2023 Day 7 Check in

A vlog about how my StoryADay May is going…

Today’s prompt is here

Week 1 is a wrap!

Today I wrote badly and learned some things. I also got to hangout with the StoryADay Superstars and talk about writing, and it was moving, and inspired.

Hey you: if you’re reading this and writing at all: you’re pretty unusual and you’re pretty amazing.

Keep writing,

Julie

Day 7- Opening Old Label Scars: Setting and Character Prompts From Closed Stores and Restaurants by Amy Barnes

Amy Barnes wants you to fill in the gaps

The Prompt

Old Label Scars: Setting and Character Prompts From Closed Stores and Restaurants

Think about your favorite childhood store, attraction or restaurant. Did you sing the Woolco song and chase “blue light specials?” Did you cheer the drums and ice cream at Farrell’s? Can you spot a Whataburger a-frame building even when it’s been turned into a bank? A Toys-R-Us turned into an electronics store with the familiar front intact but painted over? A more recent Payless Shoes that is empty but still has remnants of the sign. A wooden roller coaster standing guard over a city with no visitors.

With many businesses closing due to Covid and entire malls being abandoned across the country, there are often “label scars” where businesses have left, leaving only the shadows of their names behind. As you shop or eat, watch out for those label scars that may trigger memories of shopping or food locations that are newly or long-gone.

Prompt

  1. Write about your childhood memories of stores and restaurants that are no longer open. Did you visit a Stuckey’s on a family vacation? Eat at a Woolworth’s lunch counter?
  2. Write about your first job working retail or as a restaurant server in a place that isn’t open anymore. What do you remember about the experience, good and bad? What did your uniform look like?
  3. Imagine the employees and shoppers at the same places. Invent characters based on those people. Write about their interactions. Does the manager fall in love with an employee? What was the bestselling item when you worked there?
  4. Make a list of the sensory details you remember from these closed businesses. The smell of Wicks and Sticks. Tastes from food court stores that don’t exist anymore. Colognes in department stores. The sound of those Farrell’s drum beats. The smell of mall bookstores. Sounds of mall piano stores or dogs barking in the pet store. Shoe stores where they x-rayed your feet and fit your shoes.
  5. If you find a label scar on a storefront, take a picture of it and create your own ekphrastic prompt. Write about the emotions you feel when you see it. What decade does the remaining font shadow feel like it belongs to? Who hung the sign? Who took it down? Was it a family business that failed?
  6. Do some research. Go online and see when/how the business closed. For example, the history of Chi Chi’s closing is well-documented but you might learn about your own regional favorite shuttered store. Write about how the community felt when the business closed. Did a little girl cry because Chi Chi’s wasn’t there with a sombrero and fried ice cream for her birthday?

For further research, visit online sites that explore dead malls and abandoned stores. Write about those locations by imagining what happened to them.

Amy Barnes

Amy Barnes is the author of three short fiction collections: AMBROTYPES published by word west, “Mother Figures” published by ELJ, Editions and CHILD CRAFT, forthcoming from Belle Point Press in September, 2023. Her words have appeared in a wide range of publications including The Citron Review, JMWW, No Contact Mag, Leon Review, Complete Sentence, Gone Lawn, The Bureau Dispatch, Nurture Lit, X-R-A-Y Lit, McSweeney’s, SmokeLong Quarterly, Southern Living, Allrecipes and many others. She’s been nominated for Best of the Net, the Pushcart Prize, Best Microfiction, long-listed for Wigleaf50 in 2021 and 2022, and included in Best Small Fictions 2022. She’s a Fractured Lit Associate Editor, Gone Lawn co-editor, Ruby Lit assistant editor,and reads for Retreat West, The MacGuffin, Best Small Fiction, The Porch TN and Narratively. You can find her on Twitter at @amygcb.

Mother Figures:
Ambrotypes:
Child Craft: preorders May, 2023:

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

7

Here’s your next Game Piece. save the image and share on social media with #storyaday


Prefer paper crafts? Here’s the cut & paste version

Day 6- Unnamed by K. B. Carle

K. B. Carle invites you to leave your character unnamed

The Prompt

When writing or brainstorming the beginnings of a story, one complication that paralyzes the writer is what to name their character?

Some have a placeholder name such as “John Doe,” waiting for the character to reveal their name once the story is complete and will add this new name while editing.

Others, like myself, go to Google for unique, unusual, or rare names. But what if we made the decision not to name our characters at all?

For this prompt, resist the urge to name your main character. Instead, consider characters such as

  • Cathy Ulrich’s, “The Astronaut’s Wife,” who is simply known by her wife’s job title and role in their marriage.
  • Hema Nataraju’s “middle-aged commuter,” or
  • Eric Scot Tryon’s “Wife #2.”

How do names identify our characters? Are they defined by their job title, feelings, or their role in the world around them?

DO NOT be afraid to experiment and, as always, have fun! Afterall, someone dared to create villains such as Polkadot Man and Condiment King.

Examples:

After the Thrill by Amy Lyons

Compound by Noa Covo

You Were Only Waiting for This Moment to Arrive by Kathy Fish

Rumors from the Castle by Cathy Ulrich

K. B. Carle

K.B. Carle lives and writes outside of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Her flash has been published in a variety of places including Lost Balloon, Five South Lit., The Rumpus, JMWW, and elsewhere. K.B.’s stories have been nominated for The Pushcart Prize, and her story, “Soba,” was included in the 2020 Best of the Net anthology. Her story, “A Lethal Woman,” will be included in the 2022 Best Small Fictions anthology. She can be found online at kbcarle.com or on Twitter @kbcarle.

Listen to her episodes of the StoryADay podcast: episode 279 and episode 280

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

6

Here’s your next Game Piece. save the image and share on social media with #storyaday


Prefer paper crafts? Here’s the cut & paste version

Day 5- Tell a scary story by Nathan Ballingrud

Nathan Ballingrud sets up the scene for a horror story (perhaps?)

The Prompt

Molly heard her mother’s car pull into the driveway. She closed her math book and ran to the front door. The two hours she spent between the end of school and the time her mom came back home from work were always lonely.

She met her mother at the front door.

“Hi Mom!” She gave her a hug.

“Hey sweetie.” She set down her purse and her keys. “What are you doing?”

“Homework!”

“Well go finish it up and we’ll watch a movie when you’re done, okay?”

Molly was about to head back to her room when the door opened again. Her mother came in, again. “Hi, Molly!” She joined the first in the kitchen — two carbon copies of each other. They didn’t see each other or seem to know the other was there, but they kept talking cheerfully to her. And then a third came in. And a fourth.

Molly crept slowly back to her room. The kitchen was full of their happy talk, all their words running over each other. She hated nights when this happened. She slid under her bed and put her hands over her ears. She hated what came next.

Nathan Ballingrud

Nathan Ballingrud is the author of The Strange, Wounds, and North American Lake Monsters
Find him on Twitter at @NBallingrud

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

5

Here’s your next Game Piece. save the image and share on social media with #storyaday

Prefer paper crafts? Here’s the cut & paste version

Day 4- 100 Word Story by Julie Duffy

Julie Duffy encourages you to keep things short


After the meaty, narrative stories of the past few days, I have a fresh challenge for you today: write something extremely short that still can be defined as a ‘story’

The Prompt

Write a story in exactly 100 words

Beware don’t expect this to be fast, just because it’s short.

Writing a complete story in 100 words takes a lot more time than any average 100 words in the middle of a longer story.

Crafting a complete story in 100 words is not easy. It is, however, quite satisfying.

Tips

  • Super-short stories have to pack an emotional punch in very few words. Concentrate on one moment, one incident, that holds huge significance for a character: the moment they first made eye contact with their baby; seeing the first crocus of spring after a hideous winter full of drama and despair; standing on stage in the moment of silence before the applause starts…
  • You’ll want to save the majority of your words for the build-up to the climax. Think about how many words you can afford to spend setting the scene (maybe 25?) and how many you want for the resolution (10?). Can you create a resonant story in 65 words?
  • Choose adjectives carefully. You don’t have much room.
  • Make words do double duty. Instead of saying ‘he walked across the room, shaking with rage’, say ‘he stalked away’, saving five words. You might even be able to cut it further by making “Stalked off” a complete sentence.
  • Don’t feel you have to hit 100 words on the first pass. Write the story, then go back through and intensify things by making your verbs more active and pruning as much dead wood as you can.
  • Imply as much as you can. Leave gaps. Let the reader work a bit.

As you may have noticed by this point, it’s a different kind of challenge to write a story every day than it is to work on the same story every day for a month.

If you haven’t started collecting Story Sparks yet, now would be a great time to start writing down stray thoughts and observations as you about your day.

You’re doing great, but we have 27 more ideas to come up with, before the month is over.

Future-You will thank Past-You as they browse through all the ideas you’ve collected along the way, while away from your desk!

Julie Duffy

Julie is the founder and host of StoryADay May. She creates challenges, courses and community for writers at StoryADay, on podcasts and conferences. She often relies on Past-Julie. Sometimes it even works out well…

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

4

Here’s your next Game Piece. save the image and share on social media with #storyaday


Prefer paper crafts? Here’s the cut & paste version

2023 Day 3 Check in

A vlog about how my StoryADay May is going…

Today’s prompt is here

I found today’s prompt challenging, perhaps because I was feeling the pressure to write about something weighty and important, which made me feel intimidated and stuck. But then I remembered my collection of Story Sparks, and I found inspiration in a personal experience that I gave to a different character.

I decided to write the story in third person and present tense to make it more experiential for the reader. This was different from what I had been writing the past couple of days, which were more narrative in form.

Through this experience, I was reminded of the importance of just getting started with writing. Even though parts of the prompt made me resist at first, I found that I had unknowingly incorporated them into my story.

Trusting yourself as a storyteller and putting words on the page, even if they feel choppy or imperfect, can lead to magic in your writing.

So, don’t fret about finding the perfect topic or having everything planned out. Just start writing and let the interesting stuff happen. Nobody needs to see it, and you might just end up with a big, stupid grin on your face like I did.

Keep writing, and stay tuned for tomorrow’s prompt on keeping things short!

Day 3- Character Pulls Focus by Tommy Dean

Tommy Dean leads your character through a story

The Prompt

Start a story with a character in the middle of a conversation, where everyone knows something the main character doesn’t know.

Allow the main character to ignore the people around him. Use the setting to reveal something about the main character.

Let the main character gives us snippets of who the characters are around them.

Eventually, let one of the other characters get through to the main character!

Let the main character know seeing the room around them differently.

How does this added context force the main character to act/react?

How do they better understand the other characters in light of this revelation?

Tommy Dean

Tommy Dean is the author of two flash fiction chapbooks Special Like the People on TV (Redbird Chapbooks, 2014) and Covenants (ELJ Editions, 2021), and a full flash collection, Hollows (Alternating Current Press, 2022). He lives in Indiana, where he currently is the Editor at Fractured Lit and Uncharted Magazine. A recipient of the 2019 Lascaux Prize in Short Fiction, his writing can be found in Best Microfiction 2019, 2020, 2023, Best Small Fiction 2019 and 2022, Monkeybicycle, Moon City Press, and numerous other litmags.

His interviews have been previously published in New Flash Fiction Review, The Rumpus, CRAFT Literary, and The Town Crier (The Puritan).

He has taught writing workshops for the Gotham Writers Workshop, the Barrelhouse Conversations and Connections conference, and The Writers Workshop.

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

3

Here’s your next Game Piece. save the image and share on social media with #storyaday


Prefer paper crafts? Here’s the cut & paste version

2023 Day 2 Check in

A vlog about how my StoryADay May is going…

Day two of the challenge and I’m feeling great.

But, I made the classic mistake of not planning ahead, so I spent the first half hour doing admin instead of writing. I’m going to fix that tomorrow by planning my morning better.

The prompt today was from Mary Robinette Kowal:

“What’s in your character’s pocket?”

I used characters from my work in progress and wrote a self-contained story that I can later use as a scene in my novel. Other participants are using the challenge to push forward their work in progress in various ways.

What will YOU do?

Day 2- A Pocket Sized Prompt by Mary Robinette Kowal

A question from Mary Robinette Kowal, to prompt today’s story

The Prompt

The thing that I want you to think about is is just the answer to a question :

What’s in your character’s pocket?

  • So is there a thing that they carry with them all the time?
  • Is there something that they have put in their pocket specifically just in that moment?
  • Do they not carry anything in their pocket? How can they get away with that?

What’s in their pocket?

Mary Robinette Kowal

Mary Robinette Kowal is the author of The Spare Man, Ghost Talkers, The Glamourist Histories series, and the Lady Astronaut Universe. She is part of the award-winning podcast Writing Excuses and a four-time Hugo Award winner. Her short fiction appears in Uncanny, Tor.com, and Asimov’s. Mary Robinette, a professional puppeteer, lives in Nashville. Visit at maryrobinettekowal.com or visit her Patreon

Catch Mary Robinette Kowal on the StoryADay podcast here:
Part 1| Part 2

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

2

Here’s your next Game Piece. save the image and share on social media with #storyaday


Prefer paper crafts? Here’s the cut & paste version

Day 1- Expand, Narrow, Explode the Frame by Rachel Swearingen

Write a story using this helpful structure from Rachel Swearingen

The Prompt

Expand, Narrow, Explode the Frame

Write a scene in which a character is looking for something or someone that has been lost. Use all the senses to describe the setting. Give us a sense of the body and include the following “moves” in any order:

1. Allow the details of the scene to feel close, contained, even constricting.
2. Describe the thing that has been lost, a brief memory perhaps that has been triggered by its loss.
3. Look down. Zoom in on something very small.
4. Bring in a distant sound.
5. Draw attention to an opening of some sort, a window, a door, a hole in the wall or in a dense wood or in a thick covering of clouds, for example.
6. Can your character see or sense what is beyond that opening?
7. Allow your character to climb down or up or into for to a new vantage point.
8. Is your character alone? Invite a stranger to the scene. What happens now?

Rachel Swearingen

Rachel Swearingen is the author of “How to Walk on Water and other short stories” which received the New American Press Fiction Prize. Find out more at RachelSwearingen.com

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

1

Here’s your next Game Piece. save the image and share on social media with #storyaday


Prefer paper crafts? Here’s the cut & paste version