Writing Prompt: Steal From the Real
I’m sneaking off a bit early to immerse myself in last-minute preparations for the WD Intensive this weekend. If you missed it earlier this week, check out my post on…
I’m sneaking off a bit early to immerse myself in last-minute preparations for the WD Intensive this weekend. If you missed it earlier this week, check out my post on the event and 7 reasons an editor might toss a novel submission in the round file.
Hope to see you in Cincinnati!
(Also, curious about the Nook e-reader? According to the tech gurus at Wired, it falls flat.)
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WRITING PROMPT: Steal From the Real
Feel free to take the following prompt home or post your response (500 words or fewer, funny, sad or stirring) in the Comments section below. By posting, you’ll be automatically entered in our occasional around-the-office swag drawings.
Take a newspaper and flip through the stories. Jot down two sourced quotes verbatim from different sections—say, one from a news story, and one from a human interest piece—and incorporate them into a story of your own. Make one quote the first line, and the other the final line.
Does toying with the real and connecting the dots between the passages force your fiction into unexpected corridors?
Zachary Petit is a freelance journalist and editor, and a lifelong literary and design nerd. He's also a former senior managing editor of Writer’s Digest magazine. Follow him on Twitter @ZacharyPetit.
