Friday Freewriting – Robert – June 11, 2021

Posted on June 11, 2021June 10, 2021 by Epic Book Club

We missed last week because life happens. But it’s good to be back and writing again!

This week’s prompts were:

Olympic Swimming Pool - Stratford — Image by Mark

Character: Swimming Instructor
Object: Hair Dryer
Genre/Tone: Crime

Crime is a tough genre to do in this kind of exercise: it’s hard (for me, at least) to come up with a plausible means, motive, and (m)opportunity on the fly. However, I do think I managed to get a bit of hard-boiled tone in there, and I’m rather pleased with how I used the sense of smell consistently throughout.

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Friday Freewriting – Megan – June 11, 2021

Posted on June 11, 2021June 10, 2021 by Epic Book Club

I just spent a few days with one of my best friends from college. Her 8-year-old just started participating in swim meets. When they were telling me about the most recent one, I wondered if swim-parents ever get as competitive as parents in other sports and activities. I’m considering it a happy accident that we got this prompt today and I got to put my random thoughts to good use. Don’t play with hair dryers or toasters around water, especially not if they’re plugged in.

This week’s prompts were:

Character: Swimming Instructor
Object: Hair Dryer
Genre/Tone: Crime

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Friday Freewriting – Robert – May 28, 2021

Posted on May 28, 2021May 27, 2021 by Epic Book Club

018:365 - 05/18/2012 - Army Ants — Image by Shardayyy Photography

This week was a fun exercise, partly because I had just watched the episode of Lego Masters (the U.S. version) in which they had to build movie scenes. A couple of the teams received the advice to keep their stories simple and clear, not to get too complex or ambitious. I decided to take this advice to heart for myself.

It helped that the prompts were simple:

Character: Historian
Object: Ant hill
Genre/Tone: Thriller

That meant simple motivations, straightforward action, and direct opposition.

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Friday Free Writing – Megan – May 28, 2021

Posted on May 28, 2021May 27, 2021 by Epic Book Club

The saying, “Those who do not know history are doomed to repeat it,” is often used as a warning against obstinant ignorance. But sometimes it’s really not anyone’s fault that history is not known; because there is no record to study, future generations do not know what lead to the cataclysm. They might not even know there was a cataclysm. And now I’m thinking of Asimov’s novelette, “Nightfall.”

Both Robert and I both needed extra seconds (and minutes) to finish the exercise this week. Sometimes the time segments seem overly generous, but this week they felt really tight. Time is weird!

As always, if you read this, and want to write your own, please post it in the comments, or link to your own site. I’d be thrilled to read what others come up with!

Character: Historian

Object: Anthill

Genre: Thriller

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Friday Freewriting – Robert – May 21, 2021

Posted on May 21, 2021May 20, 2021 by Epic Book Club

Image from page 115 of "Mouldings, mirrors, pictures and frames." (1884) — Photo by Internet Archive Book Images

I need to start this week with a content warning: the genre prompt was horror/romance, neither of which I’m all that comfortable with, and I was surprised at the places my mind went under the pressure of the exercise. So, the following story contains obsession and stalker behavior, as well as themes of captivity and objectification of people.

As I said, I’m not sure what all this says about the way my mind works; but I suppose I’d like to emphasize that these are things that creep me out, that horrify me, not things that I find romantic.

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Friday Free Writing – Megan – May 21, 2021

Posted on May 21, 2021May 20, 2021 by Epic Book Club

I went with the genre-blend generator today to choose what sort of story we’d be writing. I like the horror-Pygmalion direction that I took with my story, but I’m wondering how much creepier I could have made it if I’d written from the sculpture’s point of view.

Charater: Art Student

Object: Glue

Genre: Horror/Romance

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Friday Freewriting – Robert – May 14, 2021

Posted on May 14, 2021May 14, 2021 by Epic Book Club

Practice is supposed to make perfect, right? Well, at least it points out the areas where I need improvement. This week’s prompts were:

Character: Spy
Object: Electrical Outlet
Genre/Tone: Comedy

I don’t think I nailed either the spy or the comedy aspect of the story, and (though I was clearly heading that direction from the beginning) I never quite made it to the object, the electrical outlet. Still, the fact that it’s readable shows how robust this exercise is at structuring a complete story.

As always, we’d love it if you also tried the exercise with these prompts! If you do, please post your story in the comments. We’re moderating comments, because most of what we currently get is spam. But once your first comment is approved, you’ll be approved on an ongoing basis.

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Friday Freewriting – Megan – May 14, 2021

Posted on May 14, 2021May 14, 2021 by Epic Book Club

Character: Spy

Object: Electrical Outlet

Genre: Comedy

I think of humor as one of my strengths, so I thought that getting comedy as a genre prompt would be fun for me. The thing is, I find humor in exploring the absurdities in other genres, so comedy as a genre feels like a blank to me. It’s like someone pointing at me with no context and shouting, “Be funny!” I thought that the main character might help me find a humor-hold, but “spy” wasn’t helpful for me either, since I’m not well-versed in the spy genre. But this exercise doesn’t ask for a perfect story, just a done story.

Well, I tried! And I think it’s at least a little funny, and there is a spy and an electrical outlet: so unlike Robert, I at least followed the prompt. 😉

Let me know what you think of this Friday Freewrite. If you write your own, please share it and I’ll respond!

Oh, and Language Warning for this one.

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Friday Freewriting – Megan – May 7, 2021

Posted on May 7, 2021May 6, 2021 by Epic Book Club

I’m a little disappointed with myself on this freewrite. It was fun, don’t get me wrong! In the interest of time I missed the chance be more creative in my approach to a certain type of magical object. I have to remind myself that this exercise is supposed to get the creative juices flowing, and it’s not a system to produce perfect ideas on the first try. I’d love to see how others interpret these prompts, so please comment or link back to your own site so that I can see!

Character: Librarian

Object: Rug

Genre: Speculative Fiction

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Friday Freewriting – Robert – May 7, 2021

Posted on May 7, 2021May 6, 2021 by Epic Book Club

20091204_Hermitage_library_001 — Image by Christopher John SSF

This week’s prompts were:

Character: Librarian
Object: Rug
Genre/Tone: Speculative (SF/F)

I found it impossible to avoid the trope of the flying carpet. It made me wonder about images that are so deeply ingrained in our cultural imagination that they are utterly inescapable. So now I’m motivated to figure out how to make a magical carpet that doesn’t fly. What other magical properties might a carpet have?

On the other hand, I also found it impossible to name a librarian anything other than Marion, even if I genderbent him. I’m not exploring that at all.

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