The Prompt
Your prompt today is to find a way to use all of the following words in a story. (The words are taken at random from Mary Oliver’s “Upstream: Selected Essays”):
- poems,
- winged,
- faith,
- bog,
- darkness,
- summer,
- more,
- many,
- course,
- equally.
The point of this is to lower the stakes for you, so that you can write something without worrying about making it a work of art. With these constraints in place, it’s a triumph to simply write a coherent story. In the process, you’ll be practicing all the skills you need in your storytelling life: showing up, puzzling out the story, staying at it until you reach ‘the end’; character creation; putting obstacles in their way; creating conflict; resolving the puzzle; putting some sort of ending on the piece…
You’ve already given yourself permission to write. Now give yourself permission to write something imperfect. (It’s a valuable skill!)
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
Julie Duffy
Julie Duffy is a writer and the host of StoryADay. You can find her most recent story in the May/June 2026 issue of Analog Science Fiction and Fact. If you’re struggling with your writing or your writing practice, Julie offers coaching sessions (One-off troubleshooting or multi-session packages):
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
Julie, this was my favourite prompt so far. I loved releasing the desire to write well. I just let myself put down whatever came into my head. I have a very short story, less than five hundred words. The character came from a story spark and the rest just flowed from the brainstorming. A lot of alliteration makes the piece whimsical and I can see going back to explore it much further in June. Thank you so much for this challenge!
Finished day 3 very late last night.
Day 4 is about a writer with writers block. Not quite sure if it’s coherent. But my goal was 500 words. Wrote 442. Day 4 down. Yeah me.
Yeah you, indeed! 368 words for me, but I’m happy with them.
I should use word prompts more often to write stories because whenever I do I come up with different kinds of stories than I usually write. As soon as I saw the word bog I realized my character would not be able to navigate through it even if she was able to escape from the prison cell where she was spending all her time writing poems.
Nice, Valerie!
…so she didn’t waste time and instead wrote more poems? I like this story.
I wrote a story about a group of students in summer school detention taking a field trip in a bog. Really fun to let go of my inner critic on this one.
I was inspired by all the chat on the Superstars call this morning, about the permission to be imperfect.
I just started writing, with no expectations and ended up with something that I definitely felt was a story.
Today’s prompt inspired a non-traditional story form. I wrote an unpunctuated conversation working around the words leaving them in bullet point list. I used my phone during the wee hours (after opening a summit email), emailed it to myself, and went back to sleep.
When it was time to “stay awake” the warmup flooded my page with gratitude for evidence of growth. Over the past 4-5 years of the challenge, and deliberate striving to get my writing practice on track I’ve gone from crippling perfectionism to drafting (for the most part) with reckless abandon. Last year was the first time I finished the challenge and, not coincidentally, marked the start of me allowing myself to let the first draft be crappy. A second glance at my “crap drafts” this year reveals a keener revision eye; quicker to spot room for expansion and/or areas begging for deletion.
For fun, and leaving the original intact, I expanded my bullet point conversation into something which is a viable conversation appropriate for one a longer WIP.
I’ve NOT figured it all out, not by a long shot, I have SOOO much to learn, but as I show up and prioritize my writing practice, I feel alive. So, selfishly, and unrepentantly, I’ve claimed May for creative growth spurts.
Confession:
Sometimes I overthink my comments.
Today, gathering my thoughts here and figuring out what feels “shareable” out of what feels like “too much to share” was a bleep.
My inner critic declares this should be the easiest part, and reframing her, I make her say, “You’re here, you’re engaging, you’ll have more time for other things when you maximize efficiency in the comments section!”
And as she resists the reframe, and she points out I spent WAY more time on the comments than the prompt itself, I make her say, “It’s okay, you’ve carved this time out, you’ve met your goal and you’re almost there, just add the required info and submit. No, Mel, don’t reread, you’re almost there, see those asterisks? and that button over there? No, Melanie, NOT the backspace, the rectangular POST COMMENT button. Just click it…”
And the SHEER mass of words tips the vote to MASSIVE overshare. Lol. Sorry.
I loved reading this reflection on your experience and progress over the years.
I never want to tell people it takes years to get better (because who wants to hear that), but I see it happening all the time with people like you, who decide to keep showing up, no matter what.
inspiring!
Thank you, Julie, so glad I found you and Story a Day, it’s been such great to do a little more of what I love to do. =)
Melanie,
I love what you’re saying, actually, if you go to my blog, you notice the tag line, and even on the tab it has ‘OneDraft:’ and the story title, and when I don’t have the storyaday banner (thank you Jullie), the banner simply reads OneDraft!!
Why? Because of Storyaday (Thank you, Julie), it also means my excuse for not having a polished piece of work is written on the page up front.
Oh, and on the comment front – go gangbusters, the more comments and interaction the better.
The list of words is always inspiring! I wrote a quick slightly spooky story (ish) about a skittering thing.
Fun and creepy! I want to know what’s skittering about and why! (And slightly spooky is a good “speed” for me when it comes to the creepier things!!!)
I always love doing the word list prompt. I went back to my bookstore romance story(that I used for Day 1 & 2) and wrote a possible meet cute between these two characters. It was just 266 words, so it would need some more work, but I’m counting it as done.
Check that box!!! =) I love how you come up with scenes for one of your many projects!!!
I like to do this too: take characters and situations that I already ‘know’ and find a way to write my way into them, with these prompts.
Ok, here is my day 4, off of the day three prompt, bit of a memoir/memory.
http://afstoryaday.blogspot.com/2026/05/not-showride-on-earth.html
Quite enjoyed it, actually took me by surprise.
That was quite the, ah, ride!
I love this kind of exercise because you never know how it will turn out. I wrote a very creepy hundred words about “the one true faith of silent flight and deadly talons, the poems sung to the darkness of fear, flight, and blood feast.” Not my usual style.
Sounds intriguing, Walter! How fun to explore a new style!
This list of words inspired something spooky for me too, Walter! I’m more inclined to The Creep but I think “poems” and “darkness” started me off in that direction. I love the snippet you shared.
Ooooo!
See? Give a word list to a poet and you get a poetic story!
Micro written early before a day of driving. I composed on the computer, which I normally do not do. I am pleased with what happened! I love this exercise, and come back to it often for myself and my students.
I wrote on my phone today, which I do not usually do. Must be the day for it 😉
Isn’t it a great exercise? What a way to show people that they CAN write, inspiration be damned!
It’s cool that you knocked it out so early! Hope your day of driving was decent =) I enjoyed your five-word challenge last year!