31 December 2014

Wednesday Writing Prompt #5

If you've been following December's weekly tickles to your writing fancy you should be in the groove by now...

Jocelyn Armby liked to be frightened

So, what have we got?
  • a statement; you could make it speech by adding quote marks, a full-stop to finish the statement, or a conjunction (and/but...) to add a qualifying phrase.
  • who is making the statement: an off-page narrator, or a person implicit in the story?
  • Jocelyn Armby - is a precise rendition of a female name. Do you refer to your friends as such? 
  • Jocelyn Armby - from the name alone, how old is this person?
  • liked to be frightened - use of past tense could mean the usual past tense of current-time fiction, or it could mean that Jocelyn Armby no longer likes to be frightened. Why?
  • frightened - everyone's threshold is different. For some people a painted clown jumping up and saying Boo! is frightening; for others the painted clown itself is frightening. What is Jocelyn Armby's threshold?
  • Jocelyn Armby - is this a person, or an avatar?
This list of questions might be longer than used for previous Prompts, but it isn't exhaustive. Before its end, though, your mind should be fizzing with possibilities. This is what habit does. Make your habits good ones for 2015.  And remember, if you'd like to read a full short story, and see the writing of it dissected and rebuilt, sign up for my occasional Newsletter (top right) and receive a free PDF chapter from Reading A Writer's Mind...

Happy New Year!

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