Month: May 2025

Twist the Plot with this Photo Prompt

Twist the plot with this photo prompt

Everyone loves a plot twist. How would you twist the plot with this photo prompt? What unexpected way could the plot turn in this scene? I’ve used this photo a long time ago, but I still enjoy the twist it inspired. 

*****

The wrecked cards littered the road like dead leaves, just as the people who’d escaped from them described. The fog rolled in, thick and heavy. My breathing matched it, coming in labored spurts, as I picked my way through the debris, my senses on high alert for any sign of the creature who’d done this.

I walked on and on, my footsteps lonely, when an enormous shadow loomed in the fog.

I crept to a stop, the air seeming to grow too thick to breathe.

The dark form vanished as if it were a black mist.

I waited, straining for another sign of the creature. I only heard the blood pumping through my–

The shadow again. Closer this time.

Clearing my throat scraped it like a razorblade, but I went ahead and said, “Dad?”

*****

For more writing prompts for plots, click here.

How does the photo inspire you to twist the plot?

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Advice for Writing by the Seat of Your Pants

Advice for writing by the seat of your pants

When I give writing advice, I base most of it off my own experience. I’m mostly a pantser–writing by the seat of my pants–instead of a plotter–a writer who works mostly from outlines, some of them very detailed. So it’s difficult for me to give advice on how to plot because a lot of it comes to me spontaneously as I write a scene. But I don’t think it’s fair for plotters to have reams of books to turn to for advice, while we pantsers only have our instincts. So below is advice for writing by the seat of your pants, lessons I’ve learned from writing and publishing three short stories and three novels.

No One is Totally a Pantser

I haven’t met a writer yet who hasn’t thought deeply about his or her story before sitting down to write it. No writer begins writing without a single thought as to what he or she wants to write. One writer may keep all the story ideas in her head until she writes the first scene. Another may make some general notes on scenes he knows he wants to include.

I write characters’ motivations, not in story. form, but like a report.

“John owns ten care dealerships. He likes showing off his wealth. He was no close family. He’s driven to keep adding to his business empire.”

Since I write mysteries I’ll also write in report form how the crime was committed and why.

“John killed Mary because she knew he’d bribed their local senator. He used a gun he stole from his best friend.”

Pay Attention to Your Process

I think a lot of writers are pantsers because they enjoy the freedom of a limited outline and the joy of discovery while they write. I love it when I realize a plot point I’ve never considered:

Wait a minute. Old Man Thompson was seen at the grocery store before the murder, and my amateur sleuth’s cousin works there. Maybe she saw something! What could her cousin have seen that will help crack the case?

But to be productive we need to pay attention to the writing process that works best for us. I’ve tried too many times to change how I write a novel in order to complete it faster. While nearing the end of my third Rae Riley novel, I thought I could outline the rest of the chapters and make the actual writing go faster.

Nothing doing. I had to stick with the process that works for me: sketch out a few scenes in the next four or five chapters, write them by hand, edit while typing them, decide if they’re any good, and then sketch the next few chapters.

No Wrong Way

There are as many ways to write as there are writers. The only wrong way is one where you can’t finish the story. So if you’re pantser, proclaim it proudly, sit down, and take a wild, writing ride.

For more post on the writing process, click here.

Writers, are you a plotter or a pantser or a bit of both?

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What’s the Plot Point?

What's the plot point?

What’s the plot point you can develop from this photo? You take it anyway you want–humorous, scary, poignant, suspenseful. In the comments, tell me your inspiration. Here’s mine.

*****

Somehow the woods look deader in March than in the fall. Maybe because all the fall color has been washed away in the winter snows. And with the overcast skies threatening spring snow or sleet, the woods appear even deader, if that’s a thing, on the day of the spring equinox.

Hitching the straps of the backpack, I head down the trail. Grandma said The Man with the White Umbrella can always be found on this trail on this day, when the boundary between the two worlds is equal and easy to pass from one to the other.

There he is, up ahead, his white umbrella startling against the lifeless browns and grays.

I break into a jog, my loaded backpack bumping my spine.

I have to reach him. Before he disappears for another six months.

*****

For more prompts for plot ideas, click here.

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Grab Readers with First Lines

Grab readers with first lines

This month’s theme is plot, so I’m kicking off with the first part of any plot–the opening lines of your story and the need to grab readers with first lines. Beginnings are tricky. Authors need to snag readers’ attention while also introducing them to characters and their world.

Begin with Action …

And I don’t mean a bomb going off, although some writers start that way with excellent effect. Start with an action that’s attached to the problem the hero will have to solve. Since I write mysteries, I introduce the puzzle my detective has to solve as soon as I can in the first chapter.

In my first novel, A Shadow on the Snow, the first line is the text of the first anonymous note my amateur sleuth Rae Riley receives.

I’M NOT FOOLED, RAE. YOU’RE JUST LIKE YOUR MOTHER.

So from the beginning readers know Rae will try to unmask who is sending her threatening notes.

In A Storm of Doubts, I open with:

“Just stop it!”

The shout made me jerk and get poked by a dead branch of a honeysuckle bush.

That line makes readers wonder who is shouting, who is listening, and if there’s a problem.

… and Attitude

Conveying your main character’s (MC) personality in the first few lines also grabs readers attention. I think I have it easier than a lot of writers because I write from first person POV. When readers know it’s a first person story, they also know they’re slipping into the MC’s skin and are experiencing the world from their perspective. That makes writing much easier, and a lot of fun, for me.

I was introduced to the Nero Wolfe mystery series with the novel, Too Many Cooks, in college. From the opening line, I knew I had to read more because I got a definite attitude from the narrator, Archie Goodwin.

Walking up and down the platform alongside the train in the Pennsylvania Station, having wiped sweat from my brow, I lit a cigarette with the feeling that after it had calmed my nerves a little I would be prepared to submit bid for a contract to move the Pyramid of Cheops from Egypt to the top of the Empire State Building with my bare hands, in a swimming-suit; after what I had just gone through.

What stories have you read that grabbed your attention from the first lines?

For more tips on writing plots, click here.

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