The prompt this week was:
Saying fine when you’re not.
Set yourself a scenario where your characters are in a stressful or bad situation and they have to say that they are fine when they aren’t. They have to be brave. Consider situations of bullying when a child or adult is asked but compelled to respond with “I’m fine” as some form of protection or defense.
Growing up, did your family have home remedies, possibly passed down from generation to generation?
Some home remedies have been proven to be effective. Some are mere panaceas, of comfort to those giving and receiving the treatment.
The prompt is to write about a home remedy in your family or one you’ve overheard. Tell the story by tapping into the emotional and sensual descriptions of the experience, good or bad.
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.
The workshop topic was on writing a query letter for submitting your writing. The prompt was:
Sell it with the first line.
We were to sum up a piece of writing we’d like to submit for publishing in a single, powerful sentence.
Writers in the Grove 