The Prompt

Retell a traditional story. I suggest Cinderella, but you may choose another story that’s closer to your heart. Bonus points for working in a story that comes from your particular cultural heritage.

Things To Consider

The simplest thing to do here is retell the story the way you remember it, but in your own words.

At the very least you’ll get a vivid reminder that you cannot help but be original. Your version will be the version only you could have told.

This is an important thing to remember on days when you’re wondering “why bother writing?”. An alternate approach is to tell a ‘twisted fairytale’, one in which you update or improve upon the original, either by changing the setting or changing the outcome (maybe modernizing it).

If you enjoy this exercise and want to add some source material to your bookshelves, check out:

Grimm’s fairytales, in collections of folktales, Aesops Fables, collections of regional tales.

Here’s a different version of the example I used for the 5-Sentence Story Structure from earlier in the challenge.

It’s not a work of genius, but it was written in one day and I did have fun. If I can do this (and share it!) surely you can write something today 😉

Once upon a time there was a lonely orphan named Cindy whose social media self-help gurus had affirmed her yearning to find her place and encouraged her to take up a particular space in the world, as soon as she decided what she really, really wanted from life.

The surprise drop of a local casting call for “The Bachelor”, coming as it did immediately after she had uttered the intention ‘I wish to be find my place and take up space’, seemed a bit on the nose, but, as Cindy said, “It’ll at least be giggle…not that I want to find a husband or anything, just to see a bit of the world, maybe go to a party or two, have a few laughs, meet some more women my age…” But her stepmother and stepsisters had their own plans for the days leading up to the casting call, none of which involved the pretty little orphan girl who cleaned their bathrooms snagging the eye of the casting director. They kept her busy with housework and changed the wifi password in case she had been planning to log on to ASOS and order a pretty outfit with an risky unsecured pay-by-the-month plan from an e-commerce company—which would have been the only way she could have afforded it.

Cindy sighed and resigned herself to watching audition-line updates on Instagram. (It hadn’t taken long to guess that the new wifi password was “UnbelievablyW3althy”.) She blinked back tears as she watched the Uber pull away with her stepmother and sisters inside.

She was just turning to go back inside, when a rustle caught her attention. It came from the hedge that separated their driveway from the neighbor’s. Mrs Phayree, who kept herself to herself, but sometimes waved to Cindy if she saw her out, hanging up washing, slipped through a gap in the hedge carrying a garment bag.

“Hurry, Cindy, this is for you. It was your mother’s. I bought it from the jumble sale your wicked stepmother had when she moved it. I wanted to save it for you. Your parents were good people.”

The old woman sniffed. She thrust the bag into Cindy’s hands and scurried off towards the hedge, calling over her shoulder, “Just make sure you book your Uber home for before midnight when the surge pricing kicks in!”

Cindy closed her mouth and blinked a few times. The garment bag was still in her hands. Taking it into the kitchen, she unzipped it slowly. Something from her mother?

Her hands shook as she drew forth blue silk, with the care previous generations would have reserved for holy relics. It was a jumpsuit, a style so old that had come back around into being fashionable again. Cindy’s breath caught in her throat, and then she did a little jig right there in the kitchen. She checked the oven clock. She had just enough time. She ran upstairs and changed into her mother’s old jumpsuit. Surely this would be the extra piece of luck she needed to find her place in the world.

At the conference center Cindy was stunned by the seemingly endless parade of perfectly-made-up women and girls, preening in hand mirrors and squabbling over places in the line. She looked at the line.

She looked at the little knot of staffers, in leggings and sweatshirts, hanging around behind the producer’s table. They were laughing and bumping elbows and then scurrying off to do tasks that Cindy could only imagine were important to the day’s outcome. “Hey,” scowled a woman behind her.

“The line’s moving. Are you even in this line?”

Cindy muttered something incoherent and edged aside, drawn towards the production crew.

“I could murder a cappuccino,” she heard a headphone-clad young woman’s voice from behind a laptop at the production desk. The coffee shop was only a few steps away. Cindy looked at the line of pretty young things.

She looked at the production crew. With a firm nod to herself, Cindy ran over to the coffee shop and spend the last of her credit balance on two coffees and carried them back towards the woman with the laptop.

“Hi,” she held out the coffee like an offering. “I’m Cindy. Do you have a moment to tell me a little more about what it is you do?”

The woman looked at her, in her silk jumpsuit, and said, “Aren’t you here to audition?”

“I don’t know anymore,” Cindy grinned, proffering the coffee again. “Cappuccino?”

“Well, I’m pretty busy but you did bring me free coffee, so pull up a chair and let’s chat.”

It turned out that the young woman was the show’s story editor, and she had a budget for an assistant. By the end of the day, Cindy was making plans to follow the production back to California, but not before she popped home to thank Mrs Phayree for her help, because, as Cindy now realized, that was the kind of space she wanted to take up in the world.

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The Prompt

Correct an injustice in a story someone else wrote

Things To Consider

We’re writing fan-fiction today, which is, technically, a derivative work.

There are legal issues around playing in other people’s worlds, for profit, but most artists and creators (and Intellectual Property owners) have learned to be cool with people writing fan fiction for fun.

For example, if you grew up reading a series of novels and felt strongly that the hero ended up with the wrong person as their life partner, take that as the starting-point for your story. Write the story of how they encounter the right person and realize this is their soulmate…and what steps they take to make that happen.

If you loved a particular film but one of your favorite characters is killed off, write a story of how that death was actually a sham and give your favorite character a new adventure, after that moment.

If you watched a long-running TV show and had a ‘head-canon’ idea about what happened to a side character later in life, only to have the show writers bring that character back and give them a different outcome…write your version!

With all of these ideas, you do not have to start the story with backstory about the original. Just put your character in an interesting situation and, at some point in the story you may choose to have them make an allusion to, or offhand comment about the ‘wrong’ that this story is ‘righting’.

Or you may not. Likewise, all of these ideas will be rich with novels’-worth of potential, but what you are trying to write today is a short story. Remember everything you’ve learned about short stories so far:

• Center the story on one incident

• Limit the scope (in characters, settings, time) and choose your details for maximum impact.

• Aim for an emotional impact, not an immersive, novel-like experience.

If you discover that you love writing fan fiction and haven’t yet discovered the site Archive of Our Own (AO3) you might want to check it out. It might, of course, massively distract you from your other writing, so treat it with care 😉

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The Prompt

Write a story in fewer than 250 words. Somewhere in the story use the phrase “the moment everything changed”

Things To Consider

A story in 250 words? Really?

Really!

But you’re going to have to leave a lot out, imply a lot, and trust the reader to fill in the gaps.

When we get down to this kind of word limit it is important to think about the essential elements of a story.

If you are trying to write a story and not just an aphorism or meditation, there are some elements you’ll need:

• A character (or two)

• A situation that conflicts with their wants or needs in some way

• An action that they take or plan to take

• A sense, for the reader, of consequences, and how that will change the reader.

I know, it’s unsubtle of me to ask you to include “the moment everything changed” in the prose, but it’s a great reminder, as you’re shaping the story, that readers like it when something changes in a story, whether it’s the character’s state or simply their understand of the character/situation.

Further Reading

If you’re not familiar with micro fiction, it can be helpful to read a few examples. (Just don’t use up all your writing time, reading!)

Microfiction Monday Magazine

O Magazine’s Microfiction feature

Vestal Review: the longest-running Flash Fiction publication on the planet:

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The Prompt

Write the Story of a Song (Title)

Things To Consider

Art inspires art and there’s nothing wrong with borrowing from other creatives, so today you’re going to write the story of a song. You don’t actually have to write the story of the song, of course.

You might:

• Write a response to the song from another character

• Simply use the title and write a story that has nothing to do with the song (don’t worry, you can’t copyright a title. They’re fair game!)

If you choose a song that has a story built in (A Boy Named Sue, or Copacabana, for example—guess who grew up in the 1970s?!) you could choose to tell a story that serves as a prequel or sequel to the story.

I love the idea of a prequel because it should slowly dawn upon the reader that you’re leading into the story/song they already know.

Here are a couple of resources

An A-Z of Song Titles

Tulsa Library System’s Song Index

Fantasy Song Title Generator – for those of you who like to play fast-and-loose with the rules

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The Prompt

Choose one of these photos and tell a story based on it
Winslow Homer – Metropolitan Museum Gift of Mrs. William F. Milton, 1923
Paul Cézanne – Metropolitan Museum Bequest of Stephen C. Clark, 1960
Léon Bonnat – Metropolitan Museum Catharine Lorillard Wolfe Collection, Bequest of Catharine Lorillard Wolfe, 1887

Things To Consider

Using inspiration from other artists is a time-honored tradition (and helpful when it comes to marketing your version: fans of the original will be interested, whether they love or hate it!)

Images are helpful prompts for short stories because they capture a moment.

Your story can build up to or away from this moment (or both, placing the picture’s scene smack-dab in the middle of your story)

You do not need to honor the artist’s original inspiration for the story.

You can totally ignore the title of the picture. You can transpose these characters into a totally different setting (useful if you like to write futuristic or fantasy stories).

No matter what you choose to ignore, consider what is interesting about the moment captured in the picture.

Why did you pick this one? What stories does it suggest?

You might choose to give your story the same kind of mood suggested by the art style and color choices.

Further Reading

A StoryADay prompt about pictures (with video lesson)

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The Prompt

Rewrite a story that you wrote over the past few weeks

Things To Consider

If you’ve done the “Same Story, Different Perspective” prompt, this will feel similar, but this time I’m inviting you take a story that you wrote and tell it all over again in a completely new way.

You can re read the story and decide to tell the story from the perspective of a different character, but you could also choose to try and tell it in a completely different format.

If you told a narrative story, you could see what happens if you rewrite it as a list story. If you told it as a Hermit Crab, could you write it again today as a traditional, narrative story?

This prompt makes it easier for you o write because you don’t have to come up with a whole new plot and cast of characters.

The challenge today is to make remake it in a new way.

For an interesting twist on this experience: rewrite a story you wrote recently without rereading it first.

After you write this draft, compare the two and see what they have in common and what was missing/added to each version. (Hat tip to Stuart Horwitz for this idea)

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For more examples of how you can work with this prompt, plus a warm up and brainstorming exercise: