Member-only story
Day #3 Writing Prompts: Choose Your Genre and Have Fun
Remember — you’re practicing, not aiming to publish
What’s something we all do these days, usually accidentally? Catch bits of other people’s conversations. With mobile/cell phones and the way people shout into them, it’s so easy to hear one side of it at least — trouble is, most people are boring on their phones!
Maybe you can quietly listen in other places instead — it only takes a sentence or two to give you an idea. So here we go:
Fiction: Go to a cafe or a bar (or any public place that’s handy) and eavesdrop on several different conversations. Don’t try to listen to everything. A sentence or two is all you need. Write them down quickly and move on. Then choose one and write a piece about it, imagining the story around what they were talking about. (Fragments of conversations are better!)
Poetry: Choose one of your snippets of overheard conversation and use it as your title, then write a poem exploring what you think it means. You might want to focus on one particular incident or you could write a litany. In a litany you choose three or four words and start every line with them, seeing where they take you.
Nonfiction: Think of a time when you have accidentally overheard something you shouldn’t have, or didn’t intend to, that changed your view of a person or an event. Did what you overheard have a positive or a negative effect? Was it about you or someone you know? Sometimes the things we hear about ourselves are the most devastating. Write about how you felt and why.
