Prompt Me: Sci-Fi & Fantasy Edition by Robin Woods
Robin Woods has done it again with another fabulous Prompt Me workbook! The Sci-Fi & Fantasy prompts in this new addition to the series appeal to a niche that works well for the adventurous-minded creative writer of any age!
It’s full of lots of attractive, thought-provoking pictures, a bucket-load of writing tools, fascinating prompts in multiple points-of-view, and, as always, there is plenty of room to write all of those plot bunnies down!
Her website includes all kinds of writerly tools, tips, printable worksheets, and links to all of her publications. She even has exclusive ‘Extras’ for many of her novels!
Robin Woods is the YA/NA Author of the Watchers Series, a series that weaves romance, mystery, and suspense into an urban fantasy adventure packed full of salacious vampires. She also pens workbooks for the aspiring author.
Prompt Me and Prompt Me More, as well as her Fiction Writing Journal & Workbook, are practical workbooks that equip the eager author in anyone, young or old, with the tools necessary to bring a story idea to life. If you’re a teacher, these workbooks are filled with wonderful, thought-provoking prompts that can be used as creative writing starters and bell-work writing sprints.
Here I am minding my business, going about my day, nice and lazy, just the way I like my weekends, and wham, I finally get around to picking up the mail, and, wouldn’t you know, I had a surprise awaiting me.
I’m one of those writers who cracks open the laptop every day. Whether I’m writing, mulling over something I’ve already written, character building, plotting, or scouting out a location in a far away land I’ll never actually get to visit but damned if I don’t plan on plopping a character down in the middle of at some point in one of my rom-coms, I am always doing something writerly, no matter what. Getting a new prompt booklet to expand on my thoughts is just what I needed to keep my mind running in guided directions instead of all over the place as I’m currently plotting out a whole series. You know those little lines or even whole scenes that creep up on you out of nowhere and fit perfectly into a seamless plot inspired by a random moment in your day … I just got handed a 176-page resource that does nothing but inspires and prods at my creativity without having to hunt for it. Sweeet!
So, when my fellow author friend extraordinaire shares the wealth on her latest publication, I’m all grabby hands about it, because … FREE (but, for you, it’s an affordable $9.99!), and, let’s face it, blank pages and blinky cursors are fine and all if you’re into that sort of tabula rasa feel, but, if you like to jumpstart your writing with a prompt, my friend has what you need. Seriously. You need this. You just have to wait a couple days. Then snag one for yourself or someone you know. Just do it. Do it. Do it.
If you haven’t checked out Robin Woods yet, you’re really missing out. First, she’s a young adult author who entangles fallen angels and vampires with the mundane world to create a magical place where there are no ‘normal’ days for the characters going about their own business in her Watcher Series. Secondly, she also pens workbooks for the writers in all of us. Prompt Me More! is her second installment filled with picture prompts and various creative juice starters, such as first and third person one-liners and dialogue prompts for fiction writing, as well as, self-discovery and interest prompts that are meant to spark a non-fiction piece. Oh, the endless possibilities!
If you write and love that hand’s on feel of pen on paper, the workbook is set up to write directly into it. If you prefer to type, then have it nearby your keyboard. Also, if you’re a teacher, your daily/weekly writing prompts are taken care of as they’re all classroom friendly. So much goodness!
With graduation just around the corner, this workbook makes a perfect gift for that young man or woman who loves to journal and enjoys a challenging prompt to spin a story around. I personally like to use Robin Woods’ workbooks to keep myself accountable to writing every day. But, enough about me, how do you plan on using your Prompt Me More! booklet?
If you’re a hands-on person and you’re starting from scratch as a newbie writer or you need to capture and organize all your random thoughts and scribbles to prepare to write your next novel, then Robin Woods’ Fiction Writing Journal & Workbook is meant for you.
Fiction Writing Journal & Workbook by Young Adult author, Robin Woods, is organized with a reasonable, progressive flow to construct your novel, yet it’s easy to navigate back and forth between sections to suit your writing approach.
It’s full of all kinds of writerly information, graphic organizers, worksheets, and plenty of room for journaling to get your novel up and running.
So …
I recently decided to quell a trilogy plan I had been working on for a while that accompanied the current novel I’m querying. (Yep, I’m still hanging in there.) Instead, I am pressing forward with a sequel that can function as a stand-alone by branching a new love story from two minor characters in the first novel. In other words, I’m going with a two-part series.
My reasoning for this big change is because the premise for the third novel is just too exciting to keep it waiting, and the guts of the second novel could, with a little nip and tuck, easily serve up an overall better plot if I use that premise as the inciting moment and just move on.
It happened to be a happy accident that I was ready to delve into making sense of my independent sequel (is that even a term??) simultaneous to my long-time friend offering me a free copy of her workbook. Yes, you read that right, we’re friends, for, like, decades.
So …
Instead of just reading through the informational parts of the workbook and blasting an unbiased review all over the Internet once I’d finished (no doubt garnering some eye rolls and tsks or wonderings about whether friends ever really give friends ‘honest reviews’), I thought I’d show how I actually used the workbook and prove why I give it the maximum stars.
You see …
I have all these colorful spiral notebooks—a stack of them to be exact, and they have all kinds of disorderly information in them that, when pulled apart and mixed around, make perfect sense to me. Character studies, setting notes, plot points—you name it—and somewhere in my stack of madness there might actually be a method to this budding new sequel I want to pursue.
In addition to my teetering stack of stuff n’ stuff full of all kinds of random this n’ that I have accumulated over the last year, I also have lots of tidbits on my iPhone in the Notes App full of my thoughts-on-the-go, and I even have two Word Docsx outlines I had once planned for the trilogy plus oodles of rough draft writing to boot.
In other words, I’m hands-on and all over the place when I prepare to write. I just am.
And …
I was in need of a singular place to vet and compile before typing everything up into a functioning outline because I was dying to get this WIP rolling in the right direction.
Can you see how it was destiny? My mess and Robin Woods’ workbook were made for each other.
I was not kidding when I said BIG stack.
HUGE.
Just look at it. ———————————>
All kinds of random going on in that mess. Two books’ worth of ideas that I needed to boil down into one poignant, romantic plot …
… Then this happened.
I found this workbook satisfied my need to write things down in a journal. Don’t get me wrong—I love using my laptop for all parts of the writing process—but this workbook helped me scratch that itch to put pencil on paper, so that I could compile my final outline. The fact that it has everything I need in graphic organizers to help me reel in the stack of madness makes this workbook the bomb.
Here’s a peek at the table of contents to give you a better idea of what the book contains to help you organize your future best seller:
Robin Woods’ website, http://www.robinwoodsfiction.com, also contains lots of helpful information for writers of all genres. She’s a YA author of The Watcher Series and has six novels and one work of non-fiction under her belt. Definitely, check out her site, and, if you like a hands-on approach to organizing your fiction ideas, her book is the tool you need.
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