was your new year resolution to write more?

posted by Hatty

Stolen from a cool website I stumbled upon a few weeks ago, below is a writing prompt I found totally fascinating — and led me to spend an hour and half scratching away on my notepad at a Philz Coffee on San Jose last Monday.

Try it. It’s good for your soul.

My location #7 was a playground at my elementary school back in Korea.

Very quickly, write down a list of ten locations.

Pick #3.

Set two characters in this location, and use one of the objects you might easily find in this location. Let the two characters talk a lot about this object, or these objects. (If it’s a diner, maybe a grilled cheese sandwich.  If it’s a meadow, a daisy chain.) Put them in a situation where they have to use this object. But one of the characters isn’t saying everything he/she is feeling. There’s a secret underneath, but the character will not reveal it. You may not even know what it is at first. Let this tension come out in how they talk about the object, without building to a big ‘reveal.’

Try it again, with location #7.