The Prompt
Write a story, and after 5 minutes of writing, this jar appears in your character’s world.
or
.
Write 100 words about meeting the ruler of this kingdom.
Or whatever you would like.
CH Schoen
C.H. Schoen is a late-night writer hailing from the midwest. Her passion include studying the different belief systems of the world and walking the land with her dogs. She can be found most nights crafting weird little stories and posting visual prompts to https://www.savvywordslinger.com.
Join the discussion: what will you do with today’s prompt OR how did it go? Need support? Post here!
Here’s your next Game Piece. save the image and share on social media with #storyaday
Prefer paper crafts? Here’s the cut & paste version
I chose the 100-word (drabble) option to write the story of my arrival in the kingdom and the greeting I received.
My reason for joining the challenge is to channel my unruly, over-active mind to create a story with a beginning, middle, and end.
Every day, I’m using the prompts plus the Short Story Framework to write short (usually around 1,000 words) stories. I can feel my story crafting muscle growing!
This called to mind the faerie houses some of my children made in elementary school…so I allowed a child (not my own) to meet the faerie princess in 100 words.
Day 9 Completed ✔️ 😊
I went with the middle option and got the story to 100 words exactly. Fun prompt!
Love hearing everyone’s ideas for this prompt. I wrote 200 words but wasn’t excited about the direction it was heading, so I’m going to revisit this when I have a better spark of inspiration. I loved the picture and really want to craft something decent with it.
Interesting prompt! I went in a direction I don’t usually go in my writing. Lots of fun!
Fun visual prompt. I’ve never written fantasy. My first try is 130 words long about a young woman in a wheelchair. Every evening she transports herself into the fantasy land where she can walk and dance with the handsome prince. At midnight he sends her home.
Loved this prompt! It showed me that I can just pick an object and write a story about it.
The story I wrote is about a princess in training to be queen. The castle is in need of renovation and the way she achieves that has its ups and downs.
I’ve never tried a picture prompt before, but I really enjoyed this one. It helps that the image was so fantastic!
I ended up writing a story about a frustrated writer who found the jar in the depths of a library sub-basement. The inspiration he hoped it would provide came, but not in the way he expected.
Anyway, day nine is done. We’re nearly a third of the way through the challenge!
May 9 2023
She missed the cool autumn. Florida wasn’t in her plans…now she was stuck here. She huffed as she took out the garbage from the café, frustrated with the humidity. Just as she threw the bag over the green lip of the dumpster, she saw a reflection. She shuffled to the spot and found a jar filled with a little fairy kingdom. She figured someone must have done a DIY. But how did it end up here? she thought. When a little man carrying a staff came out of the castle, she realized this was no ordinary project. “Hello, Celine,” he bellowed. “Do you wish to see what’s inside?” She answered yes without thinking. She was suddenly transported to a whole other world where it was autumn all year long. The trees swayed in a gentle perfectly cool breeze and colors of gold, auburn and amber glimmered throughout the kingdom. But all her boss could see was the trash vestibule left open and no trace of Celine but her car still parked in the lot.
Day 9 ✔️
Loved this prompt. Wrote a story about two friends, an accident and a strange item in their hands that resembles the kingdom in the jar very closely.
I wrote a 450 word story about the triumph of Sir Thomas Kinkade, Knight of the Radiant Cottages, Painter of Light, over the mysterious barrier that surrounded his castle.
1504 words today and felt like I could have kept going, but told myself I wasn’t going to spend more than an hour on this, so I can get to my other writing as well. And I barely got to the prompt, but I did spend a lot of time with my selkies(well, a selkie and half-selkie, who can’t actually shift). My final line(which I kept adjusting): And when Muiren’s arms went around them, Ronan knew they didn’t need a castle in a jar. This right here was where they found their home.
I had a great time with this prompt. I entered the castle and left on the wings of an albatross. This is definitely a story-start that I will revisit.
I love a good visual prompt upon occasion, since it’s not something I do a lot for myself as a writer. My castle dome is discovered by two kids poking around in the attic where they’re not supposed to be without an adult. And the dome contains a living world. This might turn out to be my first non-flash length story of the month.
The Story of The Nizam Palace in Miniature :
I simply couldn’t take my eyes off the jar. No, not off the jar, it was a glass jar right, but the miniature palace inside the jar was what hypnotized me. It was the most beautiful show piece that I had ever seen in my life. I know there is no point trying to describe it to you. Even then, let me try just to give you a ‘feel’ of the jar. The palace was square-shaped with cylindrical, pointed pillars at the square-ends . Though the building was two-storied with the most loveable concrete, railinged roof you would find anywhere, the pillar at the entrance had a door that nearly reached up to the second floor, leading to the interior of the palace. There were flower gardens of the most exquisite colours on both sides of the passage that led to the entrance pillar. Initially, I mistook the passage for an artificial lake like the one you find at the Taj Mahal. The green and yellow of the flower gardens juxtaposed with the pink and blue of the palace and created a unique, a serene aura about it.
“How do you like my gift, Ron?”
“It’s the most gorgeous gift I have ever seen in my life.” I replied absent-mindedly. The realization of the show-piece palace belonging to someone else dawned on me just then.
“On holidays, we will play with it, okay?”
I nodded my head in silence.
“You, silly Pommy. Tomorrow, the gift will vanish and she will stop adopting that high and mighty attitude with me.”
I had already chalked out a plan. So, I yawned and told Pommy how much I liked the palace, that I’d surely come to hers in order to play with the gift.
The miniature palace went missing from Pommy’s the same night. Pommy cried her heart out, her parents made a thorough search all around, but the jar with the magical Palace seemed to have gone from the face of the earth.
In the darkness of the night, after Ma had safely tucked me under the blanket, missed me on the forehead, and retired to her bed room, I tiptoed out to the nearby woods with the torch. I crept straight to the Banyan tree with the hollow stem.
Once I reached there, I put my hand in the hole and brought out the beauty.
“Grr…….”.I thought I had heard a small sound.Someone, in a tiny voice, was breathing fire. I looked around, up and down, a there was not a soul tobe seen!
A window on the top floor of the entrance pillar opened and the tiniest of heads that I had seen even on the dolls, peeped out.
“You are a disgrace to your race. Pommy trusts you so much, yet you have betrayed her and stolen my palace. For this sinful act, you’re ruined and damned, mark my words.”
Lowering my head to the top of the jar, I looked at the face. It looked ancient with the beard. But there was something regal about him.
“May I know who I have the pleasure of talking to?” I asked him, putting on my most polite voice.
“Look at the audacity! How dare you ask such a question to the Nawab of the Nizam Palace? You will rot in hell all right, and your soul burnt in the boiling cauldron for the next hundred years.” He fumed.
“Sorry, Your Majesty. Please pardon me my ignorance. You were right when you said that I had stolen the miniture palace. But I was mesmerized by its beauty and couldn’t help it. Now, you talk about it, I feel deeply remorseful.” I broke into a loud sob.
The royalty looked at me for a while, pondering over my condition, running a hand around his beard.
“You seem genuinely repentant. I’ll help you out of your trouble. You cover the replica with your shirt end, race back to Pommy’s and leave it outside her door. I’ll do the rest…,,”
I tried to put on another act of looking happy. I was about to pick up the jar when the Nawab stopped me.
“Wait, wait. You have to promise me something else first. Promise me that you will never steal again.”
“I promise. I won’t do anything like that again. It was my first time. First time, I betrayed Pommy. She is my best buddie.”
I was crying and laughing and eager to get away.
“Get up, Ron. Pommy called me a little while ago. She’s on her way, over the moon to have got the show piece back.” It was Ma shaking me in bed. “By the way, next time you’ve to go out on an urgent errand, go in your campus shoes. Saves me a lot of trouble from having to wash those stinky socks.”
The end
I am a night owl writer, and I’m looking forward to engaging with the ruler of this kingdom.
So happy to ‘see’ you back here, Daryl!