Laurel Garver's 5 Reasons to Write with Prompts

5 Reasons to Write is an ongoing series highlighting writers who love to write. Topics can include writing with certain genres, writing with prompts, or writing with various types of technology (text, voice, and more). 

Five Reasons to Write with Prompts

By Laurel Garver

Some writers feel that using writing prompts is like riding a bike with training wheels—fine for beginners to get them moving, but too restraining for the more experienced. The fact that creative writing teachers often include them in courses can also give them an elementary flavor.

But prompts are useful beyond mere apprentice-work practice stories. Writers at every level can benefit from bringing prompts into some part of their process. Here are five reasons to write using prompts beyond “so I can get an A in my undergrad fiction writing course”:

1. To warm up

No Olympic track star rolls out of bed and walks directly to the blocks, nor does a dancer simply strap on her toe shoes and dance The Rite of Spring. The pros know you can't perform your best unless you first warm up and stretch. And because the biggest obstacle to writing is one’s resistance to simply sitting down and beginning, a low-pressure warm up can be a helpful way to ease you in. Write to a prompt for ten minutes before you turn to your larger project, and you may find that, like the athlete, it enables you to go faster when you do "hit the track" (work on your manuscript), and like the ballerina, it enables you to move with greater ease and grace.

2. To overcome writer’s block

Writer’s block usually has one of two root causes: hitting a wall with a project or being in a creatively dry period. Essentially, a wall or a desert. Prompts are an excellent way to step away from the sense of frustration and simply play with words. Rather than stubbornly clench your fist around a plot problem or characterization glitch that has you stuck, take a creative vacation by writing to a prompt. It will enable you to mentally relax and give your intuition space to work. And rather than despair about having no ideas, pick up a collection of prompts. These germs of ideas from other creative minds that can often kick-start your creativity.

3. To experiment in a new genre

If you’ve always written one genre, prompts can provide excellent starter ideas to experiment in another genre, to try it on for size and see if it is a fit for you. Genre experiments can also help you avoid getting stale—even if you return to your genre of choice. For example, writing a romance short could help you develop skills with adding subtext to dialogue; experimenting with horror could help you become more deft at tension building and slow reveals. Spinning a prompt in an unexpected direction will open you creatively, help you develop your problem-solving skills, and widen your writing range.

4. To deepen parts of an existing story

Many early drafts suffer from lack of development of either the characters or the plot. Prompts can be helpful tools for doing this development work. They can helping you delve deeper into who these fictional people are and what they’d naturally do in certain situations. They can also provide new ideas for conflicts and obstacles to incorporate into your story, expanding the kinds of experiences your characters have—things you might not have come up with on your own.

5. To overcome burnout

It’s not unusual while writing a novel to hit a stage that you hate your story and have no motivation to continue working on it. Or perhaps you’ve finished the manuscript and are growing weary of the revision process. Your energy has been expended in one direction so long, you feel you can’t take another step on the same path. When experiencing this kind of burnout, writing to a prompt can be a way of having a little creative vacation elsewhere. Writing about your own past—taking prompts in a memoir direction—can be refreshing. So can imagining a character from your current project in a scenario unlike anything in your novel. Let the characters reveal new facets of themselves to you, and you may find your enthusiasm returning. Or simply play in another genre, writing a short story from a prompt for fun to restore your faith in your creative gifts.

Laurel Garver is the author of young adult fiction, poetry, and resources for writers. She holds degrees in English and journalism and earns a living as a magazine editor. An indie film enthusiast and incurable Anglophile, she enjoys pulling jinx pranks at Ravenclaw alumni events and plotting how to hijack a Tardis. She lives in Philadelphia with her husband and daughter.

Connect with Laurel:  Blog / Goodreads / Facebook / Twitter

About the book

1001 Evocative Prompts for Fiction Writers

Ideas, emotions, images, intriguing questions, perplexing dilemmas—these are the raw materials from which great stories are built.

1001 Evocative Prompts will stimulate your thinking wherever you are in your writing journey and get you writing today. It provides story starts and writing inspiration for a wide variety of genres by focusing on emotions, character development, and pivotal moments.

You can face a blank page with confidence when you use these prompts to warm up, beat writer’s block, develop and maintain a writing habit, change up your routine, start a new project, experiment in a new genre, deepen parts of an existing story, or overcome burnout.

What are you waiting for? Dig in and get writing right now!

Available as an e-book, pocket-sized paperback or workbook.

A Note from Tyrean: Since I started following Laurel's blog serveral years ago, I have noticed that she creates some wonderful writing prompts and great articles about writing. I highly recommend this book! 

Laurel Garver's 5 Reasons to Write Letters

Please welcome Laurel Garver today!

Five Reasons to Write Letters

By Laurel Garver

As a Gen-Xer, I’m part of the last generation to grow up pre-Internet, so my formative experiences with distance communication were very much of the analog variety—land-line phone calls and, yes, “snail mail” letters. I had a number of pen pals through middle and high school. One of them, I’m a bit ashamed to admit, wrote to a completely fictional version of me, because I invented for her the life I wish I had, plus fake dramas with fake friends just to keep things interesting. You might say that set of correspondence was my first epistolary fiction.

Ethically questionable forms of entertainment aside, writing letters has a number of benefits for fiction writers.

1) Trains you to communicate to a focal audience

Correspondence is by nature a very focused form of communication, meant for a specific recipient. Your choice of what topics to cover, in what order, and with what level of detail depends on who will read the letter. What things will this person easily grasp, and what things will s/he need extra explanations—and examples, illustrations, parables, or metaphorical language—to fully understand your meaning? What other literature, film, music, art, historic event, or cultural icon can you allude to, and how subtly, and this person will immediately get it?

You’ve often heard it said to “picture your ideal reader” when you create stories. But that’s a tall order. With letters, your reader has a name, a face, opinions and preferences. Learning to write to appeal to an audience of one prepares you to do the harder task of writing for an audience of many.

2) Challenges your narration skills

Narration often gets a bad rap in contemporary fiction. It’s assumed to always be telling when showing is better. But well done narrative is really just a pacing tool, a way to condense action and dialogue and move a story along. Letter writing is excellent practice to hone this skill. Composing a letter about the fiasco of a camping trip you just took will involve choosing which details to include, building tension, using comic timing, and framing the series of events in a narrative arc.

3) Connects you to your deepest emotions

It’s rare for any of us to be anything but our “curated selves” on social media. We tend to share only a sliver of what’s going on in our lives—especially our emotional lives. Letter writing invites deeper intimacy with your correspondent, because it’s a slow medium, it’s private, it’s handmade, and it holds a certain history-tied cachet. In writing letters, I often discover how I really feel about what’s going on in my life. Writing to a friend or relative invites us to share the deeper things, the “I wish…,” “I fear…,” “I hope…”. Those deep emotions are where you find your heart-stories, the ones that stir your creative passion.

4) Serves as a brainstorming tool

Epistle brainstorming involves writing imagined letters from a character, between characters, or to a character. It is a great way to get to know your characters, develop voice, and work out kinks in your plot.

By writing a letter as a character, you can begin to really hear how a character would express him/herself, how this person would interpret events, and which details would be focal. I’ve also found that writing letters to my character—and letting her answer—enabled me to dig deeper into her personality, to process my thoughts and feelings when the plot stalled, and to imaginatively seek the character’s help to develop solutions that fit her sense of who she is. As wacky as that sounds, remember that your character is also you. So this is really just a way to trick your brain into letting parts of yourself interact more directly.

As an example, here’s a brief “character instant message exchange” from my brainstorming notes from my latest release:

Me: Hey, Dani, it’s been a year and a half since you lost your dad. Any new developments in your healing process?

Dani: Remember how I when I first lost Dad, I kept one of his old shirts and hid it? And my therapist said it wasn’t sick but healthy to keep it? Well, I’ve taken to putting on Dad’s old shirt when I’m stressed. I feel wrapped up in his protection and blessing when I’m wearing it.

This was one of several details I was able to tease out of my brain to create deeper characterization, and create ties between the prequel and the current book.

Not sure where to start in corresponding as or with a character? My post “No stamp required: Epistle brainstorming” has some specific brainstorming exercises to try.

5.) Brings texture and off-scene voices into your stories.

I also like to use correspondence in my fiction—digital forms like instant messaging, e-mail and texts, as well as handwritten types like letters and journals. Because it’s a different type of storytelling material than standard narration or dialogue, it adds texture to your story. And as I mentioned in reason 3, letter writing naturally makes someone go deeper emotionally, so a well-placed letter can be a good way to, for instance, let a character say something deep, heart-felt, or even gooey-romantic that would sound extremely cheesy in dialogue. The formality of a letter gives profundity a free pass, it seems. (Green’s The Fault in Our Stars does this to great effect.)

Letters are also a way to bring off-scene characters’ voices to bear on current situations without all the bother of transporting them on scene. With letters you can access voices of a geographically distant character, or even one from another time. One of Dani’s great treasures in my latest book is correspondence and journals from a grandmother who died when Dani was an infant. This voice from the past gives her insight into her present troubles.

If you don’t want the access to be too easy, make the WiFi spotty or the cellular reception nonexistent. Snail mail comes with a built-in delay mechanism: apart from personal delivery, it’s rare for a letter to arrive in less than twenty-four hours. Or put the correspondence in a foreign language, as I did with Dani’s journal from her Nana, which she has to work to translate and learn the truths hidden in it.

Are you now or were you once a letter-writer? How might your add letter writing to your routine or to your fiction tools?

About the author

Laurel Garver is a writer, editor, professor’s wife and mom to an arty teenager. An indie film enthusiast and incurable Anglophile, she enjoys geeking out about Harry Potter and Dr. Who, playing word games, singing in church choir, and taking long walks in Philly's Fairmount Park. You can connect with her on Facebook, Twitter, Goodreads or her blog.

About Laurel’s new release

Almost There

YA inspirational

Paris, the City of Lights. To seventeen-year-old Dani Deane, it’s the Promised Land. There, her widowed mother’s depression will vanish and she will no longer fear losing her only parent, her arty New York life, or her devoted boyfriend.

But shortly before their Paris getaway, Dani’s tyrannical grandfather falls ill, pulling them to rural Pennsylvania to deal with his hoarder horror of a house. Among the piles, Dani finds disturbing truths that could make Mum completely unravel. Desperate to protect her from pain and escape to Paris, Dani hatches a plan with the flirtatious neighbor boy that only threatens the relationships she most wants to save.

Why would God block all paths to Paris? Could real hope for healing be as close as a box tucked in the rafters?

Book available here: Amazon / Barnes and Noble / Smashwords / Apple iTunes / Createspace

Read sample chapters free on Wattpad

Note from Tyrean: woke up and discovered missing files on my pc, so I might be focused on that today. Hope you enjoy this post by Laurel Garver. 

Guest Laurel Garver answers Why Read Poetry? and Celebrate the Small Things

Please give a warm welcome to Laurel Garver, author and poet!

Why read poetry?

By Laurel Garver, author of Muddy-Fingered Midnights

 

If you want to write more stylishly, one of the best places to learn about writing craft is in a book of poems. Poetry is by nature condensed and intense. Every word matters. Beyond craft considerations, reading poetry can also expand your understanding of where moments of change happen, and how to navigate the deep seas of human emotion.

(Yes it does!)

 

Like fiction, poetry also has sub-genres: lyric (descriptive), narrative (story), formal (following rhythm and rhyme patterns), concrete (artistically shaped lines), found (“stolen” words and lines combined artistically), spoken word, Flarf (avant garde combos of pop culture), and many more. There’s a little something in verse for everyone—even fans of “pulp fiction,” romance, SciFi or horror. (For an extensive list of magazines with poetry, see Poets & Writers database here.

 

 

I fell hard for poetry while taking a contemporary poetry course as an undergrad. The prof began the class by lining us around the perimeter of the room and having us shout random portions of Allen Ginsberg’s “Howl” at one another. This was a universe away from the precious ponderings of Wordsworth and a game changer for me creatively. Many scenarios I would’ve previously thought unpoetical became grist for the mill--my janitorial work-study job, memories of Dad slaughtering chickens, a weedy patch in a slum--because truth is beautiful, no matter where you find it. That, in turn, helped me think more broadly about what warrants description in fiction, and what evokes our deepest feelings.

 
(I love Laurel's thought that "truth is beautiful, no matter where you find it.")

Taking courses in poetry also pushed me hard to develop my vocabulary, to delve deep into the world of words. A poet must look not only at a word’s definition, but also its connotations and connections. A poet must hear the tones and feel the textures of words. Studying poetry has made me especially aware of the power of sound devices: alliteration (repeated initial sounds), assonance (repeated vowel sounds within a word), and consonance (repeated consonant sounds with a word).

 

I believe these devices can make anyone’s writing more musical. The thinking behind sound devices is often onomatopoetic; the sound and meaning are linked. If you want to convey a sense of something sliding, for example, you’d choose hissing, sibilant words containing “s”, “sh” and “sw.” For example, “In her rush, she slipped sidelong, smearing grease along one sleeve.”

 

I like to quietly work these devices into my fiction during revision to undergird the texture and emotion. Of course, like any technique it can be overdone, so I’m careful to use vocabulary that’s natural to the character and save the effects for important moments. Watching poets do it well was an important first step.

 

National Poetry Month may have come and gone, but for writers building their skills, every day should have a little poetry in it.

(I completely agree, Laurel!)

 

===

Laurel Garver is a magazine editor, poet, and writer of faith-based fiction. She enjoys quirky independent films, British TV, and geeking out about Harry Potter and Dr. Who. She lives in Philadelphia with her husband and daughter.

 Blog / Twitter / Facebook

 

About Muddy-Fingered Midnights

This thirty-poem collection is an eclectic mix of light and dark, playful and spiritual, lyric and narrative free verse. In an intricate dance of sound play, it explores how our perceptions shape our interactions with the world. Here child heroes emerge on playgrounds and in chicken coops, teens grapple with grief and taste first love, adults waver between isolation and engaged connection. It is a book about creative life, our capacity to wound and heal, and the unlikely places we find love, beauty, and grace.

 

Buy Links: $1.99 e-book Kindle  / Nook  / iTunes all other e-readers  $6.50paperback

 Thank you for bringing some poetry to my day, Laurel!

 

 

1. I climbed the hill (see Wednesday).

2. The National Day of Prayer.

3. The Premier showing of my daughters' performing arts class film, "The Lady of the Earrings." - We had a red carpet evening!

4. Laurel's Guest Post today! Thank you Laurel!

5. Time for writing.

6. An awesome critique partner.

7. Ironing . . . this would take an entire post to explain all of why I'm thankful for this, but in short, I get some imagination time in while ironing.

 

Thank you VikLit for this time to celebrate and give thanks for the small things.

 

 

 

The scripture verse that I'm praying over today is: 1 Thessalonians 15: "Rejoice always" - two words, big meaning.

 

 

 

 

 

Winners! and Celebrate the Small Things

The Winners of the Champion in the Darkness Book Tour Giveaway Are:

Tonja of Kidbits - winner of a paperback copy of Champion in the Darkness!

Miss Jack of However Improbable - winner of an ebook copy of Champion in the Darkness!

Jennifer Hardy - winner of a $20 amazon gift card!

Allison of GeekBanter - winner of a $10 amazon gift card!

And in case I forgot to mention it, the winner of the Champion in the Darkness ebook giveaway at Laurel's Leaves was: Michael Di Gesu

And a huge thank you to everyone who participated! And a huge round of applause and big HUGS for all the totally awesome people who helped me with that really long book blog tour:

  Susan Kaye Quinn  Laura Josephsen Dianne L. Gardner Laurel Garver Tara Tyler Allison at Geek Banter  Jamie Ayres Livia Peterson  Alex J. Cavanaugh Nickie Anderson

 Celebrate the Small Things from VikLit happens each Friday and encourages us to celebrate the small things in life!

 

1. I had an awesome exercise day on Wednesday - 2 mile walk in the morning, cardio exercises with my kids for 20 minutes in the later am, then 1 mile of jogging, 3 miles of biking, and 10 minutes of strength exercises at the YMCA in the evening with my husband. It was a hot, sweaty date. :)

 

(the rest of the week was very slow, and involved some crazy snacking - I made myself eat carrots and celery because I just had the continual nibbling feeling . . .must stop that somehow, any advice?)

 

2. I talked to another independent bookstore owner. She didn't say yes immediately, she said she would read it first, and then she told me about a tour she had at Lightning Source.

 

3. I'm collecting some bits and pieces of advice and info that I'll be giving out soon . . . hopefully next week.

 

4. My book signing at our homeschool co-op has now been extended to a two event deal - book signing at lunch, with a parent's night out + book club event in the evening. My book was the book of the month for the book club for March! The big day will be March 25th - and I'm excited.

 

5. I'm hand-selling books faster than I'm selling them via the internet so far this month and I'm surprised every time someone buys one from me. I have literally mumbled, stumbled, and said anything but the "official" pitch I have in my head, and people are still interested. It's totally amazing when someone wants to buy my book! Seriously, it is amazing every time.

 

6. My kids have been coaching me to answer the question, "How are you?" with this phrase, "Great, because I recently published my first book!" and it has definitely started some conversations I might have been too shy to have otherwise.

 

7. Nickie, my critique partner, rolled out the red carpet on her blog, Here's the Story this week with both a Book Review and an Interview! It was the perfect ending to a great book tour! Thanks Nickie!

 

And again, thank you to all who hosted, participated, encouraged, commented, and made me smile! :)

 

Oh . . .and I'm on the Amazon Breakthrough Novels of 2013 list at Goodreads. (as of this morning I'm at #21)You can vote for up to 5 people, and I would really appreciate it if you spent one of your votes on me. :) Other writers I highly recommend voting for are: Nancy Thompson, Cherie Reich, Rachel Morgan, Michael Pierce, Alex J. Cavanaugh, and Christine Rains.

 

 

 

 

 

Cover Reveal for Laurel Garver's Muddy-Fingered Midnights!

Check out this awesome cover for Laurel Garver's new book, Muddy-Fingered Midnights.

 

And, if you didn't have a chance yesterday, come check out Clara's 18 Things at Jamie Ayre's blog.  

Guest Laurel Garver, and Did I Notice Your Book?

As you may have guess I accidentally double-booked, but I think the more encouragement, the better, right?

First I would like to give a warm welcome to Laurel Garver with her guest post, "Why Dads matter"!

 

 

Why Dads matter

 

My novel NEVER GONE is about a teen girl grieving the death of her father. As I was writing it, I discovered there haven’t been many YA books that focus on loss of a parent, aside from The Truth About Forever and Cures for Heartbreak. I suppose that’s because of the tendency to focus on peer relationships in the teen years, so sibling death stories like Losing Faith and The Sky is Everywhere are more the norm.

 

But as painful as it is to lose a sibling, losing a parent is far more world changing. The family’s income is cut in half, or lost entirely, which might require major transitions like moving or a career change for the living parent. College might suddenly become out of reach financially. As much as teens struggle to develop an individual identity, they still rely on parents for most of life’s necessities. They also receive a lion’s share of emotional support from parents.

 

I was especially interested in exploring the father-daughter dynamic because girls first learn how to relate to boys from interacting with their dads. As much as the overprotective dad who scrutinizes boyfriends is the butt of jokes, especially in TV sit-coms, it’s a natural and normal phenomenon for dads to protect their daughters from predators. Despite the eye-rolling, daughters know they’re valued when their dads don’t let just any guy get close to them. In healthy families, girls will start to look at potential partners through Dad’s eyes and pick up red flags. A girl who has a close bond with her dad is far less likely to seek sexual intimacy too young, or stay in abusive relationships.

 

In NEVER GONE, Dani has lost her protector to death. So naturally, she struggles with a new sense of vulnerability and must find ways to be savvy about guys without Dad’s direct intervention. Her interactions with most of the male characters in the story are charged by this dynamic. There are both protectors and predators all around her, and at times she mistakes one for the other. Her ability to see correctly doesn’t come until she grasps the love and protection of God, her eternal Father, the true and ultimate protector of her life.

 

Laurel Garver is a magazine editor, published poet and author of NEVER GONE, a novel for teens about grief and faith. An indie film enthusiast and incurable Anglophile, she enjoys playing word games, perfecting her backstroke, and working with her church youth group. She lives in Philadelphia with her husband and daughter.

 

About Never Gone:

Days after her father’s death, fifteen-year-old Dani Deane begins seeing him all around New York — wading through discarded sketches in her room, roaming the halls at church, socializing at his post-funeral reception. Is grief making her crazy? Or could her dad really be lingering between this world and the next, trying to contact her?

 

Dani desperately longs for his help. Without him keeping the peace, Dani’s relationship with her mother is deteriorating fast. Soon Mum ships her off to rural England with Dad’s relatives for a visit that Dani fears will become a permanent stay. But she won’t let her arty, urban life slip away without a fight, especially when daily phone calls with her lab partner Theo become her lifeline.

 

To find her way home, Dani must somehow reconnect with Mum. But as she seeks advice from relatives and insights from old letters, she uncovers family secrets that shake her to the core. Convinced that Dad’s ghost alone can help her, she sets out on a dangerous journey to contact him one last time.

Thank you Laurel!!!

 

You can view the book trailer on YouTube.
Add it on Goodreads
The e-book is available at Amazon.com, Amazon UK, Barnes and Noble, Kobo, Smashwords
The paperback is available at CreateSpace, Amazon


And now for those of you encouraging bloggers involved in Did I Notice Your Book? Blogfest

(I hope you noticed Laurel's book, because I did, but I'm also going to spread some of the love around.)

One book I noticed earlier this year that keeps sticking with me, so I plan to re-read it again soon is:

Resistance by Laura Josephson! This is a fun, fantasy adventure that had some unexpected twists and turns, and loveable characters. Thank you Laura for a great read!
Official blurb: All Alphonse wants is a quiet summer at home before his final months at university. What he gets is a half-dead stranger on his doorstep and the task of delivering a package to the leader of his home country. Not long after he boards a train toward the capital, he's attacked by knights, elite soldiers of the neighboring king.

Alphonse is temporarily rescued by Mairwyn, a mechanic with a haunted past and a deep hatred of knights. Together, they attempt to carry out Alphonse's urgent errand, only to learn that if they fail, countless people will die.

And even if they succeed, they may not be able to prevent the war that lurks on the horizon.

Again, Many Thanks to Laurel for her awesome guest post!