[Writing Prompt] Writing From A Scenario – Lorina’s Story

Today’s prompt is a whole scenario with a named character and a tricky situation. Your job is to decide who this character is and how they will ultimately react. I’m really curious to see how different people deal with this, so please do post either the story or a link to your version in the comments, if you’re OK with posting it online.

old school room

The Prompt

Lorina Dorsey is nice. Always has been. Which is probably why she’s 52, unmarried and still teaching 5th Grade at the same school after 29 years, she thinks, wryly. She sometimes wonders if people think her weak. If they only knew the strength it took to…but no.

As our story starts, Lorina, is returning to work after the shattering business of burying her widowed mother. Lorina has no siblings. Walking into the school where she has taught fifth grade for 29 years, she sees that the door to Dr Tatchell’s office is closed. She can, nevertheless, hear voices. Dr Tatchell is roaring at someone. It’ll be that nice young Mr Santiago, getting some ‘professional development’ from Tatchell, no doubt. Only the timid, like her, stayed here longer than a semester.

Rounding the corner, Lorina sees a heap of coats on the floor outside her room. She tuts. Nothing bothers her more than sloppiness. Reaching down to pluck the coats off the ground, she is startled to find Andrew Smeel, the smallest boy in her class, curled up underneath them, sobbing. With some coaxing he tells her that he’d been involved in a scuffle with the other boys yesterday and the substitute had sent them all to Dr. Tatchell. At this point, Andrew curls up in a ball and refuses to say any more.

Lorina is standing, looking down at an 11 year old boy, curled into a fetal position outside her door. She turns to see Mr. Santiago stumbling towards her, white-faced. Her mother is dead. All she has is this school. Her eyes bore into the door of the Principal’s office. She takes one step.

Write Lorina’s story.

Tips

Feel free to change the gender or ethnicity of the characters, as well as the period if it helps.
Start anywhere. Use the backstory explicitly or, better yet, simply use it to inform the choices you make for Lorina.
Ask yourself what Lorina wants, what she’s capable of, what you can show the readers to make them suspect she’s capable of anything.
Will you write this realistically, or take a flight of fancy?

 

The Rules:

  • You should use the prompt in your story (however tenuous the connection).
  • You must write the story in one 24 hr period – the faster the better.
  • Post the story in the comments — if you’re brave enough.
  • Find something nice to say about someone else’s story and leave a comment. Everybody needs a little support!

Optional Extras:

Share this challenge on Twitter or Facebook

Some tweets/updates you might use:

Don’t miss my short story: Lorina’s Story #WriteOnWed #storyaday https://storyaday.org/wow-lorina

This week’s #WriteOnWed short story prompt is a scenario! #storyaday https://storyaday.org/wow-lorina

Come and write with us! #WriteOnWed #storyaday https://storyaday.org/wow-lorina

See my story – and write your own, today: Lorina’s Story at #WriteOnWed #storyaday https://storyaday.org/wow-lorina

If you would like to be the Guest Prompter, click here.

 

The Write On Wednesday story prompts are designed to prompt quickly-written stories that you can share in the comments. It’s a warm-up exercise, to loosen up your creativity muscles. Come back every Wednesday to see a new prompt or subscribe.

[Writing Prompt] Affectionate Spoofing

The Write On Wednesday story prompts are designed to prompt quickly-written stories that you can share in the comments. It’s a warm-up exercise, to loosen up your creativity muscles. Come back every Wednesday to see a new prompt or subscribe.

Lassie, July 29, 2006

“What’s that girl? Timmy’s stuck in the old well?”

We all have TV shows that we love even though they are formulaic, populated by ‘character types’ rather than characters, and a real guilty pleasure. And we keep watching them, even if we don’t always admit our deep, abiding love for them to our more sophisticated friends.

So why do we watch? Because on some level they satisfy a need for escapism, heroism, humour, idealism. They may even have moments of brilliance that keep us coming back for more.

(For me, it’s Star Trek, Murder She Wrote and almost anything featuring Robin Hood or King Arthur).

We know the hero is (almost) always going to win. We know none of the major recurring characters are going to die. We know the bad guy will get what he deserves — even if it’s only the frowning disapproval of the hero.

THE PROMPT

Write An Affectionate Parody/Spoof of Your Favourite Formulaic Show

Tips

*If you need inspiration, track down a copy of “Heart of A Champion” by T. C. Boyle, a wonderful parody of the Lassie stories.
*Don’t be lazy. Don’t just reach for inappropriate romance or make the characters stupid. (Check out Jon Scalzi’s “Redshirts” as an example. It starts as a fairly unimaginative parody of the action scenes in “Star Trek” (you know, the ones where the no-name ensign in a red shirt goes on an away mission and gets eaten by pink slime to prove that the landing party faces some peril) but moves on to a more thoughtful and affectionate examination of science fiction tropes.

 

The Rules:

  • You should use the prompt in your story (however tenuous the connection).
  • You must write the story in one 24 hr period – the faster the better.
  • Post the story in the comments — if you’re brave enough.
  • Find something nice to say about someone else’s story and leave a comment. Everybody needs a little support!

Optional Extras:

Share this challenge on Twitter or Facebook

Some tweets/updates you might use:

Don’t miss my short story: Affectionate Spoofing #WriteOnWed #storyaday https://storyaday.org/wow-spoof

This week’s #WriteOnWed short story prompt is Affectionate Spoofing! #storyaday https://storyaday.org/wow-spoof

Come and write with us! #WriteOnWed #storyaday https://storyaday.org/wow-spoof

See my story – and write your own, today: Affectionate Spoof at #WriteOnWed #storyaday https://storyaday.org/wow-spoof

If you would like to be the Guest Prompter, click here.

[Write On Wednesday] Inner Thoughts

Prompt: Write a story in the present tense from a limited third person perspective

The Write On Wednesday story prompts are designed to prompt quickly-written stories that you can share in the comments. It’s a warm-up exercise, to loosen up your creativity muscles. Come back every Wednesday to see a new prompt or subscribe.


Wolf Hall: A Novel, by Hilary Mantel, is a strange, disorienting read. I couldn’t figure it out at first, but finally I realised what was keeping me off balance: the book is written in the present tense and from a limited perspective: that of Thomas Cromwell, advisor to King Henry VIII. Everything we learn comes either from Thomas’s direct experience or from things he has heard from other people. Sometime he is reminiscing, sometimes observing in the moment, but the present tense keeps the whole experience very immediate.

The Prompt

Write a story in the present tense, from a limited third person perspective

Tips

In Wolf Hall it is sometimes hard to follow what is going on, because of course, the main character’s thoughts don’t pause to explain. He thinks of one person, who reminds him of another, and the reader has to trust that — at some point — it will be explained who these people are. or what that place was, and it will all fit together like a jigsaw puzzle.  Don’t be afraid to confuse the reader, especially on your first draft. Leave out more than you put in.

Here is an excerpt from the novel to help you see how the author tells the story from Thomas Cromwell’s perspective:

 

Monday morning the dukes are back. Their instructions are to turn out the occupants this very day, because the king wants to send in his own  builders and furnishers and get the palace ready to hand over to the Lady Anne, who needs a London house of her own.

He’s [Cromwell] prepared to stand and ague the point: have I missed something? This palace belongs to the archdiocese of York. When was Lady Ann made an archbishop?

But the tide of men flooding in by the water stairs is sweeping them away. The two dukes have made themselves scarce, and there’s nobody to argue with. What a terrible sight, someone says: Master Cromwell balked of a fight. And now the cardinal’s ready to go, but where? Over his customary scarlet, he is wearing a traveling cloak that belongs to someone else; they are confiscating his wardrobe piece by piece, so he has to grab what he can. It is autumn, and though he is a big man he feels the cold.

 

See? It’s a bit confusing, not always knowing who ‘he’ is, but once the reader settles into the style, it becomes enjoyable, puzzling out what Thomas Cromwell is thinking, what he is observing and what he is admitting (to himself and others). Don’t be afraid give your readers this pleasure.

 

The Rules:

  • You should use the prompt in your story (however tenuous the connection).
  • You must write the story in one 24 hr period – the faster the better.
  • Post the story in the comments — if you’re brave enough.
  • Find something nice to say about someone else’s story and leave a comment. Everybody needs a little support!

Optional Extras:

Share this challenge on Twitter or Facebook

Some tweets/updates you might use:

Don’t miss my short story: Inner Thoughts #WriteOnWed #storyaday https://storyaday.org/wow-inner

This week’s #WriteOnWed short story prompt is Inner Thoughts! #storyaday https://storyaday.org/wow-inner

Come and write with us! #WriteOnWed #storyaday https://storyaday.org/wow-inner

See my story – and write your own, today: Inner Thoughts at #WriteOnWed #storyaday https://storyaday.org/wow-inner

If you would like to be the Guest Prompter, click here.

[Write On Wednesday] At The Gym

The Write On Wednesday story prompts are designed to prompt quickly-written stories that you can share in the comments. It’s a warm-up exercise, to loosen up your creativity muscles. Come back every Wednesday to see a new prompt or subscribe.

Zumba

It’s that time of year again. Everyone’s made their New Year Resolutions and they’re all hitting the gym. I admit it. I’m one of them.

As I looked around my Zumba class last night I was struck by what a great setting it would be for a story. All those people from all different walks of life, all with their own stories and their own reasons for being there. And guess what? That’s your prompt today!

The Prompt

Write A Story Based Around A Set Of Characters From A Gym (Class)

Tips

  • You could write the story from one observer’s perspective, or hop from head to head, following each participant’s thoughts.
  • Remember the story must have a shape, so inject some tension (someone is worried about something; someone wants someone else to notice them, someone desperately wants no-one to notice them…)
  • If you don’t have much time, limit this to a single perspective and keep the word count short. Ask yourself what your character wants, before you put pen to paper, then run through the scene in your head. Don’t start writing until you know what happened in the hour before the class (or the first half of the class). Leave all that off the page, and just jump in when something interesting’s about to happen.

The Rules:

You should use the prompt in your story (however tenuous the connection).

You must write the story in one 24 hr period – the faster the better.

Post the story in the comments — if you’re brave enough.

Find something nice to say about someone else’s story and leave a comment. Everybody needs a little support!

Optional Extras:

Share this challenge on Twitter or Facebook

Some tweets/updates you might use:

Don’t miss my short story: TEXT #WriteOnWed #storyaday http://wp.me/LINK
This week’s #WriteOnWed short story prompt is TEXT! #storyaday http://wp.me/LINK
Come and write with us! #WriteOnWed #storyaday LINK
See my story – and write your own, today: TEXT at #WriteOnWed #storyaday LINK

If you would like to be the Guest Prompter, click here.

[Write on Wednesday] Seasonal Six Sentences

Last week I talked about the benefits of writing seasonal stories and yesterday I highlighted a seasonal story over at Six Sentences. Today I’m combining the two, for today’s prompt:

The Prompt

Write A January Story In Six Sentences

Tips

Your story should have something to do with “January”.
It might be set in the month, have something to do with the Roman god Janus (after whom the month was named), or feature a character named January.
Don’t forget that your experience of January is different from that of many others. (hint: even the weather is different in the other hemisphere.)

[Writing Prompt] Beginnings

The Prompt

Write A Story In Which Something Is Beginning

(I know it’s what you’re thinking about! It’s January  2, for goodness sake!)

The Prompt

Write A Story In Which Something Is Beginning

Tips

  • This can be a New Year story if you want, but it doesn’t have to be.
  • Your character can be beginning something, or the story can chart some THING beginning
  • Don’t concentrate so much on the beginning that you forget about the middle and the end (this story still needs them)

The Rules:

1. You should use the prompt in your story.

2. You must write the story in one 24 hr period – the faster the better.

3. Post the story in the comments — if you’re brave enough.

4. Find something nice to say about someone else’s story and leave a comment. Everybody needs a little support!

Optional Extras:

Share this challenge on Twitter or Facebook

Some tweets/updates you might use:

This week’s #WriteOnWed short story prompt is about beginnings #storyaday https://storyaday.org/wow-beginnings

Come and write with us! #WriteOnWed #storyaday https://storyaday.org/wow-beginnings

See my story – and write your own, today: beginnings! #WriteOnWed #storyaday https://storyaday.org/wow-beginnings

Don’t miss my “Beginnings” story #WriteOnWed #storyaday https://storyaday.org/wow-beginnings