The Prompt
We’ve all had the experience of being caught off guard in a situation and not known what to say, only coming up with the perfect response when it’s much too late. Use that memory to inspire a story. Will your character respond in the moment? Will they not? What else might happen? You decide.
P.A. Cornell
P.A. Cornell is a Chilean-Canadian speculative fiction writer. A two-time finalist for the Nebula Award, her stories have been published in over seventy magazines and anthologies, including Lightspeed, Apex, and eight “Best of the Year” anthologies. In addition to becoming the first Chilean Nebula finalist in 2024, Cornell has been a finalist for the Aurora and World Fantasy Awards, and in 2022 won Canada’s Short Works Prize. When not writing, she can be found assembling intricate LEGO builds or drinking ridiculous quantities of tea. Sometimes both. For more on the author and her work, visit her website pacornell.com.
Latest Book: Shoeshine Boy & Cigarette Girl
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Sample Warm up for Day 1
Sample Brainstorming Exercise For Day 1
Join the discussion: what will you do with today’s prompt OR how did it go? Need support? Post here!
Remember: Please don’t post your story in the comments here (and I talk more about why not, here). Best practice: Leave us a comment about how it went, or share your favorite line from your story.
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Prefer paper crafts? Here’s the cut & paste version
I’m a bit late to the party. Just finished this one. It ended up being very autistic as all my stories are. I just like writing about characters who feels everything weirdly. My boy do be an alien!
Better late than never…welcome!
“Feels everything weirdly” sounds like a lot of fun.
This was a interestingly relevant prompt because I recently took a writing class on using your personal history in your writing. Prompts like this are hard for me because I have a hard time thinking of memories. The warmup and brainstorming activities helped and I wrote a little flash piece.
I DNF’d my story because I had a great idea, knew the middle and end, but couldn’t come up with the beginning that was tight and set up the characters, setting, and important facts (that Cindy is allergic to wasps, that Bonnie always has the last word, that they run a petting farm, that they are sisters in their 60s). I used the “last word” as the prompt. The ending was GREAT! I’ll go back to finish this up for next month when I start editing the stories. I’ll get the beginning right.
But I feel accomplished, because I got close to finishing it.
Yup, I’d call that a win.
We’re never going to get all of these stories done the way we want them, but it sounds like you got enough of the story down to make it something to come back to. Glad you’re happy with it.
I jumped into this challenge at 11:00pm, day one. It was fun to get back into writing, but challenging. I’m happy to be here and wishing everyone good luck!
Hooray! Glad to have you. It’s challenging for sure, but worth it!
Wrote!
A scene from a WIP …using the bristling feeling the make the character do something that will potentially mess everything up! :))
Maybe it can transform into flash fiction if it doesn’t end up in the novel. Maybe not. But I was happy writing it – and that’s what matters this month.
Great prompt! I used it to figure out a scene in my longer WIP. One character makes a throwaway comment to the protagonist that later she regrets not asking about because the consequences become life-threatening.
Love it. I look forward to trying to figure out which scene came from this when I see it 😉
HI
Read all the comments! Everyone had a great start.
I brainstormed three quipy combacks to mudane, yet hurtful comments. I did it for 9 comments. Things like, “nice hair cut, but I liked it longer” or “Man you are short”
I took one of them and ended up with a woman that was trying to get a word in “edgewise” (ie. me versus the hubby)
It was fun.
I like this approach!
Day 1 complete! I wrote a short scene for one of my current WIP’s, set in a fantasy tavern.
Favorite line:
Then it hit me—I should have said, “No tea? I suppose cleanliness isn’t on the menu either.” Curses.
Hahaha! I would definitely read more of that!
This makes me laugh 😊
I know this feeling well, as I tend to shut down when faced with confrontation. I used that to write a bit of back story for a character in a project I’ve only done a bit of plotting on. 559 words to start the month.
And this bit hit me hard even as I was writing it: Even after I’d come out to my family. After they’d claimed to be so proud of me for living my truth. But never even once changing the way they spoke about me.
And still feeling so free to talk about other people like me in just a horrendous way.
That is going to make a lot of people feel seen…
Happy to read about today’s writing success, sad to read the other part.
I relate a lot to this. It was a hard prompt for me because I tend to shut down too, and then I try to forget those moments. But I’m happy to see I’m not alone. 😊
I was surprised how easily a plot came together. I’ve got about 2/3 of a skeleton draft. That’s what I’m aiming for daily: a coherent beginning/middle/end. Details can come later.
That’s a great plan! Good luck this month
Love that plan. And I’m glad it was easy. Long may that continue!
I have become outspoken in the last 10 or 15 years so I struggled to come up with examples of my own experiences related to this prompt. I got some ideas that were similar which was enough to grease the wheels and move me towards one of the concepts I sparked in one of the April warm-ups. My main character didn’t get to share news with their Mom before Mom passed away, so I staged the conversation with some hidden aspects and a surprising twist reveal. It was so much fun to write and felt so refreshing after not writing any of my own original fiction completely independently for years. Something I’m totally excited about is that now I can forget about this draft, put it away, and move on to something new tomorrow! Thanks for this! I’m feeling revitalized already!
That makes me happy. ‘Revitalized’ is great! And twist reveals are even better 😉
Oh, and I didn’t even think of that spin on what “too late”: might mean.
During the planning of my wedding many years ago, I was caught off guard by a comment and didn’t say anything. In my story today, I manufactured a very wild change of venue as a response. Cathartic.
That sounds like a great way to use that memory!
I didn’t dwell too long on the experienced I’ve had like this, in case I destroyed my confidence (lol), but instead gave the experience to a character who appears in a novel I’m working on.
I’m not sure what I wrote today would work as a stand-alone short story, as is, but it has a fun interaction at its heart. It might work, revised, as a short story, or it might end up in a novel with these characters.
And gosh, it felt good to be writing!
I actually wrote in my warmup that I couldn’t write any concrete examples because they all blend together. But, I went with the feelings those moments left me with(often feeling shaky and angry with myself for a long time afterward).
Oh yes. My character had that ‘face on fire, I can’t think of a smart thign to say because it’s taking all my strength to stay upright’ reaction which felt very familiar but I hadn’t expressed before. Felt good to get it down.
4570 Words, 2667 of them comprise my first May story the rest were words produced during the warmup and brainstorming. I’ve worked on and off since 6am, so, interspersing writing jaunts with chores, movement, and a happy distraction or two, so, though my focus still needs a bit of an overhaul, it’s done. Happy Writing!
That’s amazing! Well done, Melanie!
Maybe your focus needs work, or maybe popping up to do chores and deal with distractions is what works for you…
I’m with Julie. That might be the best way to do it for you.
Melanie, 2667 on day 1, pace yourself I don’t think I’ll pull numbers like that not that it’s about numbers. Well done go with what works.
Andrew, some days I write micro fiction, some days I have more time and space 🙃
Fallon, I think you and Julie are on to something and I just need to roll with it.
Thanks, Julie 😊 you’re probably right…
This prompt was crunchy and cathartic! I write a story about a junior space station mechanic who gets launched into space with an entitled resident and has to try to get back home while dealing with some spicy running commentary and sabotage.
*wrote! Curse you, phone typing!
Sounds fun, Elizabeth!!!!
Cathartic is the word. I *may* have had a similar experience 🙂
That sounds like a lot of fun!
I wrote about the day my dad stormed into the karate dojo during my junior black belt grading when I was 16 and in a hurry to grow up. He tried to stop me from grading, but my sensei stepped in and kicked him out. I finished grading, but the harsh words we exchanged after that event still live in my heart. There’s so much I wanted to say, but in the emotional heat of the moment, I was not at my most eloquent.
Quenntis! Welcome back.
Oof, I can feel the heat of that moment just in your summary. I hope writing about it helped.
oooph – gut punch type of story Quenntis! Nice to see you in this space too!
That just leaves me with questions, and I haven’t even gotten to read the story.
I wrote a draft about a real situation about a time I should have left when I was even talking to myself and I still didn’t listen! Then, I wrote it again as one sentence! That seems to be a breathless form that fit with the content of my story. 1/31 down! WHOO HOO!
Okay, to distill it down to one sentence? That’s impressive. =)
To be fair, it is a long, run on sentence with weird punctuation! 🙂
Still One sentence, now that’s a skill.
Hey Tammy!
I love that you wrote it again as one sentence. That form+content match sounds fabulous.
You’re 100% compliant with the challenge so far. Onward!
Back in the days of “The Colbert Report,” Stephen Colbert left a scientist speechless when he said, “I can dismiss your research [into the effects of secondhand smoke] with a wave of my hand. Now what do you say?”
I wrote a story in which the MC is that scientist, obsessed, now, with coming up with a reply.
“Truth isn’t beauty,” I mutter, “and beauty isn’t truth. It just feels that way.”
By god, that man is quick and witty. I have some envy…
I love how you turned that aphorism around.
Day 1 complete. I work as a cashier in a grocery store. I wrote about what I would like to say when customers are rude or feel they are entitled to something that they are not.
I’m pretty proud of this.
1 down.
30 more to go. Bring it on.
Nice. I’m sure there’s been lots of inspiration there.
I love this because I believe there should be more stories with a grocery store setting! Everyone can relate. Are you going to use grocery store as a setting all month?
Tammy, that’s a brilliant idea.
Oh, this was the PERFECT prompt for you, then! I’ve done enough customer-facing jobs to know the deep zen required to NOT say what you want to 😉
Bring it on, indeed. Woohoo!
I get so irritated with rude people, and that’s as a fellow consumer! It really shouldn’t take that much effort to be polite(and I’m a very socially awkward person). Glad you could get a story out of it!
My normal challenge, Day 1 prompt comes out too late for my writing window, not a fault of Story a day, just the challenge of living in Sydney Australia. So I plucked a prompt from my Story Idea register.
#44 — Don’t Step on Mushrooms
The mycelium network horror. A mushroom picked, chopped, dropped into a risotto — told from the mushroom’s perspective. Domestic and quietly unsettling.
I like that I had no clue how I was going to do this.
https://afstoryaday.blogspot.com/2026/05/mushroom-monologue.html
Would love a comment on how I went. One day done, 30 to go.
…and now I feel bad about eating mushrooms!
I liked how consistent the MC’s point of view was and how the human realm was the one that seemed foreign, “They speak in a low drone, a noise, not like us who speak inside, in thoughts.”
I picked that one the night before, and was curious about how I was going to do it, until I did. The big block of text felt right; I felt it added a physical element to the piece.
Looks like you’ve got a great turnout this year.
I noticed the big block of text and wondered if it was going to work and I think it did.