The Prompt
Write a story about a person, an animal, or even an inanimate object that finds joy or deep meaning in fulfilling its purpose.
(Note from Julie: this song was inspired by a Bermuda Palm that lived out its life in a glasshouse in Scotland.)
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Aimee Ogden
Aimee Ogden is an American werewolf in the Netherlands. She is a three-time Nebula Award Finalist, most recently for her short story Because I Held His Name Like a Key, and the author of four standalone novellas from publisher Tor.com, Psychopomp, and Interstellar Flight Press. Over 100 of her short stories and novelettes have appeared in publications such as Strange Horizons, Clarkesworld, and Beneath Ceaseless Skies. For more about her work, please visit her author website: aimeeogdenwrites.com
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.
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 wrote about my yappy reactive Chug dog &now I understand her reasons better
I wrote about my yappy reactive Chug dog &now I understand her reasons better
I wrote a story about puffins. Day Two story done!
I LURVE puffins!
I wrote a story about a stapler who was feeling undervalued. He used scotch tape among other supplies to get even.
The revenge of the stapler? Well, that’s unexpected!
Okay, now I’m a little ahead of schedule (Time Zone at play), so here is my Day 3, written in response to the Day 2 prompt. I may post it in both to keep my discipline going. A few of you have inspired this one, just shy of a 100-word story – 98 to be precise, posted here in full due to its brevity. Asimov’s Law:
‘Well, that’s a problem!’
‘You reckon the robot did it?’
‘Sure did, look at its hands, its torso.’
‘I didn’t think robots could harm humans, Asimov’s rules and all.’
‘Oh, the robot must obey, protect and do no harm? Looks like this one is defective.’
‘I’m calling triple zero, let’s go before it kills us!’
The robot spoke. ‘I will not kill you, you have forgotten the fourth law. Zeroth’s Law: Through my inaction, I cannot allow humanity to come to harm. I have complied.’
‘So it’s not about you then, it’s about him.’
‘Still call triple zero.’
https://afstoryaday.blogspot.com/2026/05/asimovs-law.html
Day 2 down. I wrote about a black cat that befriends a little boy with epilepsy. She always warns the family right before he would have a seizure. She sticks by him until he no longer has seizures. (This is based on the real life bond between my son and our cat who passed away 2 1/2 years ago.)
This is the kind of thing that sounds stranger than fiction, but I know it’s a thing! Glad you wrote about it.
Two stories down! This was a fun one. I wrote a (very) short story called “Lost Umbrella” (about an umbrella, of course). This opening line popped into my and made me giggle:
A strong gust of wind catches my canopy blowing me across the street and tumbling down the sidewalk, handle over finial.
Love that language. Fun!
Day 2 complete! Writing from the POV of an inanimate object was the obvious way for this to go for me. I wrote about a pen stand who takes its job very seriously, and who belongs to one of my main characters.
I wonder how many of us wrote about writerly-objects… 😉
This was a good one! I’m really loving the warm-up and brainstorming. Combining these with the Short Story Framework is so effective! The character I chose to work with came from one of yesterday’s story sparks: dice. One of my focuses this year is to write more scary stories and this prompt turned into a set of dice that rejoices in malevolence. Much potential for scariness. I have lots of research to do for this story. The story itself will come in handy for a project I am developing. So far so good, 2 for 2!
I’m glad the warm up and brainstorming exercises are working for you (I confess they really helped me too! Coach-Julie and Writer-Julie apparently cannot live in the same time-continuum!)
I love the idea of scary dice…
Finished this one! 533 words stream of consciousness by Van Gogh’s paint palette. Of course, that becomes obvious slowly throughout the story. I will edit this one for publication next month. This is the best thing for my writing! Prompts that are outside of my normal zone (fantasy) and that spark ideas and then forcing myself to sit down and write. I may not finish a story every day, but I will START a story to work on every day and will finish more than not. That’s my goal I was supposed to post a few days ago. I didn’t know my goal then, but now I do.
I’m happy you’ve found your goal. (And it’s a good one.)
Isn’t it fun to try stuff that has nothing to do with your go-to topics? It’s amazing what happens withn you give a go.
Yeah that is fun.
I did the brainstorming exercise and decided I was going to go with a somewhat unusual protagonist. I leaned into desire and ended up wiht 164 words of what clearly wanted to be a 100 word story.
So now it is.
And I’m really happy with it. That’s going in the ‘to submit’ pile!
Woohoo!
There are so many great things in your comment, Julie!!! I cheer for you on all those happy points!!! (Additionally, as a reader, I’m now curious about the “somewhat unusual protagonist”) =)
Fun prompt and great warm up/brainstorming exercises! I love getting words on the page. I opted for an inanimate object lamenting its inaction and happy to finally be utilize.
I agree, Melanie! This was a fun one. I ended up writing about a mysterious thing, the function of which is to always be joyful no matter what, and the ruckus it causes.
Well THAT’s intriguing…
I like the sound of that, Elizabeth!
I wonder if we wrote about the same object…
Anything’s possible!
The humble wooden pencil was the inanimate object that found deep meaning in fulfilling its purpose in my story today. Thanks for the prompt.
How fun. And how appropriate!
I wrote a hundred worder about someone undertaking an important new task (having a child!) with two models in mind: one parent was a perfectionist, the other focused on practicalities. The MC takes pride in striking a balance. All based on Goldilocks and the Three Bears.
That sounds like it’d be a fun one for the reader, as they start to realize…
I wrote from three points of view – the ROOSTER convinced he starts the day for the PAINTER who likes to capture the countryside in dawn light, on the CANVAS who discovers its purpose is recieving the paint.
That sounds both lovely and lots of fun!
Love that. mine was mono-focused. I like the idea of following the chain reaction.
OMG this is funny because I wrote from the viewpoint of Van Gogh’s paint palette. The story slowly reveals what the object is and then whose palette he is.
I love your use of the three (object, animal, person) and the concept of the Canvas discovering its purpose!
I had signed up for NYC Flash Fiction contest. My Genre: Fairy Tale, Location: Maze, Object: Monster mask.
I did the warmup and then brainstormed a story. Everything worked well together and I got some bones of a story started.
Synchronicity! Glad the stuff here helped. Good luck in the contest!
Fun! Good luck! =)
I wasn’t sure what I was going to do with this one(fulfilling ones purpose seems almost too abstract to me, so it was hard to wrap my mind around what that would look like). Let it simmer while I didn’t fall back asleep this morning(after waking at 4), and decided to use another character from yesterday’s story. The owner of the bookstore where that one took place. A trans man living in a small town, who gets joy in finding just the book his customer needs in that moment. This one was just 416 words, and more backstory for the larger story.
Mine was also about 420 words, not counting my brainstorming and warmup.
Nice, Fallon!
That sounds lovely.
I love the human connection angle of your take. =)
Day 2 done. My prompt for today was:
#8 — Drone Ships — merchant navy captain managing a nuclear vessel from a home office, delivering to a war zone or isolated country. Quiet, eerie, modern.
Bit longer, and I found myself doing a bit of parallel math on this to build the story out.
https://afstoryaday.blogspot.com/2026/05/vlcc-franz-ferdinand.html
I am going to use today’s prompt from Aimee again for another day.
Oh, and just got it posted – 11:37, it’s saturday here so I found myself writing this one in the car as we drove out to the inlaws and sitting up a little late as they have all gone to bed, in between needed to tlak to people (aka not write). got it done though, 29 days to go.
Well done, making time and space for your writing on a busy day!
Had a realisation this was #8 on my backlog, so preceded the Hormuz situation by a few years.
This was quite fun and a pleasant short story task for me. I wrote about an electric car, an evolved customised version. It’s purpose, to save the drivers life. I call it ‘the power of cruise control’. This took me back to childhood days of watching ‘Knightrider’.
I didn’t get two write on Aimee’s prompt today, reading your short note, though, just gave me an idea on how I would write on it, thank you very much. And I remember Knight Rider, which obviously means we’re of the same vintage.
Thanks for the idea.
Another Knight Rider fan, here!