The prompt this week was suggested by the recent shooting at Umpqua Community College as well as other tragic events.
Write about a tragedy, one that involves risk and fear. Put your character(s) under pressure in the middle of something where split second decisions could make things worse or resolve the issue.
Our hearts and thoughts are with the families and community of Roseburg, Oregon. Forest Grove hosts Pacific University, and we are kindred spirits sharing your pain and loss.
The following is from Writers in the Grove member Ann Farley. It is inspired from the Prompt: Writing Letters You Might Never Send.
Write a letter I wouldn’t send?
Did that once, wrote a letter to a college professor, and I intended to send it, but the tone was snarky. I knew if I mailed it, I’d never hear from her. Put that letter in an envelop, but stopped short of a stamp. Stuffed it down in the couch cushions to give it time, give myself a little distance, reconsider. Perhaps rewrite it entirely.
Two days later I looked for that letter, tore the couch apart, got belly-flat on the floor looking for it.
Gone. It was gone.
Asked my husband if he’d seen an envelop in the couch, and sure enough, he had. Found it, put a stamp on it, put it in the mailbox a day or so ago.
Well, damn.
Maybe, I thought, maybe the tone wasn’t so bad. But I knew it was, and there was no pulling it back. I never heard from that professor again.
Never wrote a letter I wouldn’t send again, either.
Not worth the loss.
This week’s prompt talked about how we communicate? What do we use to communicate? Eyes, attention, body language, respect, support, and words.
You can communicate with a person and have it be a very intimate connection. You may also connect with someone and have it be a one way experience.
There are many ways to communicate with each other, as there is with your characters. How do they communicate with each other?
As a writer, how do you connect on a deeper level to your readers? Sometimes you write to a specific person, even if you are writing for many. Others say they write to and for themselves.
The prompt narrowed down to this:
Write a letter to yourself or someone else that speaks the truth, says what you really wish to tell them, no holds barred.
It could be a letter sent, or one that is written and never sent. It doesn’t matter.
If you’d like to experiment with character building, have your main character or any character in your story write that letter.
Think of a situation where you or someone else is a complete novice.
This prompt is from the Monday morning workshops for Writers in the Grove at Forest Grove Senior and Community Center.
This prompt is based upon a news story about a person wearing a controversial t-shirt at a university sports game, created by a local sports bar.
“It was pretty much towards the end of the game when things were getting pretty exciting,” said fourth-year medical student Erin Avondet, who spotted the T-shirt. “I spotted it and at first I was just totally taken aback, just completely shocked. I didn’t know how to comprehend it.”
The shirt reads “We are not responsible for lost or stolen virginity!” which appears below the Blue Jay Bar logo.
“The big thing I perceived was the use of the word stolen. That obviously implies it’s just being taken away from you without your permission,” Avondet said.
Avondet posted the picture online and it has been shared thousands of times. She said many people share her disapproval of the message.
“There are so many people that are victims of rape, and I think having that open conversation, starting that conversation is important,” Avondet said.
The prompt was to write about a situation where your character is outraged about an insensitive t-shirt, garment, or situation. Discussing the prompt, we realized that there are layers here in writing such a character driven moment. There are times when a person is offended by something but must constrain their response due to social norms. We can’t throttle everyone we don’t agree with, and protect freedom of speech while promoting responsible behavior.
The prompt and challenge is to write a very short story as if you were the following ages:
How does the story change? How does the voice change?
The prompt this week was:
If you only had two or three tools, what would they be, and how would you use them?
Put yourself or a character in a situation where they are restricted to using two or three tools. Describe the situation, the tools, their handling of the tools, what they are working on, putting emphasis upon the tools themselves.
The prompt this week was:
What my pet or an animal taught me.
Have you learned a life lesson from your pets or from an encounter with an animal?
Maybe this isn’t about a personal story but an encounter with a pet or animal for another character. What happened? What was the response of the character and the animal? What did they learn?
The prompt is to write about something you know by heart.
Look deep. Peel off the layers. What do you know down to your soul or toes or whatever metaphor you wish.
You may write a personal story or use characters to demonstrate something they know by heart.
The prompt this week involved keeping secrets.
You or your character knows something that the family shouldn’t know. Write about how you successfully or unsuccessfully hide the information.
Keeping secrets comes in all shapes, sizes, and flavors, but hiding something from family, people who know you or the character well and share a history, that’s more complicated.
How do they hide the information? Are they successful in doing so? It is important that we know what the secret is or just that something must be hidden from the others? Consider familial events such as family dinner gathers, holidays, or reunions.
Writers in the Grove 