Go to the Flickr Explore page and pick the first photo that catches your eye.
Stare at it for five minutes or so and write a story inspired by it.
Tips
Pick the most visually arresting picture, the one that interests you immediately.
It might not be obvious what the story is going to be.
This will probably make the story better.
Don’t waste any time writing backstory. Think hard then start when something is happening or about to.
Remember that stories are all about character. What does your character want? What is getting in her way?
Remember to post in The Victory Dance when you’ve finished your story today. You’ll get congratulations and inspire everyone else to finish their stories.
(You don’t have to post your story anywhere, just let us know you have written today)
Can you imagine your life without email, Facebook, Twitter, text messages? Can your characters?
Can you imagine your life without email, Facebook, Twitter, text messages?
Photo by John Frassinet
Can your characters?
If you’re writing contemporary fiction and your characters are still calling and popping round to see each other, you might want to rethink that.
This is something new in life and newer in fiction. How to integrate this stuff into the narrative? It’s an exciting chance to do something new. But “exciting” and “new” can also mean “challenging” and “fraught with clunky first attempts”.
Why not get your first attempts out of the way today?
The Prompt
Write A Story Using A Facebook Timeline
Tips
It doesn’t have to be Facebook, but some electronic form of communication should feature prominently.
Try to have your characters use the e-communication the way you do.
You might want to write the whole story as a series of Facebook conversations (how would you format that?) or texts between different friends (like an update of this phone scene from “Mean Girls”, which must seem hopelessly outdated to today’s teens!)
Streams of status updates and back and forth conversation threads (interspersed with direct messages (“who is ‘Janice Atherton’? And why is she commenting on my photo?!”)
I’m a sucker for a time-travel story. It might have something to do with growing up in the UK in the 1970s, where my generation was weaned on Doctor Who, but time travel in all its varieties works for me. Of course, there are lots of quibbles with time travel stories: can you really kill your own grandfather and cease to exist? If you step on a butterfly in prehistoric times will the future change (thank you, Mr. Bradbury)? And most perplexing, why do time travellers always seem to run into the important figures in history, rather than nobodies like you and I?
The Prompt
Write A Time Travel Story That Includes An Explanation Of Why Your Time Traveller Meets An Important Historical Figure
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:
Don’t miss my time travel #WriteOnWed #storyaday https://storyaday.org/wow-wow-timeywimey
This week’s #WriteOnWed short story prompt is about time travel #storyaday https://storyaday.org/wow-timeywimey
Come and write with us! #WriteOnWed #storyaday https://storyaday.org/wow-timeywimey
See my story – and write your own, today: time travel!! #WriteOnWed #storyaday https://storyaday.org/wow-timeywimey
Fifty years ago this week, the US discovered that the USSR was building nuclear missile bases in Cuba. The two weeks that followed brought the two countries closer to disaster than ever before or since.
Public domain photo from CIA records
The Prompt
Write a story set in an alternate history where the Cuban Missile Crisis turned out differently and someone did launch a strike.
Tips
If you want to read up on the actual events, this Wikipedia article seems pretty good. I particularly liked the part (well, not ‘liked’, but you know what I mean) about the Russian submarine, the facts of which were only disclosed in 2002. What if the commander had made a different decision? What if Miami had been hit by a nuclear bomb.
You don’t have to write a Tom-Clancy-style military thriller here. Imagine anything in the alternate history of the world, from a mother trying to find clean water for her kids, to a history lesson for Fourth Graders.
Your story could treat the subject tangentially. It could be the kind of story you normally write, only with a few details in this world different: maybe there are only 49 states now (or maybe there are 52), perhaps Disneyworld was relocated to Pennsylvania “after the big war”…
You don’t have to be too serious. People lived and loved and laughed through the Blitz. People in an alternate timeline after Cuba would have to find ways to do the same, or humanity wouldn’t survive!
The Rules:
1. You should use the prompt in your story (however obliquely you use the ‘want’, it should be there in the character and all their reactions).
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:
Don’t miss my short story: After Cuba #WriteOnWed #storyaday https://storyaday.org/?p=2648
This week’s #WriteOnWed short story prompt is about the Cuban Missile Crisi #storyaday https://storyaday.org/?p=2648
Come and write with us! #WriteOnWed #storyaday https://storyaday.org/?p=2648
See my story – and write your own, today: After Cuba #WriteOnWed #storyaday https://storyaday.org/?p=2648
Writing a story is more than just throwing some characters into a situation and seeing what happens. A good writer builds a whole world around the story of the characters.
This is more than setting: it’s also the soundtrack, the slang people use, the color palette of the rooms, the social hierarchy hinted at…
The Prompt
Spend Some Time Painting A Realistic World Around The Edges of Today’s Story
The most obvious place to find examples of this ‘world-building’ is in science-fiction (especially futuristic or space stories) and fantasy. Each of these genres has to define everything for the reader from social structures to the shape of the vehicles, to the way gravity works in this world (think Harry Potter’s wizarding world and its unconventional public transport, or Star Wars vs. Firefly in how they handled the sound of space ships.)
But every story needs a certain amount of ‘world-building’. In a Hercule Poirot story we are in a world of drawing-rooms and exotic locales, and a certain class strata. In 50 Shades of Grey, we are introduced to a world where certain people define the shape of their relationship with detailed contracts.
Pay attention to the details of your world today.
Go!
And when you have written your story, log in and post your success in The Victory Dance group or simply comment on this post and let the congrats come flying in.
This week’s prompts are all about point of view and narrative voice.
Write a story from the third person limited POV.
“Third Person, Limited” means that, unlike yesterday, your narrator never says “I did this”, rather you talk about “he went to the door”, “He opened it.”
The ‘Limited” part means that all the judgements and assumptions, all internal thoughts are limited to those of the character through whom you are telling the story. No popping out of Dave’s head to jump across the room and tell us what Mandy is thinking as she looks at him. The only thing we’re privy to is what Dave thinks Mandy might be thinking about him.
Within this framework you can still play with the form: your limited persona can be like Nick Carraway, reporting on Jay Gatsby’s life, rather than telling us about his own adventures. You can give your limited persona the ride of her life through a whitewater canyon and let us see it all from her perspective.
Third person limited is great for short stories, because it lets us – the readers – identify with one character, and ground the story somewhere. You don’t have much space in a short story and the last thing you want is to confuse your readers (unless, of course, the whole point of your story is to confuse your readers!). Letting them get to know a character by showing their reactions to events, puts you half way to rooting for (or against) the protagonist.
This week’s prompts are all going to focus on Point Of View.
It’s easy to get stuck in a rut, writing in third-person, or first person, or inside or outside your character’s heads. So this week we’re shaking things up. Ready?
Write A Story Using The First Person Voice
The whole thing should be told in the “I” voice, and preferably should be a story about something that happened/is happening to the person telling the story.
I saved this one for last (in the plot prompts series) because it has the potential to be the most fun of all!
If you’re a writer, the chances are you think a lot (too much?) about everything that happens to you. And you probably remember every little slight anyone has ever perpertrated upon you.
Now’s your chance to have your revenge.
Today you will write a revenge story. (Use examples from real life if you like!)
If you want to keep your main character sympathetic, make sure they’re seeking revenge for something outrageously unfair and that the bad guys are really bad. And make sure that your main character doesn’t just slide through the revenge process unchanged.
Of course, it doesn’t have to end well for your main character. Maybe they start out nice-but-wronged and end up avenged-but-twisted. Or maybe your protagonist is a real bad apple, to start with.
As usual, keep the scale of your story small: focus on one incident – probably the moment of confrontation. Start right in the action and show the backstory in dialogue, allusions, images. Bring the story to a climax and show us how it has affected your main character as s/he walks off into the sunset.
This week’s prompts are inspired by ‘plot patterns’ from James Scott Bell’s Plot & Structure.
Today your hero is restless. S/he can’t simply live the way everyone else does. Your hero needs to go on a quest.
Whether this quest (and what they seek) is literal or figurative, make sure the goal is something absolutely critical to their survival, and the obstacles huge.
(In a short story you may only be able to give them one obstacle as the set-piece but you can use the action & dialogue to
Imply a whole lot about who they are,
Explain why they are here and
Show the scale of the quest before and after this point,
If you pay attention to doing this, you’ll end up with a complete story, not just a trailer for a novel
This prompt is inspired by ‘plot patterns’ from James Scott Bell’s Plot & Structure.
Your prompt today revolves around a protagonist who holds him/herself apart from the rest of their society. Perhaps they are an anti-hero, perhaps a loner, perhaps an introvert in a family of extraverts.
Make something happen to tempt/force this person out of their alone-ness. Will they step into their society during the action of the story? When all is resolved will they stay involved or retreat once again?
This week’s prompts are all inspired by ‘plot patterns’ from James Scott Bell’s Write Great Fiction – Plot & Structure.
Write a story in which your protagonist is being chased by someone or something. If you choose to show what/who the hero is running from, make sure that pursuer has a vested interest in catching the hero (make it their obsession). Will your hero get away? Stay on the run? Find a safe haven? Convince their pursuer it’s all been a terrible mistake?
One of the nine plot patterns highlighted in James Scott Bell’s Plot & Structure is:
The love story.
(A billion romance readers can’t be wrong!)
You don’t have to write a traditional romance to be writing a love story. There’s a love story embedded in almost every story you read or watch. From Homer’s Odyssey to Homer and Marge Simpson, love is in the air.
All that is required for a love story is for two protagonists who are in love, and an obstacle to that love. Resolving the obstacle, one way or another, is the plot of your story.
To avoid writing a schlocky, saccharine formulaic romance, “one or other of your lovers [should] grow as a result of the pattern,” says Bell.
Can you write a non-human character without making it react like a human? How would a table/tree/robot/alien think? How would it speak? How would it react compared to the reactions of someone born and raised in the West in the 21st Century?
Sometimes it’s a problem to create enough suspense in a short story to keep the reader engaged. An interesting way to do this is to delay the appearance of your main character until quite far into the story. This follows on from yesterday’s prompt where you kept your protagonist off-sceen. This time, however, you can build them up and then allow them to take the stage.
How does this feel? Better? Did you keep the tension going even after the character appeared?
Write a story in which the main, most interesting character never actually appears ‘on-stage’.
Everything the reader learns about the character should come in opinions, comments and conversations between other characters in the story. What do we learn about them? How important do they become? How difficult is it to keep them ‘off-stage”?
Tell a story where everything we learn about the character comes from the things they say.
Does what they say match up with what they mean? Iin what ways do they lie about themselves when the speak? How do people react?)
PICK A SONG TITLE AND USE IT AS YOUR STORY’S TITLE
Scan this page quickly and pick a title that leaps out at you. Browse around a bit if you need to but use the rule of three: if you haven’t found something on the third page, tough. You’re stuck with it. Pick one and write the story.
Use the title as the title of your story. (It can be very, very tenuously connected to your story.)
They say a picture is worth a thousand words. Pah! I say pictures need us to tell their stories.
Flickr’s “Explore” page is a great place to find arresting images that suggest a scene or a character or a story. Click around, refresh the page, until you find an image that stops you in your tracks. Look at it for five minutes. If, at the end of that time, it hasn’t suggested at least one story or character you could love, move on to another image.
But you can only do this three times. The third time, if you still don’t love the image…tough! You’re stuck with it. Write your story using that picture anyway.
Quickly scan the “In The News” and “On This Day…” sections, or even the Featured Article. If something catches your eye, use it as the spark for today’s story.
For example, on the day I’m preparing this prompt I saw “In the News…Two Trains Collide”. That could be a spark for a story about two people on the trains and how they experienced the crash; the story of an investigator sifting through the wreckage – what’s his story?; someone waiting at a station for a passenger who never arrives; a thriller about sabotage.
In “On This Day…” it happened to be the anniversary of the explosion at the Chernobyl Nuclear power plant. That sparked these ideas for me: school children in a small northern European country who aren’t allowed out to play one afternoon after the explosion because of contamination fears; rescuers going into hell; a researcher walkign through the nature-reclaimed exclusion zone 20 years later; a local, being interviewed. What it did to her life; the power plant’s thoughts as the disaster unfolks; what if it had gone differently: worse?; a satirical story about a disaster at a solar or wind plant instead…
Grab a story spark from the front page of Wikipedia
Every established writer has a tale to tell about being asked that question.
Some of them lie and tell people they order them from an Idea store. Some wearily answer that they think really hard until the ideas come. Still others joyfully shout that ideas are everywhere, what are you crazy? Don’t you see them?!
The truth is, the more you look for ideas, the more you’ll see them. But you do have to look
The Prompt
This week’s prompt is not a writing prompt, but a prompt-prompt. This week you’re going to look for Story Sparks.
We’re just over a month away from StoryADay May. You’re going to need at least 31 ideas (more in case a few don’t work out). I’m not talking about outlining your stories, or even coming up with great ideas, just about writing a list of sparks for stories, or places you can find those sparks.
Ray Bradbury in Zen In The Art of Writing, talks about one method of gathering what I’ve come to think of as “story sparks”:
“I began to gather long lists of titles, to put down long lines of nouns. These nouns were provocations, finally, that caused my better stuff to surface.”
Today, set a timer for as long as you can manage (ten minutes? 20? Half an hour?) and then use that time to write down as many Story Sparks as you can.
Write down:
Lists of nouns (things that scare you, matter to you, frustrate you)
Your favorite colorful metaphors. (Consider them as titles for a story)
Aphorisms you can play with (“See No Evil” “A Bird In The Hand”)
The names of the weirdest people you have met in your life (or a quick description if you can’t remember their real names)
Lyrics and lines from poetry that have stuck in your brain for years
The titles of your favorite artworks
The most striking places you’ve visited (potential settings)
Historical tidbits you’ve learned on trips (or in your own town)
Extra Credit
Capture three more story sparks every day for the next week: eavesdrop, read obituaries, browse the front page of Wikipedia, bookmark quirky photographs, read poetry, delve into medical textbooks, looks, listen, smell, breathe in the world around you. Capture three sparks from all that living you do every day.
Sometimes it’s fun to write about big, grand, dramatic themes: war, a break-up, a life-changing event.
But sometimes the most effective stories come from a meticulously detailed moment in everyday life: someone opens a letter, someone puts down a phone, someone opens a door.
Of course, what matters in stories like these is character: how does your character anticipate, react; what’s at stake?
The Prompt
Write a story in which you examine a small moment from every day life and illuminate something – about your character or about the world. Keep the inciting incident mundane, and the consequences too, if you can. But show us something big about life.
Tips
Don’t make the drama too big. Let it spring from a tiny, everyday encounter. But make it matter to your character in some way.
Take an incident from your life today (or yesterday) that vexed you, or delighted you. Give it to a character who is weaker than you, or stronger than you, or more exuberant, or more of a wall-flower. Show us how you would have dealt with it in a more or less ideal world.
Write fast, as fast as you can.
Make sure your story travels from start to end: don’t just write a scene, make someone or something change between the first word and the last.
The Rules:
You must write the story in one 24 hr period – the faster the better.
This week, DON’T post the story in the comments — but do leave a comment saying you wrote something.
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:
Can you find the story in everyday things? #WriteOnWed #storyaday https://storyaday.org/wow-everyday/
This week’s #WriteOnWed short story prompt is Everyday Experiences: #storyaday https://storyaday.org/wow-everyday/
Come and keep your writing resolution with this week’s prompt: #WriteOnWed #storyaday https://storyaday.org/wow-everyday/
I wrote my story today – will you write yours? #WriteOnWed #storyaday https://storyaday.org/wow-everyday/
If you would like to be the Guest Prompter, click here.
This week’s prompt comes with a built-in market to submit your work to after you’re finished: Six Sentences. I subscribe to their daily stories by email and I often find it inspiring to wake up to a micro-story written by someone else. Surely, my brain says to me, you could manage a story in six sentences today.
The challenge of course is that even (especially?) a six-sentence story has to have a beginning, a middle, a end, a clever idea, some action and (incredible, instantly) engaging characters. Micro-stories often have a twist to give them a kick, but they don’t have to – as today’s submission shows.
The Prompt
Write a story in six sentences.
Six sentences.
You can do that, right?
Tips
It’s probably best to emphasize only one feature (character or setting or action, or the twist) but all the other elements must be there too.
Write fast, as fast as you can.
Make sure your story travels from start to end: don’t just write a scene, make someone or something change between the first word and the last.
The Rules:
You must write the story in one 24 hr period – the faster the better.
This week, DON’T post the story in the comments — but do leave a comment saying you wrote something.
Find something nice to say about someone else’s story and leave a comment. Everybody needs a little support!
Optional Extras:
Submit your story to Six Sentences!
Share this challenge on Twitter or Facebook
Some tweets/updates you might use:
Could you write a six sentence short story? #WriteOnWed #storyaday
This week’s #WriteOnWed short story prompt is Six Sentences: #storyaday
Come and keep your writing resolution with this week’s prompt: #WriteOnWed #storyaday
I wrote my story today – will you write yours? #WriteOnWed #storyaday
If you would like to be the Guest Prompter, click here.
Today, my parents braved airport security, 3000 miles and a five-hour time difference to come and see me. All the frantic running around is over, all the last-minute things are done, and now we are sitting — tired and smiling — in the same room at last.
Write a story that includes the idea of reunion
(P.S. I can imagine reunions that do not end as happily. You?)
Remember, prompts are optional (but it’s fun to read everyone’s different takes on each prompt)
“My first 17 chapters were very nice. There was little conflict and the characters worked out their issues reasonably.
“It sucked.
“Then I learned about inciting incidents and the need for conflict. That’s when the fun began. One character in particular is so rude I cringe when I reread her scenes. And I wouldn’t change a thing. Embrace your inner sadist indeed!”
(Thanks to Donald Maass for the catchy slogan at the end there!)
Seems like this is something ia lot of us need practise with. So,
The Prompt
Photo by lempicki.maciek
Write a scene featuring a truly loathsome (but believable) character. They don’t have to be a Disney Villain. It could be that really annoying person at work who has no redeeming qualities that you can find, no matter how hard you try.
Dig deep. Remember how annoying, frustrating, irritating your least favorite person in the world is. Pair them up with your favorite hero-type and give them a scene.
Then let your hero say all the things you’ve rehearsed in your head but would never say, because you’re just, well, too nice.
Let it all out. Make us (and yourself) cringe.
The Rules:
You should use the prompt in some way in your story (however tenuous the connection)
You must write the story in one 24 hr period – the faster the better.
Post your scene 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:
Embracing My Inner Sadist: http://bit.ly/ehx03t #WriteOnWed #storyaday
I never knew I could be so mean! #WriteOnWed #storyaday http://bit.ly/ehx03t
This week’s #WriteOnWed short story prompt is “Embrace Your Inner Sadist″: http://bit.ly/ehx03t
Come and write with us today: http://t.co/OpHsJ04 #WriteOnWed #storyaday
See my story – and write your own: http://t.co/OpHsJ04 #WriteOnWed #storyaday
If you would like to be the Guest Prompter, click here.
Introducing Write On Wednesdays: a weekly warm-up for all endurance writers. Wednesday is the day we limber up for the challenge of writing a story a month; or keep the muscles warm after the challenge is over. No point getting all those creative muscles in shape only to let them atrophy!
The Prompt
What might you – or a character very like you – have been doing on this afternoon ten years ago? Write a short story that springs from a circumstance or character from your life in February 2001.
OK, so we weren’t traveling to moon bases and stopping off on rotating space stations, but there was a lot of other stuff going on. Remember, this was post-Millennium Bug, pre-9/11 (but only by 7 months), after the first dotcom bubble had burst but before the banking/mortgage collapse. Friends and Seinfeld were still on the air but American Idol was not. “Reality” TV was just about to take over from quiz shows as the new money spinner for networks and no-one was watching video online yet.
What was life like all those years ago? Take us back.
The Rules:
You should use the prompt in some way 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:
Travel back in time to Feb 2001: http://t.co/OpHsJ04 #WriteOnWed #storyaday #wow
What were you doing 10 years ago? Is there a story there? #WriteOnWed http://t.co/OpHsJ04
This week’s #WriteOnWed short story prompt is “2001”: hhttp://t.co/OpHsJ04
Come and write with us: http://t.co/OpHsJ04 #WriteOnWed #storyaday #wow
See my story – and write your own: http://t.co/OpHsJ04 #WriteOnWed #storyaday #wow
If you would like to be the Guest Prompter, click here.
I’m spending the day at an amusement park with the kiddies.
I love watching all the different people and types, from the loud, dramatic teens, to the young parents, the kid-free couples, the grandparents, the happy ones, the cranky ones…it’s great fodder .
Write a story set at an Amusement park
It’s a setting ripe for drama, mystery, horror, poetry, action, joy and sorrow.
Write a story set in your first home (house? town?). Describe it in exquisite detail. Make us believe we’re there.
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book, or any of his 
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