The Prompt

Your character goes back to an old haunt.

They don’t want to be there, but they have to go (brainstorm the reasons they might have to be there, but don’t over-explain it in the story).

• What does your character want?
• What’s stopping them from getting it?

While they battle to get what they want (and out of the story), pay particular attention to the things they notice, about the old familiar place.

• What does it smell like?
• What’s still there?
• What’s missing?
• How does what they notice inform the reader about their state of mind?
• Does one sensory detail change how they decide to act?

Use some of these details as you write the story today.

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Julie Duffy

Julie Duffy is a writer and the host of StoryADay May. She loves to poke around places she used to live, for stories. You’ll read some of them in the weekly lessons in the StoryAWeek Newsletter: 52 Writing Lessons & Prompts to Keep You Writing All Year

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The Prompt

A person pulls up at a red light, looks to the car beside them, and sees themselves behind the wheel–just before the light turns and the other car takes off.

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Tiffany Yates Martin

Tiffany Yates Martin is a career book editor, working with bestselling and award-winning authors, major publishers as well as indie authors. She is the founder of FoxPrint Editorial ( a Writer’s Digest’s Best Website for Writers) and author of Intuitive Editing: A Creative and Practical Guide to Revising Your Writing and The Intuitive Author: How to Grow & Sustain a Happier Writing Career.

A regular contributor to writers’ outlets and a frequent presenter and keynote speaker for writers’ organizations around the globe, she is also the author of six novels (as Phoebe Fox).

Join the discussion: what will you do with today’s prompt OR how did it go? Need support? Post here!

Remember: I don’t recommend posting 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.

 

The Prompt

The one thing this house remembers

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John Wiswell

John Wiswell is a disabled writer who lives where New York keeps all its trees. He won the 2021 Nebula Award for Short Fiction for his story, “Open House on Haunted Hill,” and the 2022 Locus Award for Best Novelette for “That Story Isn’t The Story.” He has also been a finalist for the Hugo Award, British Fantasy Award, and World Fantasy Award. He is the author of Someone You Can Build a Nest In, a Year’s Best pick by NPR and The Washington Post, and Wearing the Lion, and he can be found making too many puns and discussing craft on his newsletter, johnwiswell.substack.com.

Now out: the paperback edition of SOMEONE YOU CAN BUILD A NEST IN and you can pre-order his new release (coming in June 2025) now: WEARING THE LION

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Remember: I don’t recommend posting 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.

 

The Prompt

In Second Manifesto of Surrealism (1929), Andre Breton called for “the profound, the veritable occultation of Surrealism.”

Of the Surrealist painters and writers who dove whole hog into arcane imagery, my favorites include Leonora Carrington, Remedios Varo, Max Ernst, and Leonor Fini.

Choose a single Surrealist painting and do some fun, casual research to decipher its symbolism and “occult” elements. If you need help finding a painting, check out the list below.

After developing a personal interpretation of the work, write a short piece of surreal fiction about the character(s) and situation(s) in the painting.

If there are multiple characters, you might choose one to narrate the story (in first-person or third-person limited point of view) or use an omniscient perspective to jump around among the characters.

Instead of attempting to make a logical narrative that rationalizes the surreal situation, revel in the painting’s odd elements and tell a strange tale inspired by the imagery.

Recommended Paintings

Leonora Carrington:
Self-Portrait, Inn of the Dawn Horse, 1937-38
Queen of the Mandrills, 1959
The Giantess (The Guardian of the Egg), 1947
The House Opposite, 1945
Darvault, 1950
Friday the Thirteenth, 1965
Bird Bath, 1974
Sissygy, 1957

Max Ernst:
Attirement of the Bride, 1940
Napoleon in the Wilderness, 1941
Men Shall Know Nothing of This, 1923
The Antipope, 1941-42
Europe After the Rain II, 1940-1942

Leonor Fini:
The Shepherdess of the Sphinxes, 1941
Chthonian Divinity Watching over the Sleep of a Young Man, 1946
The Botany Lesson, 1974
Two Women, 1939
Donna del Lago or Le Bout du monde II, 1953

Remedios Varo:
The Call, 1961
Witch Going to the Sabbath, 1957
Creation of the Birds, 1957
Celestial Pablum, 1958
Woman Leaving the Psychoanalyst, 1960
Vegetarian Vampires, 1962

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Julia Elliott

Julia Elliott’s Hellions was published in April 2025. She is also the author of the story collection The Wilds, a New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice, and the novel The New and Improved Romie Futch (both from Tin House). Her work has appeared in The Georgia Review, Tin House, Conjunctions, Granta (online), and the New York Times. She has won a Rona Jaffe Writers’ Award, and her stories have been anthologized in Best American Short Stories and Pushcart Prize: Best of the Small Presses. She teaches English and Women’s and Gender Studies at the University of South Carolina and lives in Columbia with her husband, daughter, and five hens. Her new story collection Hellions came out in April 2025.

Join the discussion: what will you do with today’s prompt OR how did it go? Need support? Post here!

Remember: I don’t recommend posting 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.

 

The Prompt

When she picked up the knife, she discovered the blade was still sharp.

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Rachel Bolton

Rachel Bolton is a Bram Stoker Award Nominated writer. Her work has appeared in Apex Magazine, Women Write About Comics, Strange Girls, and more. She lives with her cat in Massachusetts. You can follow her on Bluesky @raebolt.bsky.social and find out more at her website:

Join the discussion: what will you do with today’s prompt OR how did it go? Need support? Post here!

Remember: I don’t recommend posting 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.

 

The Prompt

A teenager is eating a cherry snow cone, their lips are stained red.

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Angela Sylvaine

Angela Sylvaine is a Bram Stoker Award nominated author and self-proclaimed cheerful goth who writes speculative fiction and poetry. Her dark cheerfulness is on full display in her novel, Frost Bite, a ‘90s sci-fi horror comedy, and her retro ‘80s YA mall slasher novella, Chopping Spree. Her goth side is fully explored in her debut short story collection, The Dead Spot: Stories of Lost Girls.

Angela’s short fiction and poetry have appeared in over sixty anthologies, magazines, and podcasts, including Southwest Review, Apex, and The NoSleep Podcast.

Join the discussion: what will you do with today’s prompt OR how did it go? Need support? Post here!

Remember: I don’t recommend posting 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.