October Writing Prompts

 Jot down all the famous musicals you can think of. You don't have to have actually seen them - in fact, it might be better if you haven't.

To start you off thinking, here are the first twelve that come into my mind:

      CABARET                      

                                                       Six

THE SOUND OF MUSIC

                                               Sweet Charity

                    Fiddler On The Roof

                                   GUYS AND DOLLS

MATILDA                                OKLAHOMA!                                                                                         Chicago

                    The Rocky Horror Show

The Music Man                   BLOOD BROTHERS

Now, choose ONE title that appeals to you. Ignore whatever you know about the musical. You are only interested in its title for this purpose.

TASK ONE: Write your own story or poem using the title you have selected as the title of your story. Focus on the title and what it suggests to you and forget about the actual musical itself. That's why it's better to choose a musical you know little if anything about. Maybe old musicals that have fallen out of fashion might be good ones to choose.

TASK TWO: Change one word in the selected title, or any other, and use that as the title of your own story or poem. If the title is originally a single word title, choose another word in the same semantic field. So 'Oklahoma' might become 'Huddersfield', 'Evita' might become 'Trump', or 'Six' might become 'Twenty-two'.

TASK THREE: For this task, you need to choose a musical you know well. Select a character from that musical [or more than one] and write a few diary entries, or letters/emails to a close friend, or a monologue [prose or poetry], in which you reveal more about the character. Maybe they have a secret wish/desire/ambition. Maybe they have an actual secret from their past. You could make this realistic or push it as far as possible for comic or horror effect.

Have fun!