“Listen to many, speak to a few.” Today is the accepted birthday of William Shakespeare in 1564. Explain your understanding of and opinion about this famous quote of his.
“The breaking of a wave cannot explain the whole sea.” -Vladimir Nabokov, born this date in 1899. Writing prompt: Describe your protagonist’s thought process during a time when s/he fallaciously reasoned from a small detail to a great – and mistaken – understanding.
What one thing would you, if you could, change about your upbringing? Journaling prompt: Spend 15-20 minutes writing your answer in the spirit of exploring yourself and the world around you. If you can answer with a simple “yes” or “no,” explain the sources or implications of your response. Fiction writing prompt: Write a scene that forces a character in your story to answer the question, or spend 15-20 minutes...
“A sense of humor, being born of perspective, bears a near kinship to philosophy; each is the soul of the other.”Will Durant Journal prompt: Spend at least 20 minutes writing about a time humor helped you through a difficult moment. Fiction writing prompt: Write a scene in which new information inverts your protagonist’s perspective on a prior serious event.
Posted by
dbschlosser on Apr 22nd, 2025 in
Romance |
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“People, you know, are always imagining and inventing reasons for their opinions and conduct.” -Henry Fielding, born this date in 1707. Writing prompt: Write a scene in which a trusted friend of your protagonist tries to persuade your protagonist that a potential romantic interest is unsuitable because of socioeconomic class differences between them.
Posted by
dbschlosser on Apr 22nd, 2025 in
Mystery |
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“We don’t appreciate the value of humor sometimes.” -Janet Evanovich, born this date in 1943. Writing prompt: Write a scene in which your protagonist cannot see the amusement value in circumstances everyone else considers hilarious.
“Now, I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.”- J. Robert Oppenheimer, born this date in 1904, at the detonation of the first atomic weapon. Writing prompt: Write a scene in which your protagonist’s scheme succeeds so far beyond her/his expectations that your protagonist is humbled as if before a god.
Pulitzer-prize winning novelist Ellen Glasgow, who shared stories of a new and changing post-Civil War US South, was born on this date in 1873. Write a story that will change someone’s mind about a place they don’t like.
