Sometimes life can get in the way of writing, so I thought I’d help to get you in the writing zone each week by offering you a regular writing prompt.
There are no rules. You may choose to free-write, to get as many words as possible down on the page (for later editing), or you may prefer to pause for thought, writing at a more leisurely pace. Equally, you could use these prompts to deepen a character you are already working on.
Today’s prompt: A character takes off his or her boots and walks off. It doesn’t have to be this pair of boots – the boots you imagine may be different. The room might be more squalid or the the boots might have been taken off out-of-doors, somewhere more earthy, somewhere darker. What is important is the mud on the boots. You must know where that came from.
Who do they belong to? Write a first person account of the character’s movements immediately after taking off the boots. Consider where s/he has been, where s/he is going, what s/he wants and what s/he fears. Include sensory detail, particularly sense of smell and touch. Don’t forget to give your character a sense of purpose.
I’d love to hear from you in the comments, to find out what came out of this exercise for you. Where did it take you? What might happen next?
Alice Jolly’s experience of working with Unbound, a ‘crowd-funded’ publisher
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