The Prompt
“Hibiscus Day” In many cultures, including my own West Indian society, the hibiscus is an auspicious flower.
Linked to everything from the cycle of life, renewal, transformation, the feminine divine, the spiritual plane and even fame and luck, the hibiscus is a temporary beauty. It flowers for only one day, with hybrids that last perhaps three days at most.
Think about the meaning and symbolism of the flower. Its gorgeous, easily bruised petals. Its brief existence. Or think of the rotting flowers at the base of this hardy bush. The wait to see them bloom once again.
Whatever you do, let your feelings lead you rather than your head, as much as you can. Be as weird and outside the box as you wish. Let your imagination breathe. Have fun with it.
Good luck!
R. S. A. Garcia
R.S.A. is a Nebula and Sturgeon Award winning writer of speculative fiction. She is also the winner of the Machine Intelligence Foundation for Rights and Ethics’ 2023 Media Award, and a Locus, Ignyte and Eugie Foster Award finalist.
Her Amazon Bestselling science fiction mystery, Lex Talionis, received a starred review from Publishers Weekly and the Silver Medal for Best Scifi/Fantasy/Horror Ebook from the Independent Publishers Awards (2015).
She has published short fiction in venues such as Clarkesworld Magazine, Uncanny Magazine, Escape Pod, Strange Horizons, The Sunday Morning Transport, and Internazionale Magazine.
Her stories have been long-listed for the British Science Fiction Awards, translated into several languages, and included in a number of anthologies, including the critically acclaimed The Best of World SF, The Best Science Fiction of the Year, The Year’s Best Fantasy, and The Apex Book of World SF.
Her sci-fantasy duology, beginning with The Nightward, is out now from Harper Voyager US. https://www.amazon.com/Nightward-Book-One-Waters-Lethe-ebook/dp/B0CSXFBWRN/
She lives in Trinidad and Tobago with an extended family and too many cats.
R.S.A. was diagnosed with breast cancer in December 2021. She is currently in treatment and doing well. If you’d like to help, please donate to her GoFundMe organised by her friends.
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What a beautiful prompt this was. This one inspired me to write a (semi-fictional) personal story I might not have thought of otherwise, delving into a journey of self-discovery I went on many years ago. Really brought me back in a wonderful way.
Thanks to Hibiscus Day excersice I undertand how could you take something as simple as a flower as an inspiration for something as complex as writing stories.
I struggled to begin this piece, but then I let her rip! The saleswoman at the bridal shop has been waiting for a truly grotesque looking bride to be transformed with a magical hibiscus, without regard to how this would affect the bride and everyone around her when she returns to her regular appearance.
But this saleswoman has met her match in my bride. It was so much fun to write!
I had an immediate idea for how to incorporate a hibiscus into my story, but I had a rough time getting the character who wields it to focus…
My MC has a very quirky 90-ish-year-old woman living a few apartments down her block. She is a force of nature (as is her real-life counterpart) whose age grants her special dispensations, like being able to declare immediate friendships (and enemies) and gifting surprise hibiscuses to those she likes. In this instance, perhaps, her pink hibiscus and little baggie of hibiscus tea are more than friendly overtures. A little kitchen witchery may be afoot. My MC is a very eligible young woman, and her wisened friend has a lovely grandson coming to dinner next week.
I am physically and mentally exhausted today, and this one has been a struggle. Deep digging and letting it flow without thinking. What I ended up with is ‘rotting flowers’ but it’s better than nothing.
I struggled this morning. I began with the end in mind, typed a solid beginning and middle Caught the second half of the 1pm sprint during a lunch break and free wrote 5 sides of paper (more of the middle). Sat down after work and, typed out an adequate ending. It needs refinement and revisions, but it’s done!
Greetings: This has been a long day with going and coming and expectations.
When I first read the prompt, I couldn’t figure how I was going to use that in a story. So rather that write my story early which I’ve been doing, the prompt has been in my mind all day. I came up with a beginning and sometimes that enough to at least get something started. I’ve just finished putting 565 words together for a story which had a totally unexpected ending.
I tried to write from the perspective of the hibiscus.
Oh wow! How did that go?
I created a flash with potential, I think.
What a wonderful springtime prompt! Thank you. In my 353-word story, I remembered the enthusiasm we felt moving into our new house and starting our landscaping. Twice we purchased hibiscus and twice the deer ate the tender buds and flowers. It was disappointing, but I don’t blame the deer.
Deer, doing what deer do…LOL
Today I added some hibiscus to the story I was working on yesterday. One of my characters turned out to have some of those flowers which my MC often saw him watering as she walked by his house.
I started a story three days ago and yesterday realized it had no purpose or conflict. I decided to give up on it. Today, though, I saw how I could use yesterday’s prompt to add another character to give it conflict and meaning. The story started out to just be about a high school girl dating a bad boy. Now that I’ve added a studious boy, it’s beginning to develop.
I love the journey you’re going on, during this month!
This is a great prompt! I love hibiscus. I wrote a ~1000 word story about plants flowering on a space station.
Between Star Trek: TNG and ‘The Expanse’, I’ve started to think more about how plants would do in space…and what a difference they make to the environment. (I guess I could reach back to “Silent Running” too, but that’s a little dark…)
“Silent Running” was dark, and it was a “B” movie, but it doesn’t let you go, even after – I just looked it up – all the years from 1972 until now, which in young adult, ostensibly grown-up, parent, working, dreaming years is about an eon – it doesn’t let go. It was, after all, good. Well written. Beautiful. Looking at images from it, I wonder how much it affected later films, like “Moon”? And – I checked again – it came out the same year as “The Effect of Gamma Rays on Man-In-The-Moon Marigolds.” Plants, bending and breaking our hearts. I guess that’s the point here.
I’m very happy with what I wrote! And I have such fond memories of hibiscus flowers because my grandmother had them in her backyard. I used to sit under them and play. So I used them today in my story. Thanks for the prompt!
Aw, I’m so happy it brought you good memories and a story you like.
My Sonoran desert tortoise LOVES to eat hibiscus flowers. This prompt reminds me of him … oh, the stories! Thank you for history of this flower (I had no idea) and the fun prompt.
I wrote about 350 words outlining pieces of life wisdom from the perspective of a hibiscus. I wrote as the hibiscus speaking to the reader. It was really fun and challenging to think of what a flower would share with us if it could talk.
Great prompt and very life challenging results for me! I will attempt to take my own advice from the piece.
I’m glad to hear the flower had good advice! (I love stories that come from unusual perspectives!)
Thanks for this prompt! I wrote about staying in the moment while disaster / heaviness / generally bad stuff pushes in at the edges, and making tea from Rose of Sharon flowers.
That sounds like a story that needs to be in the world.
I wrote a short (~250 words) meditation on catching glimpses of the mysterious and beautiful world coterminous with the one we spend most of our time in. Not a story – no beginning, middle, or end – but I tried to move from contemplation to action, without directly addressing the reader.
What a wonderfully evocative prompt!
I love how you are approaching the challenge, this year.
I struggled with this, but came up with a story. I got a 400 word outline done. I am going to give it another look-see later today.
What, the hibiscus flower wouldn’t open up to you? Glad you got some words down!
I wrote a 79 word poem about the choice between spending time enjoying the flower or taking it for granted, just like we do with the one day in front of us.
LOVE that!
I wrote a 50 word dialogue only story that may or may not end up in Nik & Leigh’s story, bouncing off the idea of blooming for only a day(night).
I found that the most powerful part of the prompt, too!