Greetings, writers—
Today’s post will take the form of one of our original generative writing classes, with a slightly goofy warm-up followed by two more serious prompts.
So, just to set the scene: imagine it’s a Monday night, and you’re sitting in front of your computer looking at a bunch of friendly faces caught in tiny rectangles, and I’m once again trying to remember how Zoom works, and it’s all lovely and exciting and maybe just a touch nerve-wracking, because writing is weird and hard but we all want to do it and so we’re here, proving that to ourselves, alone in our rooms together.
Ready?
Warm Up — 5 minutes
Write about what this is. Wrong answers only.
Prompt 1 — 20 minutes
No tears in the writer, no tears in the reader. No surprise in the writer, no surprise in the reader. —Robert Frost
Write a scene that involves either tears or a surprise. Or both.
(I know, I’m misusing his quote. Frost wants you to cry, and you to be surprised—I’m just telling you to make your characters do it. But you’re welcome to do it, too.)
Prompt 2 — 20 minutes
Do You Belong to Anybody? is the title of a short story by Maya Binyam.1
Answer the question, either from your own point of view or from that of one of your characters.
Your response can be a stream-of-consciousness musing, or you can turn it into an actual scene, with setting, dialogue, and action.
Happy writing—
Emily
It’s a sad, excellent story, published in the Paris Review #241, and I’m kind of misusing it, too, by stealing only its title.