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Thanks, and hope to see you over on the new site!

Theme: Expectations

Words:
shift
filtering
brief
paradigm

I’ll post a proper link to the new Sat. Scribes section once next week’s prompts are up in the new space.

Cheers, and Happy New Year to all the writers out there!

Theme: Going home

Words:
never
last call
tomorrow
created
burying

As usual, remember comments are semi-moderated, so don’t worry if your comment doesn’t show up right away. Newcomers can learn more about Saturday Scribes here (including how to do a permalink to your post) and read the prompt guidelines here.

Theme: Pass/Fail

Words:
struggle
desperation
triumph

Good luck to all the erstwhile novelists out there, as you enter the home stretch!

As usual, remember comments are semi-moderated, so don’t worry if your comment doesn’t show up right away. Newcomers can learn more about Saturday Scribes here (including how to do a permalink to your post) and read the prompt guidelines here.

Words:
dappled
fearsome
firefly

For any of the NaNoWriMo novelists out there struggling to stay on track, despite increasinly unweildy plots and unruly characters, here are some suggestions to get your characters out of a rut. These don’t have to end up in the finished book, but they might teach you something about your characters
along the way, and besides, they’re far more fun than following a pre-planned plot:

• Dream Sequences – great for wordcount, these can be written in pure freefall, stream of consiousness mode; best of all, you don’t have to worry about them making any sense (although you can feel free to pack them full of meaning and symbolism if you really want to)
• Flashbacks – not sure where your characters’ motivations are coming from? Take a trip back in time. What were they like as kids? Did they experience any life-changing, momentous events (tragic or otherwise)?
• Unexpected Encounters – How would your characters react if they were thrown into completely unexpected circumstances? How would they handle themselves if, say, the world was suddenly attacked by aliens? Invaded by giant pink mushroom-eating alligators? Or if the town they lived in inexplicably became a circus overnight?

As usual, remember comments are semi-moderated, so don’t worry if your comment doesn’t show up right away. Newcomers can learn more about Saturday Scribes here (including how to do a permalink to your post) and read the prompt guidelines here.

Theme: Relativity

Words:
vindicate
rapscallion
arrested

As usual, remember comments are semi-moderated, so don’t worry if your comment doesn’t show up right away. Newcomers can learn more about Saturday Scribes here (including how to do a permalink to your post) and read the prompt guidelines here.

Having trouble fleshing out your characters? Wanting to get to know them better, without taking time away from that frantic push towards 50k? Set up an interview with your characters. Sure, it’s a bit of a detour from the story, but it’s amazing how much more you’ll know about your characters once you’re finished. Best of all, you can write it right into the story! MC lost in space, or wandering through medieval Germany? Not a problem.  It’s NaNoWriMo, after all, where spontaneous purple elephants and other random gear shifts into ridiculous improbability abound – who says Oprah isn’t waiting around the next corner, just dying to interview our famous hero?

To help get you started, I’ve compiled a list of interview questions over the past couple of years, many of which were gleaned from a forum on that very topic over at the April Fools NaNo-spinoff site. Clicking on this link here will get you to a PDF version of the interview questions.

For those of you who are in poem or short-story mode, consider the most unlikely interview you can imagine having (think of how much success Anne Rice had running with that idea!).  For the traditionalists, the usual weekly prompts can be found below.

Theme: Complicated

Words:
curvaceous
latitude
beneath

As usual, remember comments are semi-moderated, so don’t worry if your comment doesn’t show up right away. Newcomers can learn more about Saturday Scribes here (including how to do a permalink to your post) and read the prompt guidelines here.

In honour of All Hallow’s Eve, we’ve got another spooky prompt for this week:

Theme: The stranger by the side of the road

Words:
barefoot
pale
suspicion
promised

As usual, remember comments are semi-moderated, so don’t worry if your comment doesn’t show up right away. Newcomers can learn more about Saturday Scribes here (including how to do a permalink to your post) and read the prompt guidelines here.