Literature is fueled by its villains as much as it is by its heroes, and oftentimes, the villains make more compelling characters due to their flaws, convincing arguments, and twisted aspirations. Shakespeare’s villains are infamous for their layers of complexity. For example, Lady Macbeth, as she sleepwalks in Act V of Macbeth, hallucinates and sees her own bloodstained hands revealing both her guilt as much as her cruelty: “Out, damned spot! out, I say!” she says. Then as she reflects on plotting to kill King Duncan says: “Yet who would have thought the old man to have had so much blood in him.” This week, write a story with a compelling, complicated villain at its core. How will you turn this villain into a three-dimensional character?

“Scientists have picked up a radio signal ‘heartbeat’ billions of light-years away,” reads an article headline published by NPR last Thursday from a report that astronomers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology picked up radio signals that repeat in a clear periodic pattern similar to a beating heart from a galaxy billions of light-years from Earth. The discovery could help researchers determine at what speed the universe is expanding. Write a poem inspired by this headline in which you explore the metaphorical and literal ramifications of a “heartbeat” billions of light-years away.

In her lyric essay “Tsunami” published in the Margins, Juliet S. Kono uses the zuihitsu form to tell a layered story about how her family has survived through multiple tsunami attacks. The essay uses dates to introduce each section, beginning with her family emigrating from Japan to Hawai’i in the early 1900s, then jumping to the devastating 2011 earthquake and tsunami in Tōhoku, Japan, and culminating in 1946 when she and her family survived a deadly tsunami in Hilo, Hawai’i. Inspired by Kono, write a lyric essay that explores a shared history between you and your ancestors. Try using dates to structure the essay, adding historical and emotional layers to the narrative as you write.

This past Sunday marked Marcel Proust’s birthday, the French novelist, essayist, and critic whose list of work includes his iconic seven-volume novel, In Search of Lost Time. In the first volume, Swann’s Way, the protagonist dips a madeleine cake in his tea, takes a sip, and is overcome with a sensation of joy he traces back to a childhood memory of sharing a snack with his aunt Léonie. Proust has been named the originator of the term “involuntary memory,” which, according to Psychology Today, is “now understood to be a common mental recall experience that happens without any effort.” This week, write a story in which a character experiences a moment of “involuntary memory.” Either through food or an unexpected encounter, try immersing the reader in this memory which uncovers a secret in your character’s life.