This week I’m giving you some more traditional prompts, where one element of your story is dictated by me. (Oh, the power!)
The Prompt
Write A Story Set At A Wedding
Tips
The conflict in this story can be micro-scale (a guest reflecting on a deeply personal challenge, brought into the light by this landmark occasion) or dramatic (a headline-worthy bust-up, with generations of family tension erupting in a hot, molten mess).
Weddings are often the scene of comic stories because of the solemnity inherent in the occasion. But I was at a super-fun wedding recently. A story set at that wedding would lend itself to a solemn moment as an abrupt change of pace.
You can say a lot about your characters without beating the reader over the head with it, by describing which traditions your wedding principals and guests choose to honor (or flout). You can get rich cultural mileage out of this setting.
You can choose another culturally significant/religious event to write about if weddings really aren’t doing it for you.
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 Prompt] Wibbley-Wobbley, Timey-Wimey](https://storyaday.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/Screen-Shot-2012-12-11-at-11.00.06-PM.png)
