Unexpected Writing Resources

At Saturday's meeting, Greg asked what writing resources we were using. I didn't realize until after the meeting that the answers were at my fingertips (in my notebook) the entire time. Here are a few of the "offbeat" tools I'd taken for granted.

1) timeanddate.com

Maybe you're in the middle of scribbling the next great American novel, when you discover you can't write another word--and the story isn't going anywhere. Well, when was it set?

The Time and Date Calculator helps. I'm the type of writer who wants to know what day of the week Christmas fell on in 1976 and what day my character's 40th birthday will fall on in 2015.

I want my writing to ring true after I'm gone. If 20 years from now I'm writing that September 11, 2001 was on a Friday, rather than on the devastating Tuesday that it actually took place, readers may lose faith in my abilities.

Also, if I write that a soon-to-be evicted character has 40 days from Valentine's Day to get out of her apartment, I want to know what date is 40 days from February 14th.


2) Personal ads

I find many potential characters in the personals. I underline their positive qualities in green ink, and their negative ones in red. I tape my marked ads to index cards where I list 3-5 questions that may lead to a story.

Example ad: "SM, father, seeks new friends to begin a new life. I like...fishing, sitting at home, watching movies...Want to join me?"
Question 1: What was wrong with his old life?
Question 2: How many children does he have, and where is their mother?
Question 3: Who has he met sitting at home? I'd really like to know...

3) Song lyrics

Sometimes I'll jot down 5 words from a song and use them in a poem or short story.

Example 1:
The hymn: "Amazing Grace"
The words: amazing, wretch, blind, sing, sun
Possible outcomes: Those 5 words could be written in love, suspense, horror, anything...not necessarily Christian writing.

Example 2:
The nursery rhyme: "Miss Mary Mack"
The words: black, buttons, fifteen, high, July
Possible outcomes: Suddenly, you're writing a mini-mystery about a summertime military heist or your own version of "Mary Poppins."

Example 3:
The popular song: "Nick of Time," by Bonnie Raitt
The words: night, babies, folks, change, choices
Possible outcomes: A poem about teenage pregnancy or an article for the local paper.

4) Jump the Shark This website has a forum that allows TV viewers to air their complaints about their favorite and least favorite shows. Did "The Brady Bunch" go wrong when they added Cousin Oliver? More than just an online complaint fest, this site helps me see what more than a few people saw as "bad" writing, and try to avoid it in my own (writing).

5) The Yellow Pages
Lots of writing books will tell you to look in the white pages of the phone book, pick a name, and create a character just from that name. I like to go to certain page numbers and pull a word or two a page from the yellow pages.

The last time I tried this was in October. I went to pages 11, 22, 33, 44, 55....you get the idea. Here's some of what I found:

11: airport, visitor
33: alarms, muffler
99: garage door opener, hardware
111: carpet, florist
222: museums, gravel
333: thrift store

One of my story ideas from the "yellow pages" prompt: A woman who leaves her car unattended at a yard sale, doesn't realize her garage door opener is missing until she gets home.

6) Stock Photo Prompts
When I noticed that fast food restaurants and insurance companies sometimes used the same photos of models in the same poses, I learned about stock photos. In addition to the ones in the clip art gallery in Microsoft Word, I use pictures from fotosearch.com and istockphoto.com for inspiration. Stock photos are expensive and rights have to be purchased to use them. However, rights don't have to be purchased to look at them and ask a few questions that will help you write your next story.

Click here for the picture source for the following questions about a picture of a pregnancy test.

• She's not wearing a ring. Is she or isn't she pregnant?
• What if she is single and childless and wants to be pregnant? What circumstances brought this desire about? Turning 30? A broken engagement?
• There's a colorful, seemingly child-friendly piece of art behind her? Does she already have children? How will the outcomes of this test affect her and those around her?

Surely, there are other offbeat and unexpected sources of inspiration. If you know of more, let us know. Until we meet again, happy writing!

4 Writing Prompts

1) Use a sentence starting with the word "I."

-I remember when...
-I had forgotten about...
-I wish I'd never...

2) Find a random picture and make up a story about it. Stock photos are a great source, and at www.fotosearch.com you can do a keyword search for interesting images. Perhaps your keywords could be: balloon, Italian, salad, or snow.

3) Use all the letters of a proper name to create your first sentence.

A few examples:

SHEILA: Sandra Hampton erased Ian's letters again. They weren't exactly letters, since they were emails, but they were...

EDWARD: Every day Whitney allows Ron Denmark to make her feel like losing her religion.

ZOE: Zach owes Ethan. Again. Big time.

4) Write something really off the wall and keep going.

-The first time I married Dan, culottes were still in style.

-Thirty years ago I died giving birth to Imogene Elizabeth Cunningham. At least that was supposed to be her name...

-It was time for my 12:00 feeding.

-The rain in Spain caused pain for Lorraine.

-Four thousand, six hundred, twenty-eight dollars and seventy-two cents ago my integrity was still intact.

-Today when I leave to go to work, I'm not coming back.

-Barbara Bell Bivens believed bad boys belonged behind bars.

The Butler Did It!

Writers get stuck sometimes. The right writer's prompt can help you get the story going. Later, if it doesn't fit, you can ditch it, and you've still got a great story. This prompt, "The Butler Did It" is inspired by the old movie murder mysteries where you found out in the end that the butler did it. Let's try it in reverse. Pick any of the following "butler did it..." statements, and start your story with the butler's action.


1) The butler arrived first.
2) The butler broke the lock.
3) The butler did it.
4) The butler erased the files and continued his dusting.
5) The butler jumped into the pool.
6) The butler kicked off his shoes and stared at the body in the pool.
7) The butler lurked beneath the stairwell.
8) The butler opened the box.
9) The butler quit.
10) The butler rode in silence.
11) The butler stabbed Mr. Lexington.
12) The butler unlocked the gate.
13) The butler walked with a limp.