Riddles and Prophesies and Puzzles, Oh my!

Riddle me this?

Do you know Blain the Mono and his riddle game? Have you read Stephen King's Gunslinger series?

How about Tolkien's The Hobbit?

What's it got in it's pocketssss?

Or Gregor the Overlander by Suzanne Collins, where prophecy acts as riddle?

So many stories, be they thrillers, mysteries, fantasy, science fiction, or contemporary (AS King's Everybody Sees the Ants) are dependent on secrets that need to be figured out by both the protagonist and, at the same time, the reader. Sometimes they are obvious plot points and sometimes they are games within the larger story that resonate again and again. Prophecies are great plot devices that can act as riddles for larger (macro) stories that surround the details of smaller ones, revealed over the length of a book or the course of a series of books. They are especially satisfying, just like a good riddle, when solved.

What's it got in it's pocketsss?

So here's the writing prompt for this Monday, a day filled with the promise of futures to be revealed. Write me a riddle, a prophecy, a puzzle, a trap, or an opening mystery - anything that needs to be solved that starts a scene. The character(s) are up to you, as is the time, place, genre. It can be short - a single sentence, or long (but no more than 100 words). But give us something to be solved and make us ask, "What happens next?" Oh yeah, give us a title too, just to make it interesting...

We'll take submissions through next week, July 5th and post the best.
- Joe

Got What You Know? Or What You Don't?

Her hand and wrist had scars on them in four different places - two in lines like railroad tracks running from wrist to palm and two smaller ones on the slope of her index finger. She carried her Rodriquez board under her arm, the manga eyes on the bottom bloodshot.


Four boys stood in front of her the wind rifling their t-shirts making their thin bodies appear skeletal.

What happens next?

How much do you have to know about an activity to be able to write about it? I struggle with this as a writer as I'm working on a story now that I have no direct experience with - one about a soldier in a war that happened over ninety years in the past.

Don't get me wrong, I believe in the power of research and the ability of a writer to use research to nail the details of an activity or an event, but the ability to give these same things life is another story all together.

There's the old writer's maxim, write what you know, staring me in the face. I'm just staring back at it and wondering at the butterflies fluttering in my stomach. Can I do it? Insecurity is not my friend. I close my eyes and shut the voice of no-you-can't up and push it away. How else can you deal with that confidence crusher? Push it away and push forward on your story. Don't look up from your page. Don't look behind you to see if it's waiting there for another chance to lay you out because it is.

Some writer's tools are not computer-based, or book-based, or even touchable. Some of the most powerful tools are sitting inside our heads.

Tell us what happens to the girl with the board and maybe give us some insight into where she got her scars. Or take us somewhere and someplace else, whether you've been there or not. And do it all in another 100 words or less. Winners posted on the 8th.

- Joe

Sunlight and Mystery - Got Writing?

The sunlight made me shade my eyes. I couldn't see the man in front of me, only his outline.


"Who are you?" I asked.


I heard something click and took a step back. A bead of sweat dropped down my back. The heat was baking me.


"Please, who are you?" I asked again.


With a flourish he pulled back his cloak and stepped to the side so that I could see him.


"I am... "

And so it begins in the heat of... of... what? Finish this scene in 100 words or less. Winners to be posted next Friday, the 11th.

Environment is a big part of world building and world building is what writer's do. Whether it's the world of a sixteen year old girl in suburban New Jersey in 2008, a fifteen year old boy in 1936, Sunnyside Queens, or a halfling with furry feet and approaching a youngish 50 in the Shire of Middle Earth. Each of these worlds needs climate, physical landscape, smell, and sound. These aspects of the world your characters live in make it come alive in time and place (even if it's a paralell world or fantasy world). We smile at the familiar (the smell of coffee, the sound of chalk on blackboard, the feel of spray from waves crashing at the beach), and imagine the bizarre (just how big is a cyclops and what does a siren sound like?).

More than anything, environment helps shape character, even if the characters aren't aware of it. It tells them what to wear, how to interact, what the rules of society of the world they live in require.

See if in the writing prompt above you can bring your vision of the world that I have begun into the story and see how it shapes what the man in the cloak is about to say.

- Joe

From Triffids to Tribbles

"For the short time the scene was on I stared at it, fascinated. There was our mysterious rubbish-heap plant grown to a height of seven feet or more. There was no mistaking it - and it was walking!" 
- The Day of the Triffids by John Wyndham

Writer's create worlds, whether they are recreations of the real world, fantasy worlds never seen, or supposed worlds beyond our planet in other galaxies. And in each world there are creatures of intelligence and instinct whose stories breathe life onto our pages. Some are human and some are far from humanity.

I recently read Return to Exile by E.J. Patten and his ability to create unique creatures in a world similar but different to the one we live in today is an awesome accomplishment. But what I liked even more from a writer's perspective is how he used the creatures to tell his story. The creatures are the fabric, the lifeblood of his narrative. From their names - Shadow Wargs to Echos - to the roles they play - villains to main characters - Patten uses them to propel his story to new and dizzying heights.

But first he has to have a reason for their existence in his world. A niche that they fill - an ecosystem they are a part of. In Patten's world, there are monsters and monster hunters. One without the other would leave his world in chaos.

Your challenge for this week is as follows:

In no more than 100 words begin a story by introducing us to a creature that lives in the world that your story inhabits. Give us a sense of what the creatures is and what its place is both in the world and in your narrative (is it protagonist? antagonist? secondary character?). Send it our way and we'll put up the best on March 16th.

- Posted by Joe Lunievicz

On the Edge of YA Fiction

Raife clicked his blade open behind his thigh. He trembled but held the slim blade tight. His father walked towards him slowly, his hands balling into fists, his lips curling up into a smile.

Not this time, Raife thought. Not this time.

With an upward swing he pushed the blade deep into his father’s –

HOLD IT. HOLD IT. CAN WE DO THIS? IS THIS AGAINST SOME SORT OF ANTI-VIOLENCE RULES?

But I haven’t even gotten to the part where his eye pops –

STOP. REALLY? IS THIS ALLOWED?

It’s a blog. I believe… I believe so.

OH… ALL RIGHT. THEN GO ON. GO ON WITH WHAT YOU’RE DOING.

Okay. No. Wait. What about sex? Can we write a sex scene - later?

AS LONG AS IT FITS THE STORY. IT’LL GET A PG13 OR A 15 AND UP RATING IF THERE’S ANYTHING EXPLICIT.

That’s okay with us.

THEN SURE.

No shit. Hey that reminds me can we use four letter words?

LIKE GRUFF?

That’s got five letters.

SO IT DOES. SO IT DOES.

Got Teen Fiction?

Don’t let the dandilions and green grass fool you.

Welcome to a place where teen fiction is the subject, writing is the verb, and the writing life is where we’re at – whether you’re a teen writer, adult writer of teen stories, or reader of YA fiction.

This is our first post. We’re Shari Maurer, Joe Lunievicz, Karen DelleCava, and Selene Castrovilla. Come back each week for writing tips, writing contests, inspirational quotes, author interviews, and published contest winners. Become a follower right now and I promise we won’t use any 4-letter words in our next entry. Or the word gruff. There’s something about that word that just gets under your skin…

Each week we will be giving you a writing prompt. Go back to wherever it is you write (be it desk, bus stop, classroom, bed, couch, or kitchen table) and come up with an approximately 100 word story that completes what we begin. Send it to us at gotteenfiction@gmail.com by Wednesday of the following week. That Friday we will be posting some of the best selections that we get. That’s right--this is your chance to be published.

This week we’d like you to finish the above story. Tell us what happens to Raife and his father. Deadline: Wednesday, February 1. Be thoughtful. Be creative. We can’t wait to see what you write!


Also... stay tuned for our first contest, the winner of which will receive all five of our books... coming soon...


Posted by: Joe Lunievicz