The Prompt
If your character follows the stream between the mountains to its source, what will they find?
Jennifer Hudak
Jennifer Hudak is a Nebula-nominated speculative fiction writer whose work can be found in venues such as The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet, and The Sunday Morning Transport. She is a 2018 graduate of the Viable Paradise workshop and a member of the Codex Writers’ Group. Originally from Boston, she now lives with her family in Upstate New York where she teaches yoga, knits pocket-sized animals, and misses the ocean.
Find out more about her at JenniferHudakWrites.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
When I saw the photograph and the prompt, I almost immediately knew what I’d be writing about. And lo and behold, I was brought right back to a fantasy world of my own creation (and one of my personal favourites), expanding it in ways I hadn’t before! Always a treat to return there! ^_^
Another prompt that took to me places I never expected to go. It was fun!
Felt adventurous and curios. Help me to write an idea for a story on a gender I would never think I would write.
Fun
This was quite an adventure – I enjoyed it very much and found myself coming back to write a second story.
Roughed out a plan, and connected some scenes, for a longer piece. A woman arrives at a farmhouse to sketch, and the owner is gruff, he resents having agreed to rent to her as a favour. She walks around, takes careful notes, and asks the owner about the area, but he steers her away from the headwaters of the stream. She is trying to document a particular flower that grows abundantly by the headwaters. He has a side business of floral essences, but he won’t use that particular flower. As the glaciers melt earlier and earlier, secrets from centuries in the village are visible at the surface. The owner has messed with her car, but he need not worry about her disclosing old secrets or the special flower. She has finished her drawings and observations. Will she leave or stay on the farm?
What began as a meditative hike by two adventure-seeking brothers turned into a double drabble dream about a cat and his littermate climbing towards a mountain top lake… a location where a plant, worthy of a queen’s reward, grew. I was planning on a feature at some point for these two kitty boys, my MC’s cats, and today’s short romp felt right. It reads a bit like a past life, instead of just a dream, too, which makes it quite fun.
Another fun prompt. I took a character from my novel and wrote a 629-word scene. She hikes alone and makes a life-altering decision. At the top were three spectacular waterfalls.
Something I love about Story a Day is getting in contact with the themes I’m (apparently, evidently) most interested in right now. I’m not consciously aware of these, generally speaking, and my inner editor / inner crankypants often wants to nay-say them, but my inner crankypants can’t quite keep up with the daily output. Today’s story, like Day Four’s, was about a font of miracles and magic, and tracing the good back to its source. Uniquely, today was also about cave hermits.
I ended up writing in a Edgar Allan Poe-inspired voice, like the one he uses in Silence—A Fable, Landor’s Cottage, or The Island of the Fay, where he leans on setting / situation as the main driver of the story. 883 words, complete draft. I’m super happy with this one!
I love reading that you quieted your inner cranky pants and love reading that you’re super happy with what you wrote!!! Fun!!! 😄
It’s always nice when the inner crankypants calms down a little! Thanks Melanie!
I wound up taking a different rout with my story but the photograph put me in mind of Landor’s Cottage, too. I nearly had one character say something to the other about “a Poe-like scene,” but realized that almost nobody (not even my characters) would think of the pieces you mention, but instead would wonder what that lovely landscape could have to do with the house of Usher.
I *love* The Domain of Arnheim and Landor’s Cottage. Although Poe’s shatteringly morbid material is wonderful in its own right, I wish more people knew his aesthetically beautiful stuff. They’re two sides of the same coin to me.
I wrote about two young men, kind of loud and joking at the start of their hike, gradually becoming more reflective and, ultimately, more receptive as they walk further into the mountains and finally drink at the spring that is the source of the stream. I didn’t want to introduce any artificial conflict (bears! landslides! precipices!) so it moves pretty gently, but in general I’m happy with it. About five hundred words.
Sounds like a solid draft, Walter!
I have a nice little story o fmy walking through the Scottish Highlands, following a stream to a lovely mountain lake. I laid out a blanket, ate lunch, read a book and took a nap. A perfect afternoon in retirement.
Sending happy writing vibes to all! =)
I used my commute, gave myself permission to drabble, and I’m pinching myself that I’ve checked off the challenge box for the day. Confession: I made it super easy to succeed…my only goal is showing up and reading the prompt…everything else is icing and sprinkles…and I am six for six on icing and sprinkles! I’ve also done well shutting down my inner perfectionist. Sea? 😉
Shout out to Superstars. Working with these awesome writers has absolutely changed my approach to the May Challenge. I feel it and I see it unfolding on the pages as I write. I’m so thankful to know and to be able to spend writing time with such talented people.
Eye here ya!
🤩
I wasn’t quite sure what I was going to do with this prompt, then 478 words just spilled out of me. This might end up in the larger story(Nik & Leigh, once again), or it might not. But, it does show a glimpse of what Nik is like outside of baseball.
Very cool! =)