Today, my parents braved airport security, 3000 miles and a five-hour time difference to come and see me. All the frantic running around is over, all the last-minute things are done, and now we are sitting — tired and smiling — in the same room at last.
(P.S. I can imagine reunions that do not end as happily. You?)
Remember, prompts are optional (but it’s fun to read everyone’s different takes on each prompt)
Today I’m recycling an idea from last year’s StoryADay because it was so much fun:
If you don’t want to do Red, you can do a different fairytale. It doesn’t have to be a straight re-telling either, just use it for inspiration if that’s what works for you.
(As always, this prompt is optional.)
Today’s prompt comes from a line in an Edna St. Vincent Millay sonnet (from The Harp Weavers)
Use the line or a similar image somewhere in your story.
(As always, this prompt is optional.)
This prompt was inspired by Marta Pelrine-Bacon who posted the other day about writing a story about a character she didn’t like. It’s not something we all do often so today: write a story featuring an unsympathetic main character.
Some tips: give your unsympathetic main character something the reader can identify with or find attractive (think Hannibal Lecter who was fantastically clever and insightful; Gene Hackman as Lex Luthor…)
[Update: Dec 2021: coming back to this prompt, 10+ years later, I was pleased to see that I hadn’t actually stolen this method of adjusting your character’s attractiveness from the Writing Excuses podcast, which, three years later would do a great series of episodes on this kind of thing with a very elegant explanation.)
Today our prompt comes from the lovely people at Gamewright Games and from Rory O’Connor who invented Rory’s Story Cubes.
So here is your prompt:
Do with it what you will!
Go!
(Remember: the prompts are purely optional and only intended to help you if you’re stuck.)
It’s May 8 and we’re working through our second weekend already. I’m guessing the shine might have worn off this challenge a little by now and that you could be struggling.
(It’s not easy to come up with a fresh idea every day!)
So today, give yourself a break. Go back and find a story you’ve already written. Now, tell the story from a different character’s perspective.
Try to make the tone of the story totally different: the length of the sentences, the pacing, the rhythm, even the events, if the second person remembers them differently.
Go!
Did you know that May 7 is “Military Spouses’ Day”? Well it is, and we’re all to stop and appreciate what it takes to be a military spouse.
Hey, I know. While you’re thinking about it…why not write a story featuring, if not a military couple, certainly two people who face challenges including but not limited to: separation, relocation, trauma. Or write something with a tangential connection to something military.
There. Broad enough? 😉
Go!
Somewhere in your story, use the line,
(Thanks, Cid!)
Go!
It’s Cinquo De Mayo and everyone loves a party! Except when they don’t.
Parties are a great setting for stories because they bring together people who have no business being in the same room; they put stress on relationships; they often involve booze and a consequent loosening of inhibitions…in other words, all the elements you need for a climactic moment in someone’s life.
Go!
Sorry, but give the sheer weight of all the Star Wars Lego in my house these days, I couldn’t resist.
…and remember, that could just as easily happen between two office cubicles as in a galaxy far, far away.
You could also make a case that Star Wars is just a big family saga — or maybe a romance — so feel free to go with that too.
And if you do go with the Hero Looking For A Quest thing, remember how whiny and unheroic Luke was at the start of those movies? You might want to emulate that and give your hero some room to grow.
Write A Story About Good Vs. Evil
Go!
A lot of short short stories focus on character and twists and surprise, because it’s a great form for exactly those things.
But I don’t want your descriptive muscles to get all flabby.
Why not write a story with a strong sense of place? At some point in the story, imagine you are a tour guide, pointing out the landmarks and notable features of your setting to me, your eager audience.
Be a tour guide to your story’s setting, for the reader
Go!
This is a staple of Sci-Fi and speculative fiction: you’re watching people in Forties garb but discover you’re on a space station populated by aliens who only know humans through one random Bogart movie they’ve intercepted….
But it happens in real life too: a woman thinks she’s in a happy marriage only to come home to empty closets and a note on the kitchen table; you think you’re reading a standard love story only to discover a twist at the end…
Write a story with an element of altered reality.
Go!
Huge thanks to StoryADay-er @cidwrites for today’s prompt.
Cid has created an imaginary book cover at her own StoryADay site, and invites you to use it as a writing prompt.
If the graphic doesn’t work for you, you can still use the prompt by writing a story that contains the line “They said it couldn’t be done.”
Writing prompts are optional, but do leave Cid a comment if you use hers!
I’m sitting here enjoying a raging thunderstorm. The sun is sinking pinkly under the edge of the storm and the ragged flashes and sheets of lightning are so much more thrilling than any season finale on TV. The thunder sounds like kettledrums.
And so, to the prompt:
It can be figurative or literal, but it must be stormy!
Go!
Write A Story That Features A Hobby/Activity You Have Tried
The only rule in today’s prompt is that the hobby may not be “writing”.
I have my own special reasons for this — namely: that, as an adult, I cringe every time I see a book where the main character is any type of writer. It seems to betray a lack of imagination. (Of course I’ll make an exception when re-reading books by LM Alcott or LM Montgomery or some other beloved writers whose initials are not “LM”, but for today the rule stands).
The hobby does not have to be anything you have done recently or frequently. It could be basket-weaving or finger-painting. But it should be something of which you have real-world experience and so can describe in minute detail if you need to.
Go!
Today, rewrite a story you have written before, but this time as a dramatic monologue.
Taking a look at the story from another angle is a challenge in itself. Then add the challenge of making the dialogue seem real and you can really have fun with this…
This is the thirdin a series of prompts that will encourage you to choose a story to write several different ways. You could choose a fairy story or a tale you’ve already told right here during Story A Day May. Each day I’ll give you a style to write in. You can reuse the same character, plot, timing, whatever works as you import your story into the new style. Feel free to ditch characters, change their names, switch out the endings, whatever makes sense.
Taking a look at the story from another angle is a challenge in itself. Then add the challenge of making the dialogue seem real and you can really have fun with this.
(NB, the character who is ‘monologuing’, to borrow a phrase, doesn’t have to be the original story’s hero. It could be someone who was walking by and saw the action; a minor character in the action; anyone really).
Go!
(PS Did I mention? Day TWENTY! And you’re still here? Awesome, dude!)
Write (or Rewrite) A Story In The Style Of Your Favorite Dead Writer
This is the second in a series of prompts that will encourage you to choose a story to write several different ways. You could choose a fairy story or a tale you’ve already told right here during Story A Day May. Each day I’ll give you a style to write in. You can reuse the same character, plot, timing, whatever works as you import your story into the new style. Feel free to ditch characters, change their names, switch out the endings, whatever makes sense.
I’m tempted to suggest Dickens, but maybe you’re more of an Austin or Bronte fan. Or maybe one of those Russians. Or further back? Chaucer, anyone? Shakespeare? Douglas Adams? (Nope, still too soon. Sob!)
Go!
Write (or Rewrite) A Story In The Style Of A TV Show You Know And Love
This is the first of a series of prompts that will encourage you to choose a story to write several different ways. You could choose a fairy story or a tale you’ve already told right here during Story A Day May. Each day I’ll give you a style to write in. You can reuse the same character, plot, timing, whatever works as you import your story into the new style. Feel free to ditch characters, change their names, switch out the endings, whatever makes sense.
I’m not going to limit you, because I know I wouldn’t have a clue what to do if you told me to write in the style of a CSI show, but a more gentle mystery might work for me. Or maybe it’ll be sci-fi, daytime soap, or rip-roaring Melrose Place evening soap. Reality show? Sitcom? Adult cartoon? What do you watch and love?
Go!
Write About A Lie
Oooo, the lie. We’ve all done it. We do it all the time, even though we know we shouldn’t. Sometimes we get away with them and other times they come back to bite us in the most spectacular fashion.
Is it a tiny one? A whopper? Does no-one find out about it? Does that mean your character really ‘gets away with it’? Does it spiral out of control and become a Fawlty Towers episode?
GO!
In honour of today being the middle of the month of May, the middle of our challenge, today’s prompt is:
Middle
In honour of today being the middle of the month of May, the middle of our challenge, today’s prompt is:
Do with that whatever you will.
Go!
I’m spending the day at an amusement park with the kiddies.
I love watching all the different people and types, from the loud, dramatic teens, to the young parents, the kid-free couples, the grandparents, the happy ones, the cranky ones…it’s great fodder .
It’s a setting ripe for drama, mystery, horror, poetry, action, joy and sorrow.
Go!
Write a story using space or sci-fi elements
On this day in 1973, the US launched the orbital space station Skylab.
Write A Story With Space/Science Fiction Elements
Even if you’re not a big fan of science fiction, this doesn’t have to be a difficult assignment. Sci-Fi isn’t all about techno-babble or rockets.
Two of my favourite episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation are:
1, Captain Picard is left on a planet, by a malevolent force, with the captain of a ship from a culture that communicates so strangely not even Star Trek’s wonderful translators can handle it. They are in peril and must work together. Gradually Picard figures out that the alien captain’s language is based on metaphors, but he doesn’t share the same culture so how can he find metaphors with which to communicate? It’s basically a stranded-on-an-island, must-work-together-to-escape-peril story, all about linguistics. In space.
2, Someone from Starfleet wants to take the sentient andriod Data back to HQ and take him apart to figure out how he works, for the greater good of the service (a fleet of Datas? We’d be unstoppable, Great!). Picard demands a tribunal at which he attempts to prove that Data is an individual not merely a piece of equipment. A wrinkle? Picard’s second in command and Data’s buddy, Riker, must act as prosector, and try to prove that his friend is merely a machine. This one is called “Measure of a Man” and is a long, fascinating philosophical argument about what it means to be human. Set on a spaceship.
Another example: the movie Moon, which came out last year. It is a psychological thriller set on the moon. It uses a sci-fi setting to create an isolation you couldn’t realistically create in a story set on our planet these days. And it uses some sci-fi tricks to mess with the hero’s mind and throw obstacles in his path, and none of it is extraneous.
What kind of story could you write, that uses as space or futuristic setting? A mystery? A romance? A morality play?
Write A Twitter Story
Write a story that would fit in a Twitter post (whether or not you’re on Twitter).
140 characters (yes, that includes spaces). No more. Maybe less.
Go!
Write A Drabble (100 word story)
A ‘drabble‘ is a short story of exactly 100 words. We’ve already done a 55 Fiction day, so this drabble day should be a doddle!
Write a song inspired a song.
Another birth anniversary from the Golden Age of US popular culture: Irving Berlin.
Born Israel Baline in New York in 1888, Berlin was a prolific songwriter, penning some of the most well-known songs ever, from White Christmas to Blue Skies and God Bless America.
While a lot of his songs lyrics were saccharine-sweet, being written for shows, they were all clever and often deceptively simple. My favourite Irving Berlin songs are the ones where he lets a tinge of sadness or regret into them (What’ll I Do? is an example of a both a seemingly simple lyric and real, poignant emotion).
(OK, that was Rogers and Hart, but let’s not pick nits)
Write a story inspired by a song. I’m going to suggest this verse (that’s the bit they usually don’t tack onto popular recordings of standards) from the Irving Berlin song Remember:
One little kiss,
A moment of bliss,
Then hours of deep regret.
One little smile,
And after a while,
A longing to forget.
One little heratache
Left as a token,
One little plaything,
Carelessly broken.
But you can pick another lyric if you want to.
Today is the birth anniversary of Fred Astaire!
Today is the birth anniversary of Fred Astaire!
He was born in 1899 in Omaha, Nebraska and his real name was Friedrich Emanuel Austerlitz. His father was born in Austria, to Jewish parents who had converted to Catholicism. His mother dreamed of escaping their humdrum life by making stars of her children. Fred Astaire started out as a child stage star, singing and dancing in a vaudeville act with his sister, Adele, orchestrated by his mother and promoted by his father. Astaire went on to Hollywood and was eventually voted the Greatest Male Star of All Time by the American Film Institute.
He strikes me as a ‘type’ that many would see as the ‘ideal’ American: son of nobodies who grows up to be loved and lauded.
Inspired by the life of Friedrich Austerlitz, write the story of a mythical (American?) hero. You can idealize the hero or reveal the flaws and the chinks in the armour, it’s up to you.
Write A Story Inspired By A Picture
If a picture says a thousand words that should save us some time, right?
This could be a piece of art that you love, or you can go to the ‘Explore’ page of Flickr.com and start poking about until you find a picture that speaks to you. (Do this quickly. Allow yourself no more than five minutes to find a picture. Choose the first one that stands out to you).
Write a story connected to that picture. Keep the picture in mind as you go through your story. Always bring it back to the impulse that made you choose the image.
If you can, provide a link to the picture that inspired your story (even if you’re not posting your stories online I’d love to see what images and ideas people get from this).
Go!
It is possible to write a story in 55 words
A lot of people aim to write Flash Fiction because they think it’s going to be quicker than writing a longer story. Don’t they know their Blaise Pascal? (“”I have made this letter longer than usual because I lack the time to make it shorter.”)
It is possible to write a good story in 55 words (the title isn’t part of the word-count, but must not exceed seven words), but it’s not necessarily a quick thing.
Still, Saturdays tend to have more ‘running around’ time than ‘sitting at a desk time’ for many of us, and that might equal ‘thinking time’ if we’re lucky.
So grab your idea right now. Then, while you’re folding laundry, or taking the kids to soccer, think about how you can deliver a punch in 55 words. Think about which elements of your story you can strip away to cut it down to 55 words. What is essential in your story?
Getting started can be a huge obstacle to overcome…so cheat!
Getting started can be a huge obstacle to overcome. Faced with the prospect of having to start a new story every day we can start second-guessing our ideas, our style, our ability…All of this makes getting started even harder.
So cheat.
Go to your bookshelf and pull down a book you admire. Look at the first paragraph. How does it start? Is it a description of a place? Does something dramatic happen? Does someone talk?
Look at the structure of the opening and use it for your own stories (this is how apprentices have always learned, they copy their masters’ work, and gradually find their own style). Copy your master-writer’s structure, but insert your own details.
For example, I pulled Ursula Le Guin’s A Wizard of Earthsea off the shelf. Its opening sentence is,
The island of Gont, a single mountain that lifts its peak a mile above the storm-wracked North-East sea, is a land famous for wizards.
(Isn’t that a great sentence?)
My story might begin,
The Arcologie Sando, a huge fractured semi-dome that rose up from the rock-strewn desert floor, was famous for producing arcolonists.
OK, hers is still better, but borrowing from the master, gave me a way in to my story.
Go to your bookshelf and steal an opening line from the best. Make it your own, and see where it leads you.
Go!
Field Day
Write a story set at a school sports day/field day or other special event where parents turn up and the worlds of home and school collide.
Today I’m off to supervise hordes of screaming children at Field Day at the kids’ school. (It’s what my school would have called “Sports Day”, with sack races and obstacle course and suchlike, except I don’t remember my parents ever having to help out).
In honour of my noble sacrifice, today’s prompt is:
Write a story set at a school sports day/field day or other special event where parents turn up and the worlds of home and school collide.
Work from your own memory of school or your experiences as a parent/aunt/grandparent/child-free-friend, whatever you have.
Surely there are a few opportunities for conflict and resolution among the sack races and the potato-and-spoon contests!
Write a story based on an incident at a cultural festival.
It’s Cinco de Mayo, which people in the Americas know as an excuse for a party, thanks to immigrants from the Mexican state Puebla (according to Wikipedia it “commemorates the Mexican army’s unlikely victory over French forces at the Battle of Puebla on May 5, 1862,”
Mostly now it’s an excuse to don over-sized sombreros and drink Corona. But it brings us to today’s prompt:
It’s hard to grow up anywhere without attending some kind of cultural festival, whether it’s the English village fete, a religious festival (St Anthony’s Feast in the North End of Boston, for example) , or a nationality-based one (a Burns’ Supper in Scotland, St Patrick’s Day in the US).
Write a story based on an incident at a cultural festival. Add details from the activities, colours and smells of the festival to make your story real.
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