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.)
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!
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 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!
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!
A 6-part journey through the short story.
Starts July 28, 2023
![[Daily Prompt] – May 11 – Little Red Riding Hood](https://storyaday.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/Prompt_challenge2011tn.jpeg)
