Raising the Whats?
Alex Hiam is an author and he also teaches writing and literature to middle and high schoolers.
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Craig S. Thompson
Mar 12, 20234 min
Origin Stories & Character Development
As a father and husband, I have a wonderful family of my own. I don’t need to find my birth parents. It’s an irrational itch.
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Craig S. Thompson
Mar 12, 20233 min
Creative Writing Prompt: Your Magical Doorway
Imagine a magical doorway. Does the door have a dial above it with four differently colored options each representing an exterior...
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Craig S. Thompson
Mar 12, 20236 min
Getting Inspired By Famous First Lines
Exercise for writers: Try using or adapting a famous first line to start a story of your own. I.e.: “It was a dark and stormy night.”...
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Craig S. Thompson
Mar 12, 20233 min
Great First Line!?!
Your first line needs to entice, intrigue, surprise. And to get their attention & trust for long enough to allow your (wonderful and...
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Craig S. Thompson
Mar 12, 20233 min
What ELSE Could Possibly Go Wrong?
A writing prompt from Alex Hiam, author of the Silent Lee series We all know that riding-for-a-fall feeling when someone says, “What...
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Craig S. Thompson
Mar 12, 20232 min
May I Interest You In A Deception?
It happens like this: A well dressed man in an expensive car is talking on his cell phone as he pulls up to a stop sign. He doesn’t...
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Craig S. Thompson
Mar 12, 20234 min
North Star Teens Pen Appalling Openers
In Making Writing Exciting, we reviewed recent winners of the Bulwar Lytton Prize, which is awarded to the most atrocious first sentence...
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Craig S. Thompson
Mar 12, 20232 min
PROMPT: Write About Weather as an Obstacle to Getting Home
The weather looms large in the plots of many of the greatest stories. In War and Peace, the ice and snow challenge all the characters and...
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Craig S. Thompson
Mar 12, 20233 min
The Journey: Plotting and Writing Your Short Story
(Most writing prompts produce some paragraphs, but not a whole story. This one is designed to generate entire short stories. That’s why...
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Craig S. Thompson
Mar 12, 20232 min
Enter An Impostor
“Are you so dazed by this man’s hocus-pocus, that all the world, save him, is out of focus?” asks Cléante, addressing Orgon in Moliere’s...
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Craig S. Thompson
Mar 12, 20234 min
Hunter and Hunted: The Most Primal Plot Device
Something Comedian Paul Rodriquez said about hunting is often quoted, although it doesn’t stop anyone who likes hunting from doing their...
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Craig S. Thompson
Mar 12, 20233 min
Boldly Embracing Plot Clichés
As any English Prof will tell you, avoid clichés like the, well, plague. It’s an instant F to start any story with, “It was a dark and...
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Craig S. Thompson
Mar 12, 20232 min
Gaslighting as a Plot Device
The 1939 play that gives us the term ‘gaslighting’ is set in a building in which several floors of apartments share the same gas supply...
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Craig S. Thompson
Mar 12, 20232 min
Expelled: The India Landry Story, and Yours!
India Landry was expelled from her public school in Houston because she did not stand for the pledge of allegiance. To introduce my...
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Craig S. Thompson
Mar 12, 20232 min
A Vampire At School! Excitement Times Three
Omne trium perfectum. Latin for ‘sets of three are perfect’. In modern writing, it’s the Rule of Three. Simply put, triads often make...
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Craig S. Thompson
Mar 12, 20233 min
The Big Reveal: Having Fun with the Ultimate Plot Twist
Drip, drip, drip… Imagine a huge block of ice melting. It’s been frozen for a very long time. Something is in it. Something that was...
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