Your title is “The Story Of My Life As Told By My Shoes.” Now write the story. You can focus on a single pair of shoes, or all the various memorable shoes over the lifespan. Consider making the shoe(s) the narrator. Have fun with this!

Uncomfortable words are perfectly correct and not obscene. Nevertheless, they often surprise–or even shock–the reader. Sometimes they make the reader uncomfortable. These latter words can simply be highly personal. My high school English teacher was bothered by the word “bother.” She said it made her think of dirty old men. One of my personal preferences is to use “it isn’t” rather than “it’s not,” the latter sounding too much like “snot”–which is an uncomfortable word for a lot of people.

Consider succulent, flaccid, penal, ovoid, horehound, hump, abreast, coldcock, excretion, floppy, fondle, globule, goiter, lipid, niggardly, onus, rectify, and more.

Choose uncomfortable words for effect. Use them sparingly.

Pay attention to the sounds around you–speech and non. Think of how to that bird call –or the rainfall, or the traffic, or the crowd at the game–really sounds, and write it down. But also listen to what people are saying. Pick up on strong phrases such as “plucking my last nerve” or anecdotes containing disturbing images, such as a man on a bus with a dead rabbit in a paper bag. Jot these things into your writing journal for later inspiration.

Wednesday morning, 3:00 a.m. Write the story. Now write one that is emotionally opposite.

You have a vague recollection that sometime in the past–perhaps in high school–someone told you that when writing a newspaper article, you need to cover all five Ws: Who, What, When, Where, and Why. That is good advice in general, including fiction–and even memoir.

The Who covers both the character(s) and the Point of View. What is generally what the POV character is striving for–anything from making the team to becoming the richest person in the world. When can be as specific as April 19, 1945 or a vague as once upon a time. Where is, of course, setting. And Why is motivation–what is driving the character. Much depends on Why, and within the context of your story it must be both believable and sufficient to justify the act. If your character kills someone to secure a spot on the team, the stakes for making/not making the team must be very high indeed, and fully developed in the story.

Characters who are either too good or too evil are too flat! Settings–whether rooms, cars, or countrysides–that are unmitigated beauty are likely to be unbelievable. Pick and choose the good and the bad. This exercise is intended to raise your awareness of both sides.

First choose an animal or an insect that you find repulsive. Write everything about it that is awful, in vivid detail.

Now find three positive things that you can say about that entity. Describe these in equally vivid detail.

Try this with people as well–if you’re sure your words will remain private!

Getting stuck is often the result of trying for perfection. You can’t find the perfect word or phrase and can’t seem to write anything till you do. When that happens–assuming that you have consulted your thesaurus and gotten a drink of water and done a head stand for 30 seconds and done all the other things that usually work for you, try this. Keep your pen on the paper or your fingers on your keyboard and write  writing. Do not stop. Write whatever comes into your head. It probably won’t be related to your story. That doesn’t matter. If you can’t think of anything else, just write, “I can’t think of anything” over and over again until something breaks. It will.

A woman goes to the well and dips an aluminum dipper into the bucket of well water. When she drinks the water. . .

Write the story.

Pay attention to what you mean to be saying when you use a or the to designate something. In general, a indicates one of many possibles while the is restrictive to one specific person, place, event, item, etc. For example, saying, “He picked up a book,” implies that there were several to choose from. One might even think it was a random act. If “He picked up the book,” the implications are quite different. It isn’t just any old book. So consider what you mean when you choose a car over the car, the blue velvet dress rather than a blue velvet dress.

Just because you know something doesn’t mean your reader knows it, too. This is often an issue if your story begins with dialogue. Suppose you open your story with the following exchange:

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

“What do you think I’m doing? It’s not exactly a state secret.”

“Well let me tell you what you’re not going to do. You’re not going to lie to me any more.”

You may want to draw the reader in by starting with an intense argument, but the reader is completely in the dark. Who is talking? What is their relationship? Are they face to face? On the phone? We don’t know whether there are two or even three speakers, whether they are men, women, or at least one of each. The exchange would be interpreted very differently if the speakers are husband and wife as opposed to mother and daughter as opposed to co-workers, etc. You get the idea.

Give the reader enough information up-front to set the scene, to allow the reader to put the exchange in contest. Otherwise, the reader is likely to give your story a pass.