This week’s theme is, in part, to encourage you to try out stories that use each of the types of story threads from the MICE quotient.
The Prompt
Tell a story that features a disappearance
This could be an Intrigue/Idea story. At it heart it has a question, or a mystery or a big idea.
It could be the disappearance of a person, a cultural phenomenon, or of the bees, or of Arctic Ice. Or it could be something more nebulous. Your story could be serious or slapstick. What will you come up with?
What did you make disappear? What kind of story did you write? What tone did your story take on, today? Leave a comment and let us know!
Two characters disappeared in my story: the main character’s brother, who abruptly left home ten years before the beginning of the story, and the main character himself. I wanted to play with a Twilight Zone-esque tone, so I drew on the concept of missing time / time slips to write this piece. The main character longs for a time when things have changed and he can finally be happy, so when he discovers a way to skip past hours that he expects will be tedious, he finds himself wanting to jump further and further into the future.
Done. A guy is struggling with stress in his life, and goes hiking alone to clear his head… it goes great until he comes back to his car in the evening and realizes he somehow misplaced his keys. On top of that his phone is dead and nobody knows he’s out there.
He’s really hard on himself, seeing this as just another example of his shortcomings, the same shortcomings that have caused all the stress he’s been trying to avoid by hiking in the first place. Eventually he has a moment of clarity, realizes where his keys are, and is fine, and through this ordeal learns that he needs to be more compassionate toward himself.
I was going for sort of a Jack London To Build a Fire vibe… but I wanted to explore how easy it is to get derailed when we’re trying to better ourselves, and how that’s something we always need to be on the lookout for/protect ourselves from.
Thank you for the prompt!
I always look forward to seeing your posts David. Great job writing this month!
Thank you so much, and ditto! I’m having a lot of fun with this and just really appreciate all the great stories and positivity I’ve found here with this group.
So glad you found your way to us!
Ah David I love To Build a Fire! That is a vibe very much worth reproducing. Sounds like you had a great result from the prompt!
I wrote my story for today too, and have published it for the first time on my blog:) A person has disappeared, but is she real? You can only disappear if you’re real.
https://starryeyedenigma.com/2018/05/24/story-a-day-day-24may-disappearing-act/
Today’s story is done. An item in the house goes missing, and the first person suspected is Jeff. But, did he actually take it? Or is there another explanation?
https://fallonbrownwrites.wordpress.com/2018/05/24/story-a-day-day-24-disappearing-act/