Not Exactly A Prompt But…
This is not exactly a prompt, but it may give you confidence to submit those stories you have already written but fear are not “correct.”
The idea relates is one I used to teach to my sophomores who refused to learn the terminology or rules of grammar. We don’t always KNOW grammar rules, but sometimes we can HEAR grammar errors. So I told my sophomores, “Read your draft out loud. When you stumble or it sounds wrong, you may have found an error.”
Sophomores are way too self-conscious to read out loud even in the privacy of their rooms so here is a potential solution recommended by me and Bear Grylls, the adventure survival guy on TV. ( Yeah, really. He posted this on Survival Tips.) Find Google Translates. Ask it to translate English to English. Paste in your work and click on the hearing icon. How does it sound? Where did you lose the train of the story while you mentally wrestled with the grammar? Could be a problem.
This is certainly not fool proof, but it is useful. Try it. My writers’ group reads out loud and we are always surprised what we find as we read.
While we are at it, here’s another techy assistant. I attended (virtual – zoom a Northwest Christian Writers’ Association meeting recently that recommended using Dragon, a phone or PC stenographer that turns your spoken words to print. It lets you capture scenes or ideas while you are on the road or waiting at that swim meet for your kids to swim. When you get home, press a button and it is all typed up. Cool.
Joan Didion is a quirky writer who started in the 60’s but was still winning prizes in 2005. Her collection of essays called Slouching Toward Bethlehem may ring a bell. My favorite description of her is from Hilton Als, a staff writer for the New Yorker. “The weirdness of America somehow got into this person’s bones and came out the other side of a typewriter.”
