F = Fear

Welcome, A-Z Blogging Challenge friends. This year, my theme is Prompt-a-day, with fun or thought-provoking writing prompts to use as a story start, warm up, or creativity stretching exercise.

Fear

A group of schoolkids gets trapped in an avalanche or collapsed mine.


Writing prompts can be a helpful tool, no matter where you are in your writing journey. Check out these five ways: 5 Reasons to Write with Prompts.

Enjoy using this prompt and want to try some more?

Check out my latest release, 1001 Evocative Prompts for Fiction Writers. It will stimulate your thinking wherever you are in your writing journey and get you writing today. It provides story starts and writing inspiration for a wide variety of genres by focusing on emotions, character development, and pivotal moments.

You can face a blank page with confidence when you use these prompts to warm up, beat writer’s block, develop and maintain a writing habit, change up your routine, start a new project, experiment in a new genre, deepen parts of an existing story, or overcome burnout.

What are you waiting for? Dig in and get writing right now!

Add it on Goodreads
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Pocket paperback (5"x 8", 114 pp.) Amazon / Barnes and Noble / CreateSpace
Workbook (8"x 10", 426 pp.) Amazon / Barnes and Noble / CreateSpace


Q4U: How might you spin this prompt in an unexpected direction? How about as a cozy mystery or science fiction?

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Keep them turning pages with these simple techniques

End scenes with uncertainty more often than resolution

You've heard it over and over--readers, agents and editors love "page turners." So you work hard creating characters that readers will invest in and worry about, engage them in inner and outer conflicts, and lead them through obstacles and opposition. You have the groundwork laid. Now what?

Look at how you exit scenes and chapters. If your scene and chapter endings consistently come to a resolution, you aren't getting the maximum tension potential. First look for ways to introduce the unexpected (setbacks, positive or negative reversals), anticipation (goals, foreshadowing) or uncertainty at scene endings.

Then, consider using the film maker's friend, the jump cut. Interrupt the tense moment. Cut the scene in the middle, at a point where the outcome is unclear. In the next scene, come back post interruption, pick up again later in the time line, or summarize what happened. With chapter breaks, you simply begin the next chapter where you left off.

Splitting scenes over chapter breaks is by far the easiest technique. You'll need to add some scene grounding in the new chapter, but otherwise you likely won't need to do much more to build in suspense.

Keep in mind that any technique, if overdone, will feel gimmicky to the reader. Be sure that you don't split scenes at the end of every single chapter. For variety, use the suspenseful scene-end technique instead, for, say, at least 1/4 of your chapters.

How might better exits from scenes and chapters improve the page-turning tension in your work? What favorite books or authors demonstrate the technique best for you?

image credit: alexfrance for morguefile.com

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Trapped

Have you ever felt trapped? Maybe you've had a clingy friend who tried to cut you off from other friendships. Or perhaps a crush on someone who's already attached. Or you're stuck in a job you hate because you need the insurance or tuition benefits. Maybe its a toxic relative you can't seem to escape. Perhaps a story idea has invaded your brain you but you can't yet organize or even articulate what it's about, but it won't let you get anything else done.

In her latest YA suspense novel ALTERCATION, Tamara Hart Heiner delves into one teen's experience feeling trapped. Jaci Rivera, the heroine of PERILOUS, is caught between criminals who want to hurt her and well-intended government officials whose attempts to protect her may prove too little, too late.

The FBI promises Jacinta Rivera and her friends that they are safe. Jaci wants desperately to believe them, but weeks of hiding from their kidnapper, alias "The Hand," have left her wary. Hidden from the public eye in an FBI safe house, Jaci must reconcile both the mysterious disappearance of her father and the murder of her best friend.

A betrayal lands Jaci back in the grasp of The Hand, shattering her ability to trust and leaving her to wonder if she will ever piece together her broken life.

See Shannon O'Donnell's review of ALTERCATION at Book Dreaming.

The paperback of ALTERCATION is available here and the e-book here.

On every day of her blog tour, Tamara will randomly select one person who made a comment on that day's blog. The winner will receive an ebook copy of either PERILOUS or ALTERCATION. There's just one catch: there must be at least ten comments on that day for Tamara to do the giveaway.

Leaving a comment also gets you entered into the PRIZE DRAWINGS. This won't be random; it's cumulative. Every comment you leave counts as 1 point. If you are a follower on Tamara's blog, you get 1 point. Every time you tweet or share on Facebook about the tour, it's one point. She'll even add it up for you; just include Tamara on the tweet @tamaraheiner or on Facebook @tamarahartheiner.

You could win:
THIRD PRIZE: 50-page critique of something of your choice (if you're not a
writer, a $5 amazon.com gift card)
SECOND PRIZE: lot of five YA books
FIRST PRIZE: $20 gift card to Amazon.com

Fabulous, right?


Tell me about a time you felt trapped. Did you simply endure until help came, or did you fight to get free?

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