TuesdayTips163

Today’s #TuesdayTip is another Block Buster – a short exercise to either bust your writer’s block, or just a fun writing challenge to practise your skills. It follows on from last week’s tip about Spin-off series (#Tip162).

Spin-off TV series are all the rage these days, with original series based on characters or settings from existing film or TV franchises. Marvel’s Loki, Hawkeye and The Falcon and the Winter Soldier all take characters from the Marvel Cinematic Universe (which is itself inspired by the original comic book source material) and give them their own platform. Harlan Coben has written a novel, Win, based on Windsor Horne Lockwood III, a popular supporting character from his Myron Bolitar series. And a damn good read it is too!
Today’s exercise therefore, is to write a short piece based on a minor or secondary character from an existing work. The parameters of this activity are up to you.

• Will it be a short story or a character study of a couple of paragraphs?
• How minor is the character? – are they a named, secondary character, or just someone standing in the background?
• Will it be a retelling of an event, or will you write something entirely unrelated eg a day in the life of one of Jabba the Hutt’s musicians?

​Remember the rules:

• Set yourself a time limit.
• Write without stopping, editing or overthinking.
• Write whatever comes to mind and don’t worry if it doesn’t make sense.
• It doesn’t matter if it has nothing to do with the scene that you are stuck on.

If you are a writer with a tip to share, or fancy writing a fictional interview between you and one of your characters, please feel free to email me.
Until next time,
Paul