The Prompt

Write a story in fewer than 250 words. Somewhere in the story use the phrase “the moment everything changed”

Things To Consider

A story in 250 words? Really?

Really!

But you’re going to have to leave a lot out, imply a lot, and trust the reader to fill in the gaps.

When we get down to this kind of word limit it is important to think about the essential elements of a story.

If you are trying to write a story and not just an aphorism or meditation, there are some elements you’ll need:

• A character (or two)

• A situation that conflicts with their wants or needs in some way

• An action that they take or plan to take

• A sense, for the reader, of consequences, and how that will change the reader.

I know, it’s unsubtle of me to ask you to include “the moment everything changed” in the prose, but it’s a great reminder, as you’re shaping the story, that readers like it when something changes in a story, whether it’s the character’s state or simply their understand of the character/situation.

Further Reading

If you’re not familiar with micro fiction, it can be helpful to read a few examples. (Just don’t use up all your writing time, reading!)

Microfiction Monday Magazine

O Magazine’s Microfiction feature

Vestal Review: the longest-running Flash Fiction publication on the planet:

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The Prompt

Write the Story of a Song (Title)

Things To Consider

Art inspires art and there’s nothing wrong with borrowing from other creatives, so today you’re going to write the story of a song. You don’t actually have to write the story of the song, of course.

You might:

• Write a response to the song from another character

• Simply use the title and write a story that has nothing to do with the song (don’t worry, you can’t copyright a title. They’re fair game!)

If you choose a song that has a story built in (A Boy Named Sue, or Copacabana, for example—guess who grew up in the 1970s?!) you could choose to tell a story that serves as a prequel or sequel to the story.

I love the idea of a prequel because it should slowly dawn upon the reader that you’re leading into the story/song they already know.

Here are a couple of resources

An A-Z of Song Titles

Tulsa Library System’s Song Index

Fantasy Song Title Generator – for those of you who like to play fast-and-loose with the rules

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The Prompt

Choose one of these photos and tell a story based on it
Winslow Homer – Metropolitan Museum Gift of Mrs. William F. Milton, 1923
Paul Cézanne – Metropolitan Museum Bequest of Stephen C. Clark, 1960
Léon Bonnat – Metropolitan Museum Catharine Lorillard Wolfe Collection, Bequest of Catharine Lorillard Wolfe, 1887

Things To Consider

Using inspiration from other artists is a time-honored tradition (and helpful when it comes to marketing your version: fans of the original will be interested, whether they love or hate it!)

Images are helpful prompts for short stories because they capture a moment.

Your story can build up to or away from this moment (or both, placing the picture’s scene smack-dab in the middle of your story)

You do not need to honor the artist’s original inspiration for the story.

You can totally ignore the title of the picture. You can transpose these characters into a totally different setting (useful if you like to write futuristic or fantasy stories).

No matter what you choose to ignore, consider what is interesting about the moment captured in the picture.

Why did you pick this one? What stories does it suggest?

You might choose to give your story the same kind of mood suggested by the art style and color choices.

Further Reading

A StoryADay prompt about pictures (with video lesson)

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The Prompt

Rewrite a story that you wrote over the past few weeks

Things To Consider

If you’ve done the “Same Story, Different Perspective” prompt, this will feel similar, but this time I’m inviting you take a story that you wrote and tell it all over again in a completely new way.

You can re read the story and decide to tell the story from the perspective of a different character, but you could also choose to try and tell it in a completely different format.

If you told a narrative story, you could see what happens if you rewrite it as a list story. If you told it as a Hermit Crab, could you write it again today as a traditional, narrative story?

This prompt makes it easier for you o write because you don’t have to come up with a whole new plot and cast of characters.

The challenge today is to make remake it in a new way.

For an interesting twist on this experience: rewrite a story you wrote recently without rereading it first.

After you write this draft, compare the two and see what they have in common and what was missing/added to each version. (Hat tip to Stuart Horwitz for this idea)

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For more examples of how you can work with this prompt, plus a warm up and brainstorming exercise:

The Prompt

Start your story at the end. Write about a character who must do something they really, really don’t want to do in order to get out of a sticky situation.

Things To Consider

For readers of a certain age, I can simply cite the opening of the Tobey Macguire Spiderman movie (Falls off a building. Freezeframe, voice over: “Yup, that’s me. You’re probably wondering how I ended up in this situation…”).

Starting at the moment of peak drama and then jumping back in time to tell the rest of the story is a great and time-honored way of telling a story, and probably the easiest to do on a day like this, when you only have one day to craft the story. S

ome other options for telling a story backwards include literally telling it backwards.

In Courttia Newland’s 2017 story “Reversible”, the narrator shows us the victim of a crime and then tells the story as if it was a film, running in reverse (people back away down the alley and get into cars and reverse away at high speeds).

It’s a clever technique and ends up packing a huge emotional punch as we follow the victim back through his morning and into an average morning. (This is an idea that will take a bit of time to work out, so if you don’t have a lot of time to write today, file this idea away for later!)

Another clever-but-potentially-time-consuming idea, is to tell a palindromic story, in which you tell the story once in one direction and then reverse the direction and tell it again, but in the other direction.

Further Reading:

Here’s an example of a palindromic story and here’s a children’s story that does this very effectively

Here’s a collection where you can read Courttia Newland’s “Reversible”.

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The Prompt

Tell the story of an incident. Then tell it from another point of view. Then tell it a third time from another point of view.

Things To Consider

The great thing about this prompt is that you don’t have to come up with a large and complex plot to start.

Just write an incident (it could be someone observing a traffic accident, or a young mother interacting with her kid).

Then tell the story from someone else’s perspective.

The second versions should add to our understanding of what’s going on (or how people perceive events).

The third perspective tells the same story again but differently.

As with everything in life perspective matters.

One person’s insult is another person’s compliment. Blame can be assigned easily, but when the know more details, the ‘black and white’ of a situation can quickly become grey.

This is a wonderful opportunity to tell a story in a way that encourages readers to check their knee-jerk reaction to events they encounter in the world. You can use any point of view you want.

All three sections could be first person (“I saw an incredible thing today”) or you could play with the various third person perspectives (limited, omniscient) or even venture out in to second person (“You are walking down the street when”, or “We see the car slew towards the old woman and…”)

Further reading

You And Them

The Whole Is Greater Than The Sum of Its Parts – a prompt from Neha Mediratta

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