Stream of Consciousness
I Was Robbed
Anne Bernays and Pamela Painter — What if? Writing Exercises for Fiction Writers prompts — The Exercise — Here is the situation: You have just come out of the movie theater around seven in the evening, and you are mugged — a person asks for your money, then knocks you to the ground before running away. Or make up your own situation. Next, pretend you are telling the account of this event to five different people: Your mother, your best friend, your girlfriend or boyfriend (or wife or husband), a therapist, a police officer, The Objective — To become conscious of how we shape and shade the stories that we tell to each other according to the listener. Your characters also tell stories to each other and make selections about content according to who they are telling the story to, the effect they want the story to have, and the response they want to elicit from the listener. A lot of dialogue in fiction, in real life, is storytelling — and there is always the story listener who is as important in the tale as the tale itself.
By Denise E Lindquist3 months ago in Writers
Sunday
Anne Bernays and Pamela Painter — What if? Writing Exercises for Fiction Writers prompts — The Exercise — Title it “Sunday.” Write 550 words. The Objective — Certain words and ideas, such as retirement, in-laws, boss, and fraud, serve as triggers for stories or scenes in fiction. Sunday is one of these. Try to think of others.
By Denise E Lindquist3 months ago in Writers
The Healing Power of Publishing Memoirs. Top Story - November 2025.
Over the last eight months, I took a break from publishing anything new — apart from the odd piece here and there for a handful of writing competitions. And to be honest, after wrapping up the competition submissions and these past couple of years, trying to make it as a writer, I felt totally wiped out.
By Chantal Christie Weiss3 months ago in Writers
Do You Want People to Separate You From Your Art?. Top Story - November 2025.
Roman Polanski, Kevin Spacey, Michael Jackson, Caravaggio, Richard Wagner, Woody Allen, J.K. Rowling, T.S. Eliot, Ezra Pound, Virginia Woolf, R. Kelly, Miles Davis, Carl Jung, Francis Bacon, and Jackson Pollock.
By Paul Stewart3 months ago in Writers
the identity theory
The story goes like this - Theseus, a hero in Greek mythology, had a ship. Overtime his ship began to rot, and as each plank of wood would rot, he would replace it with a new plank of wood. But at some point, every piece of the ship had been replaced, which poses the question - is the ship after all these replacements still the same ship? And to make it even harder, if someone collected all the old pieces from the original build and reconstructed the original ship, which, if either, is the 'real' Ship of Theseus?
By courtney quinn3 months ago in Writers
Getting To School On Time
Anne Bernays and Pamela Painter — What if? Writing Exercises for Fiction Writers prompts — The Exercise - Write five mini-stories (limit: 200 words each) to account for a single event or set of circumstances, such as a man and woman standing on a city sidewalk, hailing a cab. Each story should be different - in characters, plot, and theme - from the others. The Objective - To loosen the bonds that shackle you to a single, immutable version; to underscore the fact that plot is not preordained but something you can control and manipulate at will, like the strings of a marionette; and to demonstrate once more that there are many ways to skin a cat.
By Denise E Lindquist3 months ago in Writers
