Electronic Worksheet: Character and Setting Prompts

Both your characters and your setting can be explored endlessly. This sheet will provide you with ideas to further deepen your characters, expand your setting and use them to discover your novel plot.

Setting:

• Start with the natural landscape. What would your setting look like if it were unoccupied?
  
• What sort of buildings and structures can be found in your setting?
• Describe the interiors of these structures.
• Every novel is set in a time period. Describe the time in which your novel takes place.
• What is the political and economic setting of your novel?
• Describe the emotional atmosphere your characters find themselves in.

Character:

• Make a list of all the characters you can imagine using in your novel.
• Write a one paragraph physical description of each.
• Write about your characters' pasts. What happened to them before the story began.
• Write about one of your characters' greatest fears. Now deepest wishes.
• What relationships do your characters have with each other? Show this through interaction.
• Sometimes it might help to step away from the writing for a minute. Find pictures that look like your characters, or go out into the world and try to see them in others.

Connecting to plot:

• Describe any weather that might move your characters to action. How do they respond to it.
• What happens when your characters find themselves in a setting that is totally unfamiliar?
• How does a character's past influence the present? What happens when others find out about it?
• Write about what a character does to finally obtain (or achieve) his/her deepest wish.
• What happens when you bring two characters together who have never met?

These are just a few ideas that may help as you write your novel this month. Do all of them, or think of your own questions and prompts. This month is special: you have a lot of writing to do, and very quickly. Sit down and explore every aspect of setting and every character you can imagine. All of this will help you find your novel and deepen it.

Electronic Worksheet: Standard Manuscript Format

When writing for a publication, it is always a good idea to research the desired standards for how that publication would like to receive a manuscript. If a writer is unsure of the desired format, or doesn't know where the manuscript will eventually be sent, standard manuscript format is a good option.

• The cover page should include the writer's name, address and telephone number (in some cases, the manuscript's total word count should also be given) in the upper right-hand corner.
  
• The title of the manuscript and writer's name or pen name should be halfway down the cover page.
  
• Each page following the cover page should include the writer's name, manuscript title and page number in the upper right-hand corner.
  
• A standard font should be used, and italics should be avoided (in some cases, italicized words are underlined to later be changed by the publication).
• Paragraphs should be left-justified and single-spaced.
• New paragraphs should start with a five-space indention.
• Margins should be at least an inch wide and equal on each side.
  
• Pages should be printed on only one side and left unbound (a paperclip would likely be appropriate for larger manuscripts, but avoid staples).
  

Beyond this, writers should check the publication's formatting standards as they get closer to submitting the manuscript, and alter the format to specifications.

Electronic Worksheet: Haiku, Renga, Haibun

Haiku is a Japanese style of poetry with specific sound-units, called “on.” These sound units are written in three metric phrases of five, seven, and five “on,” one placed below the next—called the morae pattern.

When a haiku is written in English, the “on” are replaced with 17-syllables. Interestingly, this makes for a much longer poem than the Japanese version. To further keep true to the original haiku form, writers often make use of a “kingo,” or seasonal word, indicating the season in which the haiku is set.

Meaning lies as much
In the mind of the reader
As in the haiku
-Douglas R. Hoffstadter

Renga is a style of haiku written as a collaborative, linked poem. This type of poem starts with a haiku, typically written by a master haiku writer, or the writing group’s host. The poem is then passed to the next person in the group, who writes a waki—or a poem written in two metric phrases of seven and seven “on,” or syllables in English. The full renga should end on a waki, written by the final member of the group, or by the host after the poem has made a full cycle through the other poets.

The cat was yellow
And his tail was very long
He walked with a strut

He strutted with all his might
To impress the cat next door

She wasn't impressed
She thought he had a big head
And so she soon left

Continuing his love quest
He strutted to the city

Where he found a can
He walked right past it
And smelt the tuna

"Tuna's good, I like tuna
But I would rather eat mice"
-The Writers of Westminster’s Writing Your World Camp 2008

Haibun is a Japanese style of prose poetry, typically written in two autobiographical paragraphs followed by a haiku. This, however, isn’t a strict rule. The haibun should be written with a blend of haiku poetry and prose written in the spirit of haiku. The length of a haibun is unimportant, so long as it retains the brevity of haiku, with the focus on complimentary enhancement of text through an interaction of poetry and prose.

Ghost Calls

My friends give me a hard time about my seeming inability to answer my cell phone. I figure, there's a chance I might answer, and I almost always call back. I can't be alone in this habit.

Buzzing in pockets--
crowds of people with cell phones.
Many unanswered?

I just prefer to talk on the phone when I know I have a moment to speak, and when I'm not going to be overwhelmed with socialization.

It isn't as if I don't notice my phone ringing. The damn thing goes off all the time. I've started to develop these odd ghost-rings in my leg—right next to where the phone sits in my pocket. Little muscle spasms that feel like the vibrations of my phone. Sometimes my phone isn't even on me, and I instinctively reach for... nothing.

Nothing but spirits.
Calling. Wanting attention.
Leave them unanswered.
-J.E. Remy