Creativity comes from the Goddesses and Gods.  Sometimes they encourage us to go outside of ourselves to spark or respark our creatrix energies.  I've found writing prompts useful.   Who knows what you may discover, recover, bring to your own fiction. I'm a structured poet and fiction writer.  This means, I'll be giving you structured writing prompts.  Hopefully when you're done with the writing prompt/s, you'll have a better understanding about writings structure what it does for fiction.  These writing prompts aim to bring about your best writing, or fulfill missing plot links or round out your characters.  Use all or part or build from these CupiderosBooks.com Writing Prompts something worthy for yourself and entertaining to others.   
Enjoy.
  --Cupideros



CBWP 2009 P3--#10-07.5.09

Plot: Characterization. 

I'll make it simple. 
You can look at chocolate.
You can eat chocolate.
Which would you rather do?

The external workings of a person, what clothes they have on, their style of clothes, hair length, height, weight are all how Chocolate looks.  THAT'S LOOKING AT CHOCOLATE!

The internal workings of a person.  Their motivation their unconscious needs.  Their quirky ways of doing things, a neat freak, the slob, the first one thing done then another thing person are their methods.  How they come to conclusions about a project or person or their life philosophy how they think or evaluate.  The long range goals and desires, their conscious drive.  THAT'S TASTING CHOCOLATE!


In the end, you won't remember how Chocolate looked.  You'll remember how Chocolate actually taste.


Astrology been around for over 6,000 years.  Longer probably.  Astrology deals in looking at chocolate.  Mostly though astrology's fame comes from tasting chocolate!

You have six people on a desert island.  They crashed on a plane ride.  Think Gillian Island or Lost.
These people all came into being, born on this earth, at different years.  Jupiter takes a year to move through one sign.  Jupiter takes 12.2 years to complete one chart cycle.  Jupiter shows the choices in a person's belief system.  Their outward religion.  How they like to travel and deal with foreigners.

Person 1: Born while Jupiter moved through Pisces.  He says, "I believe in oneness of all things.  We're hear for a purpose."

Person 2: Born while Jupiter moved through Aries sees things differently.  She says, "I believe in myself.  Number 1, Uno." 

Person 3: Born while Jupiter moved through Gemini says, "You can all believe what you want, but we need to find some way to spread the word we're lost on this island.  Only our minds and logic will get us off this island."

Person 4: Born while Jupiter moved through Capricorn says,  "I believe in tradition.  It's tradition to elect a leader. Someone organized and practical."  Person 4 points to his/her chest, "That'd be me!"

Person 5: Born while Jupiter moved through Aquarius says, "I believe in starting new tradition.  The only thing staying the same is lost out there back in civilization."

Person 6: Born while Jupiter moved through Libra says, "I believe in justice and fair play.  We're lost on this island; so we might as well make peace and get along."

Ahem. 


Complication/Major Problem/s:   REFER BACK TO THE FIVE SCENE MEANINGS & STRUCTURE WRITING PROMPT CBWP 2009 P2--#5-05.09.09

First ACT/Scene: Create an event: six people are lost on an deserted island.  That part is done for you.  Now you describe the island a bit, briefly.  Introduce us to the six characters.  Make their belief systems the driving force of their characterizations.

Second ACT/Scene: Person 2 discovers a computer in a box.  Apparently, it fell out of the plane with a parachute attached.   

Third ACT/Scene: Person 4 makes a power play and wants to take over the group.  Three people disagree with him and the one group splits off into two groups of three.  The second splinter group leaves for another part of the island.

Fourth ACT/Scene: A person in the second group dies.  The second splinter group (now only 2 in number) believes Person 4 caused this event.  They plan revenge. 

Fifth ACT/Scene is how the situation was actually resolved.


CHARACTERS: The characters core belief driving this story or novel is already described.  You can add the looking like chocolate descriptions. 
DIALOGUE: No dialogue--no story.  Interesting, eh.  You can't use all dialogue because you'll need narration to express the hidden mind thoughts of these characters.
SETTING: Lost desert island somewhere.
THEME: YDTC.
POV: Goddess/God POV
ENDING: YDTC. 
SPECIALITY: Decide which of these structured points is your speciality.  Play your speciality up in the story.  If you're good at settings, get into describing the settings.  Make the setting a major focus of the story.  If you're into plot, make the plot twist compelling.  if you're into theme, go deep into the theme, choose the right words by sound, taste, feel, smell to convey this theme.  If you're a master of dialogue, write a short play or screenplay or stage play.  Play up the words they use to resolve their difficulties.
















CBWP 2009 P3--#11-07.8.09

Plot: Characterization. 

I'll make it simple. 
You can look at chocolate.
You can eat chocolate.
Which would you rather do?

The external workings of a person, what clothes they have on, their style of clothes, hair length, height, weight are all how Chocolate looks.  THAT'S LOOKING AT CHOCOLATE!

The internal workings of a person.  Their motivation their unconscious needs.  Their quirky ways of doing things, a neat freak, the slob, the first one thing done then another thing person are their methods.  How they come to conclusions about a project or person or their life philosophy how they think or evaluate.  The long range goals and desires, their conscious drive.  THAT'S TASTING CHOCOLATE!


In the end, you won't remember how Chocolate looked.  You'll remember how Chocolate actually taste.


Characterization is all about how characters interact with one another.  As in the example above, you are forced to ask yourself how Person 1's belief interacts, agrees, conflicts, supports by allowing things to go by with Person 2's or Person 3's or Person 4's or Person 5's or Person 6's beliefs.

That's characterization's entire cause. 

Character A has a skill/talent/point of view or belief about life.
Character B has a skill/talent/point of view or belief about life.

The questions is....

How does Character A's skill/talent/point of view or belief about life--

agree or conflict/disagrees or supports by allowing things to go by

With Character B's skill/talent/point of view or belief about life.

[Allowing things  or supporting things by allowing things is like indulging the other person.]


So  Character A's bad childhood conflicts with Character B's perfect childhood
Or Character A's bad childhood conflicts with Character C's Darwinian/evolution philosophy
Maybe Character A's bad childhood conflicts with Character D's view money solves all problems.

Whatever the case may be, characters are never in the story unless they help reflect another character or the issue or theme or plot event in the screenplay, story or poem.  I'm sorry but that your only reason to have any character in fiction.

Could be, Character A's bad childhood supports by allowing for Character E's view children are stupid.
Perhaps, Character A's bad childhood supports by allowing Character F's view life is atheistic/senseless.
It doesn't mean Character E or F agree with Character A; they just rather let things be/let the Character A have their anger; their indulgent rant against the world.

For true support, Character A would go to Character G who agrees bad childhoods should not happen.
Or Character A finds a true friend in Character H who cast shame on those who made Character
A's childhood bad.

In Astrology, you have fixed signs Taurus, Leo, Scorpio and Aquarius.  These people are hard to move once they decide on a course of action. 

Gemini, Virgo, Sagittarius, Pisces are mutable signs.  These people love to shift about and change their position because of some updated information.

Cardinal signs, Aries, Cancer, Libra and Capricorn love to start things.

So how do the Taurus character in a story and the Capricorn in a story interact:
When the Taurus Character decides she wants a home and children the man Capricorn says not yet.  I have to build my Marketing Firm. 

The Sagittarius woman wants to travel around the world, but the Leo man says, only if we can travel to the theater's of the world.

The Cancer man wants to start a family, but his Gemini girlfriend doesn't have time as she is a world traveling journalist.

Life is sad when people cannot agree or agree to disagree or go their separate ways.  But that's why these character are in your novel, story or poem because something in the world needs exploring.

Generic set up would be:
Character A's need/goal/way of thinking/doing things interacts how
agrees   or   disagrees    or  supports by indulging
Character B's need/goal/way of thinking/doing things

You can reverse the order of characters too.


Complication/Major Problem/s:  

First ACT/Scene: Create an event where your main characters are AWARE of some situation. 

Second ACT/Scene: As they try to understand the situation by PROCESSING it, mulling it over HINDERENCES come into play.

Third ACT/Scene: Now they want to END their mulling over the problem/situation.

Fourth ACT/Scene: As they try to END their mulling over the problem/situation, they begin to not TRUST one another.

Fifth ACT/Scene they realize the problem is SUPPORT--Could be lack of support or too much support.


CHARACTERS: The character's core structure seems to be how they are aware things. 
DIALOGUE: No dialogue--no story. 
SETTING: YDTC
THEME: YDTC.
POV: YDTC
ENDING: YDTC. 
SPECIALITY: Decide which of these structured points is your speciality.  Play your speciality up in the story.  If you're good at settings, get into describing the settings.  Make the setting a major focus of the story.  If you're into plot, make the plot twist compelling.  if you're into theme, go deep into the theme, choose the right words by sound, taste, feel, smell to convey this theme.  If you're a master of dialogue, write a short play or screenplay or stage play.  Play up the words they use to resolve their difficulties
















CBWP 2009 P3--#12-07.15.09

Characterization:  Three dimensional (3-D) characterization is best.  However, you don't have to do everything in one block.  You can develop your character over time: paragraphs, scenes and chapters.  Dumping out every single fact about your character in the opening paragraph can bore the reader.

However all characterizations needs to end up in three dimensions.  Below is a step by step dimensional buildup of character. 


1-D:  A basic physical description or single fact designed to evoke a stereotype or symbolic response from your reader.

Example 1: an attractive young man who is afraid of bats
Example 2: an attractive young woman who loves machines.


2-D:  A physical description with a brief personality sketch or small collection of facts, perhaps a quirk or two who serves a single function in the story.

Example 1: an attractive young man who is afraid of bats, because he fell into a well when he was a child and bats swarmed around them as he waited for help.

Example 2: an attractive young woman who loves machines, because she saw an open computer CPU mother board's silver circuits running and imagined them sending electricity to other computer parts.


3-D:  A complex description with layers of emotion and history from which the reader learns intimate, in depth details including personal drivers and motivation, and who experiences growth or an affirmation of beliefs or values held.

Example 1: an attractive young man who is afraid of bats, because he fell into a well when he was a child and bats swarmed around them as he waited for help. As an adult, he transforms his fear of bats into a symbolic representation of power that he uses to strike fear into the evil doers he fights.

Example 2: an attractive young woman who loves machines, because she saw a computer CPU mother board's silver circuits running and imagined them sending electricity to other computer parts.  As an adult she transformed her love of machines into a software/hardware programming degree that enabled her to build the first computer watch.


Now imagine starting your story off with 3-D version?  Sounds rushed?  Doesn't it?
Now imagine starting your story off with 2-D version?  Sounds better, more natural, right?
Now imagine starting your story off with 1-D version?  Sounds like it's missing something, right?


Complication/Major Problem/s:  

First ACT/Scene/Paragraph: Create an event where your main characters is THINKING of some situation. 

Second ACT/Scene/Paragraph: After thinking thing out they came up with FIVE POSSIBLE ACTIONS to take.

Third ACT/Scene/Paragraph: One of these actions will END some problem/situation.

Fourth ACT/Scene/Paragraph: As they try to END their problem/situation, they encounter a SURPRISE that sets them back.

Fifth ACT/Scene/Paragraph: They realize the problem is UNCONTROL--Could be lack of or too much uncontrol.  They then choose one of their remaining four possible actions to solve the problem/situation.


CHARACTERS: The character's core structure seems to be how they are aware things. 
DIALOGUE: No dialogue--no story--you need to use dialogue. 
SETTING: YDTC
THEME: YDTC.
POV: YDTC
ENDING: YDTC. 
SPECIALITY: Decide which of these structured points is your speciality.  Play your speciality up in the story.  If you're good at settings, get into describing the settings.  Make the setting a major focus of the story.  If you're into plot, make the plot twist compelling.  if you're into theme, go deep into the theme, choose the right words by sound, taste, feel, smell to convey this theme.  If you're a master of dialogue, write a short play or screenplay or stage play.  Play up the words they use to resolve their difficulties
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