The Prompt


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Debbie Ridpath Ohi
Debbie Ridpath Ohi is a Canadian author and illustrator whose work has appeared in over 20 books for young people. Her art most recently appeared in books by Michael Ian Black and Judy Blume. Find out more about Debbie and her work at DebbieOhi.com
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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
OK, day 12 done. A take on Solzhenitsyn’s Gulag Archipelago, the Warehouse Archipelago. Not publishing to the blog today, as this may be submission-worthy, which means it can’t go online just now. If I decide not to pubish I’ll put it up on the blog.
Onto Day 13.
I almost forgot to write today’s story! Luckily I remembered in time to write a six word story.
This art elicited a story about a girl
and her pet anxiously anticipating (and complaining about) about a play date set up by her mother.
Wrote this by hand because one of the hazards of “writing anywhere” is that sometimes I leave a charging cord behind.
This one is most probably more aligned to the day 10 Prompt and is still a work in progress – Long workday yesterday. It is my #70 Warehouse Archipelago – dystopian/literary fiction inspired by Zolzhenitsyn’s The Gulag Archipelago.
Mona lives in an apartment on the Upper East Side. The monster who’s decided to take residence outside the front of the building is getting to her. She needs to find a way to get rid of him since his being there gives the place a bad look. Especially since he’s such a bold purple color.
I saw the picture and thought, “Children’s book! Forbidden pleasures!” Where in most places now anapests are forbidden and internal rhymes frowned upon, they’re welcomed in kids’ books. So I wrote a short poem in anapestic trimeter couplets about Mary Grace and a dumpy and frumpy old cat. The first two feet of each line rhyme.
What fun! Better than Wordle.
Hi. I forgot to post yesterday. For the 100 word prompt I wrote 101 words. I couldn’t figure out what word to cut to make it 100. This morning I woke to the picture prompt. Already spit out 150 words about a little girl named Molly who has a visitor that only she can see.
Nice! I like the “only she can see” angle! 😊
Love a picture prompt…. Use these kinds of prompts at the schools I work to help kids visualise and it’s always interesting to see what they write. We are sometimes more visual people, pictures stir emotion I guess that’s why comics are so popular 🙂
I love a picture prompt, love your idea with the kids as well. I don’t teach kids, although I did run a D&D club at one time; their imaginations are great.
Interesting for me, I always feel picture prompts put pressure on the prose, force you to work on your show, not tell approach. Do know why, but do feel a picture has more pressure, maybe it’s the thousand word thing.