Welcome to A Novel Approach. If this is your first issue, I encourage you to check out my back issues for more tips on how to write a novel. It's my fondest hope that I can help other writers do the best they can do.

If you have any specific aspects about novel writing you'd like me to address in future issues, please feel free to contact me and let me know what those are. Thank you for your interest, and here's to better writing!

Writing Prompts as Fiction Practice

Though I rarely have trouble coming up with ideas, I have perused websites full of free writing prompts. A few are gems. Most are... deadly dull and, for someone trying to improve her writing, useless.

Writing a list is not going to make my fiction writing any better.

What's a serious writer to do?

Take those paltry offerings and beef them up yourself.

A Writing Prompt By Another Name

Let's say your writing prompt is a bit of dialogue: "I knew you'd never let me go!"

Now, you can take that as the start to a story, a book or a scene. Or you can take that line and try to make it sound like five different people have said it. After all, do you want all your characters in your books to sound the same?

Here's my try at it:

"I knew you'd never let me go!"
"You're gonna try to stop me, aren't you?"
"You hate me! That's why you're not letting me leave!"
"You always counter my wishes when I wish to travel."
"I understand you think you can stop me going."

Now, if you look at all of those, you can get a glimpse into the characters behind each statement. Five different types of people have spoken. Practice like this regularly, and you'll have no trouble making your characters sound different from each other.

Another trick I use is to look around a room I'm sitting in and describe one object in it with great detail.

Go ahead. That grayed-white box over there. The one that's gotten dusty over the last eight months. Cockeyed on the shelf, one corner slouching because someone put something heavy on top of it one day. The label sun-faded, even though it was written with a Sharpie.

See? You can see that box, too, can't you?

Going the Extra Writing Prompt Mile

I often can't find anything inspiring with the lists of fiction writing prompts online. So then I tease my muse into spitting a few out on its own.

However, instead of looking for pure inspiration, I look for character development, or the delightfully rich description of a setting. Or plot twists.

Yeah, plot twists can be a blast.

Remember when Dorothy throws the bucket of water on the Wicked Witch in The Wizard of Oz? Well, what if the water helped the witch win the day? Hmm??

It might sound more like this:

Ding Dong the witch has won! The Emerald City is mine, all mine!

Say, Dorothy, you're really not in Kansas anymore. Hand over those ruby slippers! No brainless scarecrow or heartless tin man can rescue you now. And that lion? He's about to be my new rug.

I almost forgot Toto... he better watch out for my flying monkeys, or he'll be lunch!

Now, that might not be the beginning of a novel (or it might be), but it definitely works the mind-muscle into trying new things. And twisting plots around is a very good exercise if you plan to write novels.

So, next time you're not feeling inspired, play with your words - and your writing prompts. Your writing will soon improve.

As long as we're talking about practicing, here are some words from Edna St. Vincent Millay to ponder as you practice writing fiction.

It's not true that life is one damn thing after another; it's one damn thing over and over. ~ Edna St. Vincent Millay

You can order these fiction writing prompts and end the doldrums of dull prompts forever. (Or at least for 365 days.)