Writing Prompts

 This week I want to share with you some of the prompts and workshop ideas that I found useful when writing memoir, particularly as I was starting out.

I’m delighted to say that my, workshop for writing creative non-fiction, on July 17th at Collected Books in Durham, is now sold out. But I’m hoping to offer something similar later in the year in October, at the Weardale Word Festival. So do watch this space for more information about that workshop. 

Here are some ideas/prompts to get you writing directly from your life- not in any particular order

• Often we are pulled between places, perhaps a place we grew up as opposed to the place we live in now. Perhaps the city versus the sea . Which places pulls at you? Where is the conflict and the desire? 

• All stories are centred in place. Draw a map of the place or one of the places in which your story unfolds. Use a larger sheet of paper than usual. Be as creative with this as you fancy- make a collage if that suits. Mark in the geographical features, the streets or paths, buildings, houses, gardens, important places, perhaps some only known to you. List the particular place names 

• Describe yourself as you would a literary character in the third person. Not, ‘I am 54 years old,’ but, ‘She is 54 years old.’ Think about not only your looks, your attitudes, your perceptions but give the telling details, pay attention to how you are in the world and to what you do. 

• Write down the names of two people you have vivid memories of, these should be two people you knew but who never met each other in real life. Put them in a scene in which they meet for the first time. Write the dialogue. What will these people have found to talk about? Would they have got on? Would they have taken against each other? 

• Think of a room that features in the story you want to tell. Put yourself in that room, write about it using sensory detail,  spend some time remembering the walls, carpets, colours, the furniture etc, give us the smells, the noise, it’s textures. 

• Right for five minutes on your own name, do you like it? Do you hate it? Who gave it to you? Have you changed it? Did you have nicknames? 

• Right for two minutes on each or any of these topics: a cup you loved, ice cream, coffee, a memory of a doctor’s appointment, a special meal, you’re happiest summer, when you first rode a bike, cake, cucumbers, moths… 

• ‘I remember…’ is a very useful starting point for memoir. Joe Brainard’s book I Remember contains his memories of growing up in the States in the 40s and 50s. Every paragraph, some only a sentence long, begins with I remember, it is in effect a book size list, and as such a huge testament to the power of lists - here is an extract 

I remember when polio was the worst thing in the world 

I remember pink dress shirts and bow ties 

I remember when a kid told me that those sour clover leaves we used to eat tasted so sour because dogs peed on them I remember that didn’t stop me from eating them 

I remember the first drawing I remember doing. It was of a bride with a very long train 

I remember my first cigarette it was a Kent. Up on a hill in Tulsa Oklahoma with Ron Padgett. 

Try your own, ‘I remember.’ Use specific details - names etc

The great American author, Paul Auster, who sadly died recently, calls Brainard’s  book, ‘…one of the few totally original books I have ever read.’ 

While I am on the subject of Paul Auster, I really enjoyed listening to Razia Iqbal’s interview with Auster, for BBC Radio, Talking Books. I found myself scribbling as he spoke, he was so quotable -one of my favourites being, the notebook is a house of words.  

Thanks for reading

Avril x