JONATHAN MABERRY is a NY Times bestselling novelist, five-time Bram Stoker Award winner, and comic book writer.
Today we’re kicking off StoryADay May 2016 with a prompt from the fabulous Jonathan Maberry. Â (If you have a chance to hear him speak at a writer’s conference/group/signing, go! You’ll be inspired to run home and write!)
The Prompt
When Terry began scrolling through her phone, none of the photos she found were hers.
JONATHAN MABERRY is a NY Times bestselling novelist, five-time Bram Stoker Award winner, and comic book writer. He writes the Joe Ledger thrillers, the Rot & Ruin series, the Nightsiders series, the Dead of Night series, as well as standalone novels in multiple genres. His new and upcoming novels include KILL SWITCH, the 8th in his best-selling Joe Ledger thriller series; VAULT OF SHADOWS, a middle-grade sf/fantasy mash-up; and MARS ONE, a standalone teen space travel novel. He is the editor of many anthologies including THE X-FILES, SCARY OUT THERE, OUT OF TUNE, and V-WARS. His comic book works include, among others, CAPTAIN AMERICA, the Bram Stoker Award-winning BAD BLOOD, ROT & RUIN, V-WARS, the NY Times bests-selling MARVEL ZOMBIES RETURN, and others. His books EXTINCTION MACHINE and V-WARS are in development for TV. A board game version of V-WARS was released in early 2016. He is the founder of the Writers Coffeehouse, and the co-founder of The Liars Club. Prior to becoming a full-time novelist, Jonathan spent twenty-five years as a magazine feature writer, martial arts instructor and playwright. He was a featured expert on the History Channel documentary, Zombies: A Living History and a regular expert on the TV series, True Monsters. He is one third of the very popular and mildly weird Three Guys With Beards pop-culture podcast. Jonathan lives in Del Mar, California with his wife, Sara Jo.
Good prompt. I had only thought I’d have time to write a little prose yesterday. But with Jonathan’s prompt, a full story just flew out onto the page. 🙂
Something tells me this going to be fun. I’m a little late commenting, but here’s my offering. I went a little wild with this one. https://theencouragingscribe.wordpress.com/2016/05/02/story-a-day-day-1/
For StoryADay Day #1, we had a choice of two prompts: to write for just 30 minutes or to start our story with a specific line. I decided to somewhat combine the two: https://storiesbystolle.wordpress.com/2016/05/01/day-1-let-me-mend-your-wings. This isn’t a well-defined story, but it will get me moving in the right direction. Oh, and I’m not going to protect any stories with passwords this month, but I can’t promise that any given day’s story will remain up for the whole month. That means, if you want to read my stories, read ’em quick!
I loved this prompt, so I used it as the first sentence of my story. I posted the snippet here; I plan to publish the story (with a revised first sentence) sometime in the future in full. https://adanramie.com/story-a-day-may-2016-challenge/
I loved the first prompt! My very first story! How exciting this is going to be.
https://vickgoodwin.wordpress.com/2016/05/01/tabitha-being-tabby/
Here is my attempt at this prompt: https://angietrafford.wordpress.com/2016/05/01/story-a-day-day-one/ not sure if I have done very well with it, but I have written a story all the same!
Awesome open prompt.
https://atomicindigo.wordpress.com/2016/05/01/where-a-phone-travels/
I sort of used the prompt, I guess: https://only100words.xyz/2016/05/01/cloud-confusion/.
A very loose interpretation of the prompt … It Was Only A Dream
https://annieswritingchallenge.wordpress.com/may-2016-story-a-day-challenge/day-1/
I love the possibilities this prompt brings up.
I’ve been reading stories by Richard Matheson recently (who wrote a lot of Twilight Zone episodes, and who, if I’m not mistaken, was real-world mentor to Mr Maberry). This definitely opens up some Twilight-Zoney doors in MY head.
Coming bak to this one on a future day, for sure!
1st story via both prompts: https://promptlywritten.wordpress.com/2016/05/01/an-amateurish-mistake-flash-fiction/
Oh, the different directions this could go 🙂