Prompt #12: Craft together a story or story opening from the sentences of different books lying around you.

School is almost over for me, and with the end of school comes finals. UGH. Stress, stress, stress. For this last prompt, let us have some fun with this easy little game. Here’s what you do. Take some of the books that are lying near you or closest to you. Flip to random pages. Find some sentences and try to stitch a story together. Points if it’s funny. Points if it’s sad. Hell, points if it makes any sense. The goal is to try to make some sort of small one to two paragraph story out of this, but at the very least I hope you find some fun sentences.

Prompt #12: For fun, craft together a story or story opening in a paragraph or two from different books you have lying near you. At the end, list what books you got the sentences from.

Attempt 1

It was still raining and soon the windows were wet and you could not see out. I woke early, having slept soundly and dreamlessly thanks to the drug abuse. Can you believe how long it’s been? In those days there was no money to buy books. The autumn winds blew. It makes sense, if you think about it. Mankind, I suppose, is designed to run on – to be motivated by – temptation.

I remember undressing, putting on a bathrobe, and standing out on the balcony. I knew I was quite drunk, and when I came in I put on the light over the head of the bed and started to read.

It was raining.

Attempt 2

It was hard to process. I don’t need a job. He’s going to buy me a house. Standing there I wondered how much of what we had felt on the bridge was just hunger. It was a little past noon and there was not much shade, but I sat against a trunk of two of the trees that grew together, and read. I’d spent a whole week thinking about this. I don’t know what to do. It made me nervous.

Books Used

A Moveable Feast by Ernest Hemingway

Life and Death: Twilight Reimagined by Stephenie Meyer

Lamb by Christopher Moore

The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz

The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway

Notes: Of course, I have to go the hard route and try to make it coherent and serious haha. It wasn’t the easiest thing to craft together, and they aren’t really stories as much as they are perhaps the beginnings to really confused, tense-shifting stories, but oh well. It was fun. I hope all of you come up with some interesting stuff with this too.

Thoughts? Responses? Leave them down below!

Prompt #11: Revise a previous work.

Since my semester in college is drawing to a close, I have revising on the brain. As a lot of you might know, revising is just as important, if not more important, than the original work. Revising can be small such as polishing grammar and consistency, but sometimes it requires a major revision. Sometimes we must rewrite from a different point of view or from a different starting point in the story or a new character or setting all together. For this prompt, take a piece you have written before, even one of the previous prompts if you like, and rewrite it. Imagine how you could make it better and then do it.

Prompt #11: Revise a previous work.

“No, no, those won’t do at all. I need a memory or thought that you hold close to your heart, like water or sand, praying to God that the details don’t slip away from you. This is the Nostalgia Shop after all. You can read, can’t you?” said the shopkeeper. He was a stocky man in a grass green tweed suit with an equally green bowling hat.

“What the hell does that mean? And why the hell would I give away something like that, freak?” The teen scratched the five hairs that made up his flesh-colored mustache.

“They would leave you anyway in time, my dear. At least this way you get something out of it.”

The teen reddened; his face wrinkled in disgust. “Don’t call me that, homo.” He stormed out, his blue spotted boxers peeking from above his jeans.

A slow clap started from a man in the corner. “Now that’s what I call customer service. No wonder you have such a booming business. What is your name, sir?” Except for the man in the corner and the shopkeeper, no one else was in the shop. The man was dressed in a freshly-ironed black suit with crisply folded cuffs and shining black buttons. He wore patent leather shoes and a gold watch.

The shopkeeper wrinkled his bulbous nose. “I don’t deal in names, sir.”

“You deal in whatever we tell you to. Or else we’ll find someone else, Bardas.”

“Why ask when you already know?”

Notes: This is from a story I had worked on a couple of years ago. I liked the premise for The Nostalgia Shop, but my readers said they were more interested in the shopkeeper than my main character. In this small section I tried to explore having the shopkeeper as the main character or one of the main characters. It still has quite a lot of work yet, but as I was writing I found the emerging character in the suit intriguing. I think he will foil Bardas the shopkeeper quite nicely.

Prompt #10: Write about an odd character in a normal setting.

This prompt can be fictional or nonfictional. I think that no matter what you are writing there is always a place for that odd character that either adds interest or a laugh. I think sometimes we find ourselves in a rut where the characters are too bland or too outlandish so this will be a good time to find that middle ground. Whether it’s a fantasy world or everyday life, the key to this prompt is making the setting normal to contrast against the abnormal character.

Prompt #10: Write about an odd character in a normal setting. 

Even as exhausted as she was in the middle of her double shift at Barnes and Noble, she noticed him immediately. There were a lot of things a person could say about Gene Hableford but being subtle wasn’t one of them. Standing six feet tall with black hair slicked back with gel and tattoos covering his arms, he hovered over the customer service counter. Jonathan, her shy, acne-ridden coworker behind the counter, held the expression of person trying not to shit himself in fear. Guys like Gene – well, guys who looked like Gene – normally didn’t frequent bookstores.

“Do you have any how-to books on cleaning blood off of cars? I made a bit of a mess, if you know what I mean,” said Gene as he wiggled his eyebrows and then winked mischievously. Jonathan looked down at his little computer monitor. Shaking like a little dog, he hunted-and-pecked for letters on the keyboard. Gene leaned over the counter, practically lying on it, to get a view of the computer screen. Robin grabbed a book off the cart and smacked the back of Gene’s head with it.

He swiveled around to face her in mock anger. “Hey! What was that for?”

“Stop scaring my coworkers. You’re going to get me fired.”

“But it’s true! I accidentally hit a raccoon on the way here.”

All she could do was shake her head and laugh. That was Gene all right.

Notes: Hopefully my character was odd and funny. I wanted to make him unusual, but  I didn’t want him to fall into a stereotype or feel cartoonish. Also, as I was thinking and writing about this character, I have to say I’m glad that he plays around with people’s perception of him. He’s such a dork. I hope ya’ll liked him. Anywho, I hope that ya’ll have a safe and fun Thanksgiving!

Thoughts? Comments? Leave them all down below! 

 

 

Prompt #9: Write dialogue between two characters trying to size each other up.

Often times in our writing, we will have a scene where two characters are getting to know each other or figure each other out. However, how do we do that and make it interesting? Hopefully, this prompt will serve as some practice for us. As well, since this prompt is pretty broad, feel free to apply it to fiction or nonfiction.

Prompt #9: Write dialogue between two characters trying to size each other up.

Claudia’s dance partner from the East of Rakar was far too informal for her liking, his breath hot in her ear and his hand straying far too low. His steps were jerky and irregular: whether he was simply inexperienced to the dance or did not care for convention, she did not know. The man grinned from ear to ear.

“Things are getting interesting. Can’t you feel it?” he asked.

“Oh, yes, I’m sure. Werewolves and trolls and faeries, oh my.” Her voice wavered with doubt.

“Nervous are we?” he asked He couldn’t possibly know she had done, could he? She remembered how earlier her sister had taken a bite of the poison apple. Later, her sister was gone, her book crumpled with its spine broken, and the apple discarded only half-eaten.

Claudia’s eyes met his. His eyes, a shade of baby blue in this light, gave nothing away.

“Nosy are we?” She snapped back.

“You are quite uptight, princess. Perhaps, you should loosen that corset a bit and enjoy yourself. This ceremony is for you, after all.”

“That is none of your business, Grimm,” Claudia whispered, hoping to cut this conversation at the knees.

“Have some humor; if you act as stiff and humorless as the dead, you might as well be one.”

She rose her hand to slap him. He caught it and twirled her around so that her back faced him, her arms tied around herself like a straight-jacket. Her face burned with anger.

“Want to hear the end of your story, princess?” He chuckled and started humming to himself. She shivered.

Notes: I found it’s quite hard to write a scene that doesn’t seem purposely vague or withholding when you have two characters that are trying to figure each other out. Since Claudia distrusts Grimm and Grimm wants to mess with Claudia, it naturally leads into a lot of questions, but I hope it was easy enough to follow. As well, it would be nice to know if ya’ll could tell me if you were able to get a sense for who these characters are since this is a scene out of context.

Thoughts? Responses? Leave them down below!

Prompt #4: Describe a magical item.

Part of the fun of magical worlds is coming up with some interesting items that the characters will interact with along the way. They can be big or small, super important to the plot or just an interesting tidbit, and so on. Magical worlds are ripe with possibility. You can make it a mundane thing like a vending machine or something necessary like currency.

Prompt #4: Describe a magical item.

The coin was bronze and mistaken for a penny. It was forgotten on tables, lost through holes, left on pavement. No one looked twice at this fallen coin. If one happened to try, like say a child, the coin would be stubbornly stuck on a sidewalk as if by chewing gum or would suddenly sink further down into a sandbox. The coin, in fact, wasn’t
worth much even for those who knew of it. It alone couldn’t buy baking powder, frogs, or crystals. In many ways, it was just as forlorn and useless as the penny it so resembled. But for those who were in the know, there were places such currency still held sway, where a single coin could fish a fortune from the vending machine down the end of the old abandon boardwalk or purchase a strange antique from the alley shop.

The fortune vending machine was an odd little thing and no one knows how it quite got there. It always spat out small swatches of paper with red ink. The fortunes were true, but only in the sense that they were truly unavoidable. Gregor down the way was known for getting a fortune that read The rain in Sullivan will be quite unpleasant. He was a smidgen confused to say the least; for you see, he did not live in Sullivan, go to Sullivan, or in any other way interact with Sullivan and its weather patterns. Until that day, of course. As most disbelievers tend to do, he neglected the fortune and left home without an umbrella. When certain circumstances changed to Sullivan, Gregor was quite unprepared. Let us say he managed to find himself quite wet. I myself got a fortune that read Your cat will leave you. I was baffled indeed for I did not own a cat of any sort. Until that day, of course.

Notes: This prompt was quite fun and freeing actually. It was a bit odd to start writing about a magical item without knowing the world ahead of time, but it was interesting to see where it went. I always imagined magical currency would have to be pretty clever in order to avoid us normals from noticing. Plus, I love the idea that there’s these odd little corners in the magical world that even most magical people don’t know about.

What prompt you would like me to do next? Leave it down in the comments below!

Prompt #3: Write about an ordinary ability/activity (i.e. dancing, singing, cooking, cleaning, etc.) in a magical way.

Today’s prompt is pretty flexible. You can run with it in several different directions: fantasy, magical realism, and/or contemporary fiction playing with language. I especially love fantasy so mine will definitely lean that way, but don’t feel like you have to with yours. As well, feel free to just write description, or, if you are feeling comfortable with it, start working on character or plot.

Trigger Warning: While I tried to avoid graphic details, the sexual content in this piece might be triggering for survivors.

Prompt #3: Write about an ordinary ability/activity (i.e. dancing, singing, cooking, cleaning, etc.) in a magical way.

She sang a song likes sirens do. Her songs were like the sun. Turning the notes or changing her tune could send her society out of orbit. Smiles spread wide in the presence of her song as if her song were smiles. She sang songs that could snarl a face or make rain from tears. Her sad songs paralyzed crowds, suddenly lethargic and lost. She sang so sweetly her heart grew soft and she sang so sour her depression deepened. Soon all songs were sad songs, wandering in the air, trailing off, trailing off, lost…Her brother withered away, drowning in her song of sadness. He called upon God and the gods and the People and his people to no avail. She wished not to sing, but, when her chest swelled to bursting, she sang again and again until she sang herself hoarse. In the lull, she found a friend who gave her peace. In her she remembered sweet songs and innocent songs and songs of laughter, love, and joy. She sang of their love so, so sweetly. Her music echoed through the corridors. Her song swung into her brother’s ears and sat on his heart. He ached and swelled in romantic love. He hid in his dark room and prayed, but her song throbbed on in his pounding, rhythmic heart. Suddenly, he walked and ran in the tempo of her song, his feet slapping the castle cobblestone. He found her in her room, her song in his heart and on her lips. He loved her again and again and again in time to the music of her love song.

Notes: I’m pretty bummed that my first copy of this got deleted by WordPress. UGH. This was a harder piece for me to write because I already had an idea of how I wanted it to turn out. I had the idea of a lady who through singing could change the emotions of her audience and herself and what trouble would befall her from that. I wanted to definitely play with language to try and replicate her singing in some ways. The very first time I tried to write this the language devolved pretty quickly into children’s literature which I found pretty interesting. I suppose it had to do with the fact that I avoided names and other details in order to keep the piece short. Plus, I always imagined this content as more of backstory rather than part of the main story so it was interesting trying to write it from that angle.

However, what I’m wondering most is was this too dark or too obvious or what have you? Any advice or suggestions moving forward for this piece? Let me know in the comments below!