Category: Writing Prompts

Prompts are short, fun exercises that can be used to get the creative juices flowing or break the ice at a critique meeting. They start as a brief list of ingredients, forming a challenge for the writer to incorporate all of them into one self-contained piece. There are many ways to come up with prompts and each author will find a unique way to express a given prompt.

“Hold On, Hold On”

  • by Kentfashion vigilantes, out for blood
  • That’s how mad I’d be.
  • glimpses of other people’s secrets
  • kestrel flying over Deptford gasworks
  • the so-called “Law of Urination”

Tune in next time part 924      Click Here for Earlier Installments

“Hold on, hold on,” I said to the salamanders. “There’s already too much going in inside me, with the nanobots and all, so I’ll thank you not to throw any mystery pharmaceuticals into the mix right now.”

The wife-a-mander said to the other one, “With the pill in his mouth, he wouldn’t be able to talk.”

“Sir,” said the hubby-mander, “those nanobots are exactly why you need the pill. It will put them into sleep mode to buy us time to help you.”

Help me? The very idea had never occurred to me, that maybe they weren’t enemies. I figured they had to be fashion vigilantes, out for blood over my bold innovations. It had already crossed my mind that they might be spouses not of each other but of some of my many romantic partners. It still wasn’t clear to me why they were salamanders. Maybe they were so mad about the infidelities that this happened. That’s how mad I’d be. Except, Fleur and I had an arrangement, and it was usually me stepping out. So on second thought, I couldn’t imagine being angry enough over it to go full-amphibian.

The pill was in my mouth. I had no idea how it got there, and before I could spit it out there was a glass of water and I was swallowing.

The wife-a-mander sighed. “This is so much hassle just for a few glimpses of other people’s secrets. Better to be a kestrel flying over Deptford gasworks.”

That had to be a Colloquialism, but it wasn’t one I knew. The pill started kicking in, and it was definitely going to put me into sleep mode whether it affected the nanobots or not. The last thing I heard was the hubby-mander using another local expression, this one about the so-called “Law of Urination” and what it meant for my situation.

bonus points for using them in order

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I Had Never Met These Salamanders Before

  • by jenand then the palm of his hand
  • burbling stereophonic sound
  • armed with an avocado
  • They hiss.
  • matrimonial energy

Tune in next time part 923      Click Here for Earlier Installments

I had never met these salamanders before, but the two of them gave off a strong matrimonial energy. Do salamanders marry? They hiss. They eat worms that have been warmed with an avocado dressing. They make a mysterious burbling stereophonic sound when they are plotting against me. But do they enter into binding legal contracts as couples? For the life of me I couldn’t remember.

“Rub the pill on his fingertip and then the palm of his hand,” the husband-salamander said.

“It needs to go in his mouth,” his amphibious wife replied exasperatedly. She sounded a lot like my own wife.

bonus points for using them in reverse order

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Prompts Unchained

This week, we took a little break from our chain story, Tune In Next Time, and instead posted a couple of dusty prompts that we found while tidying up in the Writing Cave. It’s interesting how different they are from what we’ve gotten used to as the chain has lengthened beyond all limits of sanity.

For one thing, they were created using the Four Elements generator, which tends to impose a bit of structure implicitly. After all, the scenario and the main character are two of the elements it dictates. On the other hand, it doesn’t create any requirements for using specific phrases, as does the Stichomancy generator. Thus, the end results tend to have a different flavor.

The biggest difference, though, is that these writing prompts were meant as standalone fiction. The episodic approach that we take with the chain story is deliberately pell-mell, and we make a game out of setting the next person up in a weird situation (not to mention our relentless pursuit of bonus points for incorporating the required phrases in order).

What really stood out about this week’s prompts was that they managed to have definite beginnings, middles, and endings without being any longer than our typical installments. Seeing them really took us back to the days when we’d use writing prompts to kick off our weekly critique meetings. Of course, even then we were prone to merging them collaboratively into one cohesive-ish story world. (In this case, by “we” we mean Jen.)

A writing partner is someone you like to write with, who likes to write with you back.

One Of The Lowly Slitherers

by KentWhile digging through folders full of old writing, we turned up some ancient prompts and decided to share them. We’ll return to the chain story next week.

  • Queen of the Snake People
  • the sleep lab
  • a severed thumb
  • I feel so stupid

One of the lowly slitherers should be doing this, thought Serpentina VII, High Queen over all who coil, slink, and strike. She walked up to the door of the darkened room, the unsavory packet in her right hand. The gold scales and interlocking jewels of her robes of state made sussurance in her wake, especially the long train that glided on the linoleum.

Opening the door, she whisked her robes into the room with practiced grace and softly closed it behind her to shut out the garish light of the hallway. The room was divided into small cubicles, and in each was a bed upon which a person slept. Wires attached to their faces trailed to machines that recorded mysterious electrical impulses. Their monitors provided the only illumination.

Serpentina VII looked into each cubicle she passed, hoping that her objective would be as self-evident as she presumed. But after checking all the sleepers, she’d found none with bandaged hands, and no blood or other signs of injury.

Granted, the return of the thumb would be purely symbolic. It had lain overnight on the flagstones outside the royal apartments, so any hope of reattaching it was futile. But Duke Poisonfang feared this incident might be seen as breaking the truce, and thus lead to open war with the cat people. He insisted that only the queen could avert such conflict, and his operatives provided the location for the return.

Queen Serpentina moved silently back to the door. This was the wrong place, but maybe the duke’s spies would have updated intel.

The door was locked.

All the machines’ monitors turned red. The sleepers sat up.

“A snake!” they all cried out as one. “Kill it!”

Serpentina smashed the glass and let herself out. She chided herself for ever listening to Poisonfang.

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I Boarded The Upper Level

by jenWhile digging through folders full of old writing, we turned up some ancient prompts and decided to share them. We’ll return to the chain story next week.

  • a shoplifter
  • the Eiffel Tower
  • a bucket of hair clippings
  • psychological experiment

I boarded the upper level of the double-decker elevator along with Professor Coiffeur and my fellow doctoral candidates from the psych department. My backpack was heavy and uncomfortable. When we reached the lower observation deck, we all exited the stuffy box. Most of the tourists stayed on the ride up to the top for a better view of the city. Professor Coiffeur moved over to the railing around the inner opening in a very businesslike manner, and waited for us to join him.

“We are all prepared, oui?” he asked.

“Oui oui!” we answered in unison. We were all very excited about today’s experiment.

“Then let us begin.”

The professor unzipped my pack and lifted the bucket out. Half of the grad students reached in and gathered huge handfuls of the hair clippings. The other half readied their cameras and notebooks.

On the professor’s command, those of us with fistfuls of hair began walking up to the tourists and offering it to them. The others made careful observations, hoping that the observed reactions would follow the predicted pattern.

Stage 2 of the experiment had us touching the hair to strangers’ cheeks without asking permission. That went as poorly as expected and we quickly moved to Stage 3 which entailed upending the bucket over the railing, dumping all of the remaining hair clippings down on the unsuspecting crowds below, and observing the chaos.

It was a very satisfying day of scientific enquiry. To reward myself for devising such a successful experiment, I pocketed an Eiffel Tower key ring for every member of the team on my way back to the elevators, plus some chocolate for myself.

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Come Into Our Parlor

Welcome to the Writing Cave!

We finished redecorating ages ago, moved in, and got busy cluttering up the joint. Stacks of paper seem to multiply overnight, like the Writing Cave is their breeding ground. This week we put on our big kid pants and did some long-overdue filing. That led to a full-on cleaning, and now things look pretty darn good.

There won’t be a better time to document the room where we spend so much time, so here we go.

Clockwise from upper left:

  • Jen’s desk with her amazing chair, Mr Sexycheckers
  • the raven and printer stand
  • Kent’s desk with his as-yet-unnamed chair
  • the magnet wall, credenza, and Kent’s lightsaber collection
  • Kent’s shelf, featuring Greenlandic beer bottles, Rush Funko Pop, signed, framed XKCD comic, and a really creepy branch we found on a walk
  • Jen’s shelf, featuring White Stripes Funko Pops and Legos, a Bulgarian street sign, and a bottle of black sand from a beach in Iceland

A writing partner is someone who shares (or at least tolerates) your design sensibilities.

I Was Having So Much Trouble

  • by Kentthat weird interdimensional thing from the internet
  • someone to share a rowboat with
  • “Squirrels are sort of cute and fuzzy.
  • and then he did some weirdo stuff
  • “Give him another pill.”

Tune in next time part 922      Click Here for Earlier Installments

I was having so much trouble remembering names, soon I might forget my own.

“I see you found my hint,” said the unknown person behind the shower curtain. “Took you long enough. Now, pass it in here so I can put it on.”

“Hang on,” I said. “We both want something, and if I give you this then I’ll lose what little leverage I have, and you won’t give me the phone.” A thought hit me. “Which you obviously don’t have anyway, because if you could control these nanobots then I wouldn’t be able to refuse your demand. Shit.”

“Actually, we both want the same thing,” he said. “That phone. It has many dangerous apps, including one that opens up that weird interdimensional thing from the internet, and a rideshare app that only lets you call someone to share a rowboat with. Now, pass me the vrobe and let’s get moving.”

I pondered. There was no reason for me to believe anything he said, and he’d just admitted that he didn’t have what I needed. And yet, it did seem like there was some connection here, that he could help me unlock my own past. I stared at the vrobe. With it, my new acquaintance could cover himself up. Covering things up was the reverse of what I wanted. So I said, “Squirrels are sort of cute and fuzzy. What about you? Why not just come on out?”

He cursed under his breath, and then he did some weirdo stuff that I couldn’t see but it sounded super weird, and then the drain started gurgling. After a minute, it fell silent.

“Hello?” I called. I whipped the shower curtain aside to discover no one was there.

One of the salamanders on the wall said to the one beside it, “Give him another pill.”

bonus points for using them in order

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On a Hook Beside the Anchor Toilet

  • by jenclearly did not have arms
  • Mother was worried
  • cash to pay someone else to do so
  • unnecessarily clandestine
  • in stunning unitards

Tune in next time part 921      Click Here for Earlier Installments

On a hook beside the anchor toilet hung a garment made of terrycloth. It resembled a robe, but clearly did not have arms, making it more of a robe/vest hybrid. When I entered the Academy, Mother was worried that I might go into fashion design instead of spycraft. She’d bribed me to enter the family business. I had brilliant fashion ideas, and if I wasn’t permitted to see them through, at least her bribes provided me enough cash to pay someone else to do so in my place, to bring my visions to life. This luxurious vest-robe, called a vrobe in my unnecessarily clandestine sketchbook, was the first of my designs I had seen in person. Unless you count all the acrobats in stunning unitards of my devising that populate the circuses of the world. Which you should. But the vrobe I now held in my hands was even more magnificent. A tear trickled down my cheek as I realized that the man lurking behind the seaweed must be my sartorial partner. If only I could remember his name.

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“Listen,” The Mysterious Man in the Bathtub Sighed

  • by KentThen I put them back.
  • arrived in 8 large boxes
  • what they’ve done to my father’s koi
  • as far as my layman’s eye could see
  • can’t you hear the thunder?

Tune in next time part 920      Click Here for Earlier Installments

“Listen,” the mysterious man in the bathtub sighed, “I know what you’re looking for. That is, I know who you’re looking for, and it’s not me. Or, not just me.” He let out another heavy sigh. “I did take some of your memories. Then I put them back. I only borrowed them, and made copies of parts of them. I ordered a printout and it arrived in 8 large boxes.”

“Why won’t you show yourself?” I demanded. “You hide behind that shower curtain, and you tell me you tampered with my mind, yet it sounds like you want me to trust you. I’d sooner trust the Sashimi Shadow Warriors, despite them being ninjas, and even after what they’ve done to my father’s koi.”

“Your father never had any koi. Whoever else messed with your memories must have added that to overwrite our partnership. It had to have been done later, because there was nothing amiss in the whole 8 boxes of data as far as my layman’s eye could see.”

It was my turn to sigh. “Do you or do you not have the phone that controls the nanobots?”

“Let me answer with another question: can’t you hear the thunder?”

It was a trigger phrase, and it was doing something, whether to me or to the nanobots I wasn’t sure. All I knew was that a bizarre, dizzying sensation was welling up from somewhere and I was afraid to find out what it meant.

bonus points for using them in order

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Curse These Nanobots!

  • by jendiscovered I was married to a different person
  • taste like “nature’s candy”
  • Because I am my own worst enemy.
  • make the “magic” happen?
  • penmanship skills

Tune in next time part 919      Click Here for Earlier Installments

Curse these nanobots! I had to get rid of them before I lost any more memories, or discovered I was married to a different person in addition to the several I was already married to. Bjorn, or whoever it was behind the shower curtain, chuckled. “Anyone ever tell you that confusion looks good on you? It makes you look like you taste like “nature’s candy”, if you know what I mean.”

“Tell me what you mean,” I said. Because I am my own worst enemy.

“Why don’t you join me in the shower and we’ll make the “magic” happen?”

This dude spoke with so many air-quotes, he must be a native Colloquillian. I decided two could play at that game. “Will you show me your “penmanship skills?” I purred.

bonus points for using them “in order”

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