This assignment will be a new, somewhat finished work (in terms of arc, characters, setting, but not necessarily in refinement – you will need many revisions!). A good goal for pages if you are taking a traditional narrative approach would be 4-6 double spaced pages.
If you are having trouble finding a place to start, you can use some possible prompts below as a jumping-off point. You can also use the ideas in these prompts, but different riffs, such as borrowing the “your main character wakes up to find…”:
-The main character learns of the sudden death of a family member they had been estranged from, on bad terms with, hadn’t spoken to in a while.
-The main character finds an item that causes a conflict or a dilemma – a bag of cash, a loaded gun, a bloody t-shirt – and must decide what to do.
-The main character wakes up in an unfamiliar place. After walking outside and finding himself/herself in a small community, it slowly becomes clear that they are the leader of a cult.
-The main character experiences a windfall – large, unexpected inheritance, wins the lottery, becomes an overnight celebrity – and must navigate the consequences.
Use a boring, menial, or familiar form of writing and tell a story through it. For example, an email to employees about unhappy customers, but the email tells us much more about the person writing it.
-Give a dead person or a not-yet-born person narrative capabilities. Think about how they would tell a story from that perspective.
-Pick a place you’ve never been before, maybe even a place you know nothing about, and make it the setting for your story. Explore it through a character being there for the first time.
