The Prompt
“One Thousand and Two Arabian Nights.” Story as survival: Your protagonist tells a story within a story in order to avoid some kind of disaster.
The Author
Michael X. Wang is the author of FURTHER NEWS OF DEFEAT: Stories, a finalist for the PEN/Bingham Prize. His novel, LOST IN THE LONG MARCH, is forthcoming from The Overlook Press. Find him on Twitter: @MichaelXWang3
Read A Book, Support An Indie
This year’s StoryADay May official bookseller is Reads & Company, a privately-owned indie bookseller in Pennsylvania. Any purchase from the site this month supports Reads & Co.
Leave a comment and let us know how you used the prompt, and how you’re celebrating!
My character had to distract a giant from going after her baby by making up silly poems/songs.
Wow, that’s pretty much how I distracted my kids from…everything, when they were young 😉
I loved this prompt! It really sparked something in me and I wrote my longest piece yet (about 4000 words) with most of it just flowing out of me.
The protagonist is tied up in a room with a bomb that will go off if she stops talking, so she jumps in to story telling to keep herself going until the bomb squad can show up.
You can read it here:
https://rjtitelbaum.wordpress.com/2021/05/12/storyaday-may-day-12/
This prompt had to be held in my head for a whole day before a spark of inspiration arrived. Now it has and WOW!
It has opened a door in my novel for some vital information to be given from a century before. It is given in a message locked in a box buried in the ruins of a monastery. It brings to life a story that has been passed down by word of mouth through the generations of my protagonist’s family.
I have been struggling to think how I could build a bridge linking the past to my proposed ‘end’.
I wrote of an evil empress who commands the execution of a certain Jonas Smilter, a storymaker who has been telling unflattering stories of the empress.
This one was fun. Very rough-drafty, but I think it turned out alright…
https://slforrester.com/2021/05/12/cave-dwellers/
Lots to think about with this prompt today.
https://tammysreadinglife.wordpress.com/2021/05/12/day-12-storyadaymay/