This week’s prompt was inspired by the flash fiction story Joan of Arc Sits Naked In Her Dorm Room by Rachel Engelman

The Prompt

Write a 750 word story featuring a character from history or mythology, but place them in a different era

Tips

• Choose a character you know a little about, so you don’t have to do much research.
• Feel free to take HUGE liberties with the character. Pick one aspect of their story/character to keep the same, but reinvent them however you wish.
• Think about what it might have been like to live with someone who is destined to become a legend. Really. Day to day living with Vincent Van Gogh? No picnic. (Well, maybe a few picnics, but certainly not an easy life.)
• By wresting the character out of their own place and time, you have the opportunity to make them seem more real to us, the readers. What challenges would be new for them? What problems would remain the same?
• You can acknowledge the fact that they are out of time (Leonardo Da Vinci weeping when he sees a new chopper for the first time) or treat them, as Engelman did with Joan of Arc, as if they belonged there, but still have some of the same qualities that marked them for greatness in the ‘real’ story. For example, Joan is not perplexed that she is at a modern day college. But she still has her mystical relationship with God and a sense of mission.
• Try to pack as much as you an into the first couple of lines (and yes, you can revise these). Tell us where, who, and what, all in those two lines. Give us a sense of the tone of the story. You only have 750 words.
• If you share you story somewhere (and here’s why you might not want to) post a link here so we can come and read it.

Did you write today? How did you get on? Who did you write about? Leave a comment!