Today, Marta Pelrine-Bacon encourages us to get a bit mysterious.
The Prompt
She waited a week before revealing the secret.
About Marta Pelrine-Bacon
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https://storiesin5minutes.wordpress.com/2017/05/08/the-secret-storyaday-post/ So this post is rather short.
This prompt thrummed deep in the recesses of my mind and brought out a story I didn’t know needed to be told. Not horror or suspense, but the human heart always has its own brand of mystery. http://adanramie.com/tarnishings-fiction/
I ended up with a fun piece of flash fiction from this prompt – thank you!
Excellent!
I really like where you took my prompt, Julie. And it’s true that whatever I write, I want there to be a mystery of some kind. I write to discover what it is.
Every story: Somebody needs something unattainable until…
…and therein lies the mystery of every story. What is it that this person needs, and why is it unattainable (internal, another person, nature, machine) until the person is nudged along (inciting incident) to go after it.
I WILL do you justice in writing this one.
Let’s see: The British Columbian sexy Big Foot needed to mate to propagate the species, but the only compatible one, according to eHarmony, was a young and clumsy Yeti in southern Tibet. The only thing standing in her way, other than distance, was a travel ban against illegal aliens keeping her from boarding a tramp steamer in Seattle and a hunter determined to bag a Big Foot for a Fox reality show.
Justice indeed.
When I first saw this prompt, I immediately went to mystery, horror, which is where my mind usually goes. Honestly, if the prompt was “a field of daisies” my mind would still go to the dark side. 🙂 But I really liked your point, Julie, about how the story doesn’t HAVE to go that way. So, I printed the prompt for future use and made a note to consider going in a different direction for me and my writing, maybe lighter, maybe just not as dark, maybe having the protagonist’s voice be middle grade or young adult , etc. Thanks for the suggestion!
Sometimes it’s hard to resist where the mind goes!