Writing Prompts You Can Use Today

by Gary Fearon, Creative Director, Southern Writers Magazine

I'll admit it.  Every once in a while I get stuck for a story idea, and when I'm desperate enough, I resort to googling "writing prompts".  Inevitably it's a dead end because "Write about your favorite Christmas memory" or "What's your biggest pet peeve" isn't what I have in mind. 

When talking to writers, I'm always curious to learn whether they like to listen to music while they work, or whether they prefer to have it as quiet as possible. Being aurally oriented myself, I enjoy knowing that many authors listen to music that fits the mood of whatever they're writing.  A website like AccuRadio can provide a running backdrop of soundtracks ranging from romance to horror.

That atmospheric approach provides effective support when you already know what to write. But have you ever considered turning to music as a way of inspiring an idea?  Songs are just one of several readily-available story starters that are easily overlooked.

SONG TITLES
A good song title can make a good writing prompt.  For example, don't each of these classic phrases conjure something you could build a scenario around?

• Heartbreak Hotel
• Georgia on My Mind
• Born to Run
• Blowin' in the Wind
• King of the Road
• Behind Closed Doors
• When Doves Cry

If you're worried about stealing an existing song title, even other songwriters are prone to borrow a good idea for themselves.  Over the years, each of these song titles have been used ten times or more for very different radio hits:

• Call Me
• Crazy
• Hold On
• I Want You
• Runaway
• Smile 
• Stay
• Without You

Song titles can't be copyrighted any more than novel titles can.  Even a more involved title like "Have I Told You Lately That I Love You" has been used two separate times, in hits for Gene Autry and Rod Stewart.  Steal away.

STORY SONGS
Country music in particular has provided a wealth of songs that tell a story.  Premises like these could be given different titles, different characters, and adapted into entirely new tales:

• Ode to Billie Joe
• The Night the Lights Went Out in Georgia
• Harper Valley P.T.A.
• Coward of the County

BTW all of the above became critically panned movies or TV shows.  I'm sure you can do better. 

CLICHES
A popular phrase has the bonus of familiarity to add immediate appeal.  The writers of these songs can attest to that:

• Bad Blood
• Bad to the Bone
• Every Rose Has Its Thorn
• One Bad Apple 
• Over My Head
• Take It Easy
• That's What Friends Are For
• You Ain't Seen Nothin' Yet

RANDOM SENTENCES FROM NOVELS
Here are a few phrases I grabbed just now from the middle of three old books in my office.  I'll wager any of these would be the nucleus of a decent story idea:

"It soon became clear, first to his family, then to the village, that he had changed."

"He told his secretary that he was in the States on a special assignment. She was a bit hurt by his secrecy, but thought nothing more of it."

"He was overcome with emotion, with dreams of her in their younger days, the youthful beauty that he had taken for granted and had been lucky enough to find again."

FIRST LINE PROMPTS
Lastly, there are several websites that generate random first lines. The following are courtesy of http://writingexercises.co.uk/firstlinegenerator.php  Could you do something with these opening lines?

"He'd had a bad day and just needed something to make him feel better."

"The horse came back alone."

"The whole family had been cursed since..."

FINAL THOUGHTS
Writing prompts aren't just useful for creating story ideas; they can also come in handy in the middle of a novel when things need to take an unexpected turn.

I hope one or more of these tips come in handy for your next story.  Speaking of which, you still have time to enter your latest masterpiece in Southern Writers' 2016 Short Story Fiction Contest (the deadline is June 30; get details here).  Have fun and good luck!

Kate Middleton is Expecting

by Gary Fearon, Creative Director


I know.  Your reaction to that title is either "Who cares?" or "Have I got the right blog?"

You absolutely have the right blog, and thanks for being here.  As for who cares whether the royal family is with child, it will be interesting to see how many fans of celebrity gossip click on Suite T today by accident.  My apologies for misleading anyone, but what I'm here to do is share a few tips on how to choose blogpost titles that attract attention.

Purely to make this point, I chose a title from today's headlines that a lot of people are searching for.  (It was either that or Shania Twain's catsuit.)  To satisfy anyone's curiosity, or to make things worse, I've included appropriate photos here as well.  However, I've tagged the picture of Kate with the words "Lindsay Lohan" and "IRS", inviting further googling mayhem.

If your goal is to attract new visitors to your blogpost, the title can make all the difference.  What title will draw people in?  The best answer to that question is: What will people be typing in their search bar when they're looking for the kind of content you've just written?

Perhaps you've written a post on fiction writing.  You could title it "Fiction Writing", but it will get lost in the sea of (literally) 361 million other results for "fiction writing" on Google. 

Get a little more specific.  Does your post offer "fiction writing prompts"?  Title it thusly and you only have 3 million other sites as competition. (Hey, you've narrowed it down to a tenth of what you started with!)

Get even more specific with "Creative Fiction Writing Prompts" and there are just a half a million results competing with yours.

Clearly the more descriptive keywords you get in your title, the more likely someone searching for your info will find you.  Adding a "How to..." or "10 Tips for..." often doesn't hurt, and might make your title stand out.  Nothing wrong with being emphatically literal in an instructional post title.

But maybe what you've written is of a more creative nature.  For this, clever is good, if it at least has some clear correlation to the content.  "It's Christmas Time" as a title just sits there, but "Why I'm Afraid to Look in My Refrigerator" is a guaranteed hit.  In fact, if you wrote a post by that title right now, you'd be the first one online.  Hurry up, 'cause I kinda like it.

Of course, people aren't specifically googling "afraid to look in my refrigerator", but if you promote an irresistibly intriguing blogpost title on Facebook, Twitter, or Pinterest, people will find you and recommend it to their friends.

Instructional bloggers needn't feel left out of the creative loop.  Combine creativity with description if you like, and come up with "Deal or No Deal: 10 Ways to Pitch to a Publisher".

These suggestions are just the tip of the titling iceberg, and can readily apply to book titles as well.  If you'd like us to address this topic further in a future post, simply leave a comment below, preferably one that has nothing to do with this post, but rather refers to something straight from the celebrity gossip columns.

Shania thanks you!