The Prompt
When she picked up the knife, she discovered the blade was still sharp.
Rachel Bolton
Rachel Bolton is a Bram Stoker Award Nominated writer. Her work has appeared in Apex Magazine, Women Write About Comics, Strange Girls, and more. She lives with her cat in Massachusetts. You can follow her on Bluesky @raebolt.bsky.social and find out more at her website:
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Prefer paper crafts? Here’s the cut & paste version
I used this prompt to write a brief sequel to my day 2 whodunit and had the detective from that story face some very unexpected fallout from her last case. It went in a considerably different direction, but that allowed me to get to know the protagonist better, and in surprising new ways.
New beginnings that directly arise from old crimes. Woot! Knives rule.
This was more hard as the last one. I ended up writhing a paranormal thriller. This blades escene is simple, but powerful.
The mountainous neighborhood my protagonist lives in is full of roaming dogs that often threaten her on her daily walks so she buys a machete. When one bites her, she uses it. At home, she wonders if she should get stitches. Thinking the knife’s likely dull since she had cut through the dog’s bones, she tests it by cutting through a watermelon. Still sharp. She decides not to go get stitches. You know how people are about their dogs.
Started a scary story, ditched it for something more lighthearted, the lighter story took a turn and went dark. The mind works in mysterious ways sometimes.
I didn’t finish an entire story but jotted down ideas how the story might continue. It’s about a woman who hears on the news the police caught a local serial killer who stabs his victims. Although his face is blurred and his name is not revealed, he looks like her husband.
I wondered why, again, do I just not feel like building a story from a good, provocative prompt?
After thinking about it, I decided that the helplessness (and other emotions) that I have been feeling at the surge in authoritarianism, where I am and elsewhere in the world, was getting between me and my muse. And we can’t allow that!
So I wrote about five hundred words of internal dialogue, as she picks up the knife and free-associates from it to various real things that are plaguing me personally. I am happy to say that it came out very creepy. And she doesn’t ever use the knife.
I quick-drafted a micro fiction thing about a post-apocalyptic monster hunter making good use of a Ginsu knife, then rabbitholed down the Ginsu wiki and made some notes for future me about aggressive direct marketing and current trends in genetic engineering / de-extinction efforts. There may be a fun(ner) story here!
I was going to try to do something really unexpected with this, but instead I found myself noodling with a 50 word story suggested by the prompt. It ends up being my ending line, and I get to play with lots of metaphors about honing and blunting, and … well, I enjoyed going a little dark!
My story involved a “Wheel of Death” which is a first for me. 1157 words and a story I didn’t expect I’d ever write. I just rolled with it, today. Happy Friday!
Ooo, that takes me back to childhood of variety shows on TV! I always got very nervous about those ‘dangerous’ stunts!
Yes! The nervous anticipation can be overwhelming! I remember feeling that way!
Alas, I see now that I grossly underutilized the tension potential of said death wheel….😬
So, we’ve had one prompt that was right up my romance alley. And this one went down my cozy mystery alley. 🙂 258 words of a character stumbling over a body. And here Avery thought zer brother’s ex-boyfriend was just a slob who didn’t take care of his kitchen. 😉
Nice!!! =D
Sounds like someone who deserves a come-uppance… 😉