Prompt #16

This is my first weekend in 16 weeks where I haven’t done my Saturday morning writing and you know what, that’s okay! I made time today even though I had to work this weekend, and I hope you all are finding pockets in your busy weeks to get some writing in for yourself. That being said, apologies for the late prompt! But let’s get started.

As writers, we embody many people and many voices. No two people speak the same, except maybe Dylan Adler and his twin brother, but generally, we want to differentiate the voices of characters in our writing. Here’s a prompt to flex the muscle of writing a variety of voices.

For one minute, write down the names of as many people you know as possible. They can be best friends, family, or acquaintances; it doesn’t matter. Then, choose five from that list, and try to include some level of variety, be it age, relation, ethnicity, where they’re from, people you like, or people you hate. Try to curate a dynamic list. Then, add your name to the list.

These are your characters. Label them A-F

You are going to write dialog in the voices of people you know. Before you begin, consider how they speak and how they behave.

The scenario: Two of these characters sit at a diner. Character 1 has already ordered food and is eating, and character 2 has just sat down and is hungry.

Write this scenario in no more than five lines of dialog. You are character one, and the first person on your list (A) is character 2. Explore this through different voices until you run out of time. Swap out each character for the next combination of people in your list.

1: Myself vs. 2: A, 1: A vs. 2:B, 1:B vs. 2: C, etc.

Each time a character switches positions from Character 2 to Character 1, consider how their behavior or dialog may change if they become the character with the food.

Set your timer for 10 minutes and write!

Share this post to write with a friend!

I’m watching The State of the Union (real & SNL)

I’m reading The Art of Gathering by Priya Parker

I’m listening to my “microcore dark academia evening” daylist

How did it go? Let me know in the comments!