The Prompt
People often react to weather in unexpected ways. What weather events haunt you? Alternatively, what weather simply annoys you? Maybe a sudden gust of wind blows your character’s hair up, or an untimely frost nips their tomato plants. Put your character in the path of a coming storm, or set them a thousand miles away, watching the storm on the news. What happens after the storm has passed? Try to capture the heart of your story in one-thousand words or less.
Get the StoryADay Challenge Handbook for 2026 – custom warm-up and brainstorming exercises for every prompt, delivered as a private podcast with transcripts.
SUBSCRIBE NOW
Myna Chang
Myna Chang is the author of The Potential of Radio and Rain (CutBank Books). Her writing has been selected for Best Microfiction, Best Small Fictions, and WW Norton’s Flash Fiction America. She hosts Electric Sheep SF and publishes MicroVerse Recommended Reading. Find her at MynaChang.com or on Bluesky at @MynaChang.
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’m happy some folks found inspiration in my prompt. These stories all sound amazing – hoping to see these published someday soon!
Thanks Myna!
Today became a story of fragments. I also used some words I had saved in my notes app. It was enough to mark today off!
Sometimes that’s the win…
You know how I’m always saying “Make your own rules”?
Well, one of mine is to take Sundays off. And I hit that HARD today. I wasn’t going to, but then decided to listen to the voice of (16 years of) experience and just chill the heck out.
I’ll definitely come back to this prompt, though. A nice one to have in the back pocket.
So that’s me, setting a good example of following through on my promises to myself, and encouraging you to –seriously– set your own rules (or revise them once a week, as you see how the challenge affects you) SHAME-FREE!
Started my story. “First Snowfall’s First Kiss” about a young couple on their first date caught in a snow storm. I wrote about 200 words but wound up spending the day with my beautiful granddaughters. May try to finish tonight if I’m not too tired. I’m still pretty proud of my accomplishment today.
That sounds like a day well spend. A little writing, a little grandparenting.
(We have to live, to have something to write about!)
Enjoyed it! (Prompt, warmup, and Brainstorm). Came up with a protagonist and his unexpected reaction to weather and captured a very short story. More important (since my story is finished, but not stellar)? I enjoyed taking inventory of my interactions with weather and then considering how I’ve used (or not) weather in finished projects, WIP, and how I might use it in my future writing endeavors. Thank you!
Love it.
I’m always telling people they won’t know what the point of doing this challenge really is until they’re in it. Sounds like you’re finding some new seasoning that will flavor future stories.
Years ago, I was caught in a flash flood. This prompt allowed my to work with the fear and uncertainty of the event.
A flash flood sounds really scary. Glad you survived.
Well that sound terrifying, and thank goodness you can write about it.
Another fairly fun prompt for me in the end. I struggled to come up with an idea all morning, until I decided to take a different tack and scribe a fantasy style journal entry that delved into a sea storm scene, where a woman was on a boat when suddenly a vision of a sea god appeared to deliver a message to her. Enough to probably continue with on other journal entries that take the character on a Herculean pilgrimage.
Oo, you know I love a story in letter/journal/memo format. And visions of sea gods are always a solid option for a story…
Thank you for this prompt, Myna Chang. The weather in my story was a dark night in the forest, very still. My main character herself was quite unexpected and I loved writing the 779 word flash fiction that formed around her. I’m looking forward to playing with this one in June, it will make a great tale to tell aloud (without reading it) around a campfire. I just added six more words that reflect the prompt a bit more and also enrich the story. I’ve said it the last two days, I’m going to say it again. Using the Warm-up and Brainstorm activity from the challenge workbook in combination with the Short Story Framework is making my life much easier for this year of the challenge than any other year I have joined the challenge. Thank you, Julie! Well worth the cost.
Aw, thanks Stephanie. I know there’s gold to be mined in these prompts but sometimes the blank page is a bit troublesome. I’m SOOO glad the Handbook is helping.
In response to weather that annoys me, it’s the hot variety. My flash fiction involves the devil who says, “I think I can help you deal with the heat.”
I’m right there with you (about the heat. Not so sure about the deal with the devil LOL)
Today’s prompt inspired a story about a salamander person who loves humidity. Great prompt and fun warmup and brainstorming cues from the handbook!
Of course it did… hahaha.
Looking forward to reading that one!
This time I wrote a short, grim story about hurricane prep (part of my pre-retirement job) in the face of widespread science aversity. The prompt’s “… or set them a thousand miles away” evoked, for me, the experience of sitting in the Northeast, working with people in the projected path to prepare for a major hurricane.
Art imitating life.
I love how our experiences can provide a unique perspective for a story.
(Have you read “Orbital” by Samantha Harvey? There’s a similar sort of episode in there…watching a typhoon and thinking about the people down there…)
I wrote a drabble for today and got something that might fit with a horror romance idea I’ve been playing around with.
Horror romance? I think you’re right on-trend.
Knowing me, it will probably lean more to the romance side and light on the horror, but we’ll see.
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