comments »13th October, 2015; Category: Fiction, Short Fiction, Short Stories, Short Story Starters, Writing Hints, Writing prompts

Today I have added another set of short story starters.

Just choose one of them and use it as the first sentence in a short story.

1. As Don turned the corner, he was surprised to see who was standing next to his car.

2. Fiona stopped and stared at the bush in the corner of her auntie’s garden.

3. In the rush to get to the football ground in time for the match, Harry had quite forgotten one, extremely important detail.

4. On reflection, Joel should have seen this argument coming.

5. As Lorna hobbled up the path to her front door, she pondered on the events of this important, life-changing day.

6. Twelve years ago Nola would not have reacted in this way, but things had changed – and not for the better.

7. Peta had quite forgotten her father’s advice and blazed ahead regardless.

8. Without a moment’s hesitation Ross slipped the envelope through the slot in the door.

9. As Toni walked across the stage to the lectern, she was sure about only one thing.

10. The clock ticking on the wall reminded Wendy that her time was slipping away rapidly.

You can find more short story starters here and more writing prompts here.

Conditions of use:

Feel free to use any of the story starters listed above. Change anything to suit your needs.

Give it your best shot.

Edit your work carefully before sending it off to a publisher or posting it on your blog.

Let me know in the comments section how it went.

If you publish your story on your web site or on your blog let me know so I can make a link to it for others to read.

Short story starters

No Comments »24th September, 2015; Category: Fiction, Short Fiction, Short Stories, Short Story Starters, Writing prompts

My series of short story starters and writing prompts on this site continue to be very popular with readers, so here is another set of ideas.

Just copy one (or more) of these sentences as the opening to your story.

The rest is up to your imagination.

Warm up exercise: consider using one of these ideas as a short, 15 minute warm up writing exercise before you start on your work-in-progress.

Writing prompts:

James hesitated when he reached the basement, wondering if it was safe to enter.
Katrina knew she shouldn’t be walking through this unfamiliar part of the city.
Leanne picked up the book with the strangest of titles.
Malcolm couldn’t resist; he just had to phone his brother and find out the result.
Five hours had elapsed since Nanette had called.
Paris had always intrigued Olga, but not for the usual reasons.
If I had asked Peter a week ago that this was going to happen, he would have laughed in my face.
She had dreaded this day coming for many weeks, but Ronya was pleasantly surprised by the actual outcome.
Setting off at midnight was not Sam’s idea, but it was the least of his troubles that day.
“How can we go on,” said Tony, “when this has just happened?”
“Unless you let me have the gun,” whispered Vanessa, “we are never getting out of this place.”
As soon as Wendy opened the rusty gate, she knew that this visit was going to be different.

Conditions of use:

Feel free to use any of the story starters listed above. Change anything to suit your needs.

Give it your best shot.

Edit your work carefully before sending it off to a publisher or posting it on your blog.

Let me know in the comments section how it went.

If you publish your story on your web site or on your blog let me know so I can make a link to it for others to read.

Good writing.

Trevor

My life is a work in progress

1 Comment »14th July, 2015; Category: Authors, Blogging, Christian, The Writer's Life, Writing prompts

It has been a while since I last posted an article here.

Sorry if you have missed me.

Under construction:

I have just realised that my life is a work in progress. Well, to be truthful, I’ve probably known that for a long time, but I wasn’t really going to admit it. Not at my age anyway. It takes me back to the days in the 1980s when our church put on a production of “Kids Under Construction.” The whole premise of the story was that, no matter what age we were, God is not finished with us yet. We all have some constructing to undergo. None of can say with authority that we’ve arrived!

Hair? What hair?

In the play I took the role of a grandfather. My hair was more copious than today as was my luxuriant beard (which I don’t bother to grow these days). Both were sprayed grey – almost silver – and when I came on stage looking all of 40 years older than my real age, my poor wife nearly collapsed in shock! Now my hair – or what is left of it – is growing progressively greyer and thinner. (My 6yo grandson loves to call me “baldy”. Cheeky boy.)

Work in Progress

We could indeed say that our lives are a work in progress. Writers also talk about their current “work in progress” (WIP) when referring to their current writing project. I often have several projects on the go at once which causes a few problems. More than a few. I often jump from one to the other. When other responsibilities also jump into the ring, I find myself juggling many balls at once. In no time at all my life looks like a three-ring circus with multiple things happening all the same time.

Get the picture?

It’s not pretty. Send in the clowns. There have to be clowns.

But there is some good news – and the inevitable bad news.

Good news

I have been working on the following projects:

Posting more regularly on my Trevor’s Birding site (click here). This site is all about one of my passions – observing and photographing Australian birds. It has become an obsessive hobby.
Posting more regularly on the Trevor’s Travels site (click here). This site is about another of my passions: travel. I write about and show photos of my travels here in Australia, as well as trips overseas to Thailand, Nepal, Morocco, Ethiopia and Spain. More are in the planning stages.
Posting more regularly here on this site, including more short stories, more poems, more articles about writing, more reviews of what I am reading, and more articles on a whole range of topics.
Publishing here on this site more writing prompts and short story starters.
Preparing stories and poems for submission to various journals, magazines and competitions.

Even better news

I am about to launch into eBooks, So many of the manuscripts resting peacefully in my computer memory will be getting a nasty shock. They will be sent out into the wild, wild world to fend for themselves under the glare of critical readers and lovely people everywhere.
Be kind to them. Love them – or hate them, they are coming. You have been warned.

Now the bad news

All of this will take time.
And effort.
You may need to be patient with me.
Some noise may escape from the construction site.
Sometime – I haven’t the faintest idea where I will find the time – I will begin work on several new major novels which have been simmering away on the back… no, that’s wrong. I haven’t even switched on the cooker yet. [Sigh]

Good writing.

Trevor