Friday Freewriting – September 10, 2021 – Megan

Posted on September 10, 2021September 9, 2021 by Epic Book Club

Is a story that makes you think, “Whiskey Tango Foxtrot” a mystery? Because that’s what I’ve got for you this week.

Character: Llama Rancher
Object: Deck of Cards
Genre: Mystery/Fantasy

In a moment of panic, as the timer counted down, I realized that I had a great set up for a murder mystery, but I had no idea how I wanted to resolve it. Then I remembered that the genre was mystery/fantasy, so I introduced magic. And a bit of nonsense. Well, I still like it.

How would you use these prompt elements in a story? Please let us know if you write your own!

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Friday Freewriting – August 27, 2021 – Megan

Posted on August 27, 2021September 9, 2021 by Epic Book Club

We had some discussion about following the rules today. Neither of us has been great about keeping to the sentence limit that Mary Robinette Kowal recommends in her video. But we decided to wait until another day to pay attention to that aspect. It’s funny how it seems like you need more time to write less.

The prompt this week was

Character: Programmer
Object: Coat
Genre/Tone: Action

I feel like say this almost every week, but this is a genre that I’m not super familar with. I should look into composing a reading list that will help me fill in the gaps in my knowlege. If you have any favorite books in the action genre, let me know in the comments!

And, as always, let us know if you felt inspired to try out the prompt this week (or from any other week!). Happy reading, and happy writing!

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Friday Freewriting – July 23, 2021 – Megan

Posted on July 23, 2021July 22, 2021 by Epic Book Club

When ‘satire’ was selected as our genre, Robert said he was just relieved it wasn’t romance, which is how I got to the idea of a werewolf breakup. I like the idea of a regular apartment building inhabited by both regular mortals and monsters, in a sort of uneasy truce – I’m adding that to my idea list for a later date! For now, I hope you enjoy the drama of Rodrick and Helen.

Let me know what you think, and if you try this exercise, please let us know!

Genre: Satire
Character: Werewolf
Object: Packing Tape

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Friday Freewriting – July 16, 2021 – Megan

Posted on July 16, 2021July 15, 2021 by Epic Book Club

Image by Great Smokey Mountains National Park

Our Friday Freewriting process is this: One of us fetches the prompts from random online generators, the other handles timing the segements of the exercise. When we’re done, we read our stories out loud to each other before posting. I really do love seeing what we each come up with; but there are definitely times that I have to suppress a twinge of jealousy. Robert’s idea to set his story in pre-history with his main character inventing and improvising during his hunt is fun. I ended up with a main character who nearly dies of self-inflicted stupidity. I nearly did have him freeze to death, but I know enough folks in Search and Rescue that I decided to write his survival instead. People don’t let people freeze to death if they can help it. So Jonathan and Samantha are able to continue their ill-advised trek through the mountains in the winter.

As usual, if you end up writing a story to go with these prompts, I’d love to see it. Stay safe out there, friends.

Character: Skier
Object: Bowl
Genre/Tone: Historical

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Friday Freewriting – Megan – June 18, 2021

Posted on June 18, 2021June 17, 2021 by Epic Book Club

Did I lean into melodrama? Yes. But since this is a timed exercise, I went with my first idea and stuck with it. I did not do any research into the timing between the male birds molting tail feathers and when the chicks would hatch, apologies to any ornithologist readers! I also totally made up the name Pembledom, please do not judge me too harshly.

I know I’ve said it before, but this is a fun exercise. I like the near chaos (you never know what the prompts will be), but the structure/instruction is always the same. There are other great writing exercises out there, but this one just hits a sweet spot for me. I’d love to see if anyone else does this prompt! Thank you for reading!

This week’s prompts were:

Character: Pianist
Object: Feather
Genre/Tone: Drama

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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 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 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 – 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 – 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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