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.

Rocky Sat Down on the I-Beam

k-avatarThis week’s stichomancy prompts were pulled from the menu of a local watering hole. Our critique group used the bar as an emergency backup meeting location once when our regular haunt was unexpectedly closed. Lucky for us, the menu was full of interesting phrases, ripe for the picking.

  • tuna croissant
  • Jamaican me crazy
  • glass or pitcher
  • and a splash of cream
  • so it tastes like sugar

Rocky sat down on the I-beam to eat his tuna croissant 80 stories above the noisy street. Irv sat beside him and unpacked his usual: macaroni and a splash of cream. Rocky often wondered about Irv.

“You been down in the sixties lately?”

Irv meant the levels where the building’s interiors were coming together. Up here it was still all exposed steel, but a few hundred feet down they were painting the walls and moving in furniture. Rocky grunted and shook his head.

“One place in there, gonna be a pet store. Lotsa cages.”

In fact, it was a laboratory.

“And above that, they got mini-golf with real sand traps, only insteada sand it’s some other kinda stuff so it tastes like sugar.”

Rocky often wondered about Irv.

“When you go down there, make sure not to touch any of the glass or pitcher winders.”

Rocky grunted again. Maybe Irv would soon be done talking.

“Well, can’t sit around all day. Foreman tells me, ‘Jamaican me crazy!’ and swings his dreads around. Freaks me out.”

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All the Artists

by jenThis week’s stichomancy prompts were pulled from the menu of a local watering hole. Our critique group used the bar as an emergency backup meeting location once when our regular haunt was unexpectedly closed. Lucky for us, the menu was full of interesting phrases, ripe for the picking.

  • artists, intellectuals, and merchants
  • cabana boy
  • Magic Hat #9
  • key lime pie never had it so good
  • the only truly authentic brand of Worcestershire

All the artists, intellectuals, and merchants in attendance could agree on only one thing: the hostess was serving the only truly authentic brand of Worcestershire sauce available on the island. The soiree quickly devolved into their petty arguments about every other subject, including which cabana boy was the most effeminate, and whether the Great Rudolfo, the island’s only truly authentic magician, was wearing Magic Hat #9 or #13, both of which were made of purple velvet.

In the midst of the cacophonous conversations, Reggie approached the buffet table and asked the docile manservant what the enchanting green dessert was. When he told her, she exclaimed, “Key lime pie? Never had it!”

“So good you’ll weep,” the manservant assured her.

Reggie took a slice for herself, and one for her studly lover Lazarus.

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Simon Had Just Found Out, Definitively

  • k-avataratoms infinitely smaller than our atoms
  • he would never have wings
  • Thrilled?
  • the splendor of his funeral clothes
  • a foot-soldier in the ranks of science

Simon had just found out, definitively, that he would never have wings. How was that supposed to make him feel? Thrilled? It made him feel like a visitor from a universe with atoms infinitely smaller than our atoms, like a foot-soldier in the ranks of science battling squadrons of superstitious scoffers. It made him doubt the splendor of his funeral clothes.

Had Simon known from the start that he was a millipede and not a caterpillar, he would have been spared the whole turmoil.

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Professor Turkovsky Called His Apprentice

  • by jengreat white eyebrows
  • his long slender hand around his neck
  • grasshopper war cry
  • I will be old, ugly, stupid
  • a fantastic contraption
  • Proper diet? Sports? Cosmetics?

Professor Turkovsky called his apprentice, James, into his study. James stood before the professor, lanky and youthful and handsome, his long slender hand around his neck, scratching a bug bite.

“James, tell me, what is the secret of youthful beauty?” asked Professor Turkovsky. “Proper diet? Sports? Cosmetics?”

James nodded, uncertain.

“But those all require hard work, skill, and money!”

James shrugged.

“I have invented a fantastic contraption!” the professor chirped in a voice not unlike a grasshopper war cry. “It is like the fountain of youth! It will make me young again!”

“But what if it fails, Professor?” asked James in alarm.

“If it fails, I will be old, ugly, stupid.”

Before James could protest further, Professor Turkovsky flipped the power switch and grasped the handles. A smell of sickly sweet cotton candy filled the study as tendrils of yellow and orange electricity crawled over Turkovsky’s body.

James shook his head in dismay as he saw the great white eyebrows form on the professor’s face.

The experiment had failed.

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My Husband’s Name is Paris

  • k-avatara strange man opened that door
  • the worst a beautiful woman could do
  • strip poker with a man-eating tiger
  • my husband’s name is Paris
  • reporting a raccoon
  • “Cold potato soup!”

My husband’s name is Paris, which isn’t the worst a beautiful woman could do. I once dated a fellow named Albuquerque, and even that’s not as bad as strip poker with a man-eating tiger.

But this has nothing to do with Paris, or Albuquerque.

My apartment has a door I never use. Once a strange man opened that door and leaned into my apartment, reporting a raccoon was raiding the dumpster. So now I never use that door.

And yesterday, a little child trapped in my sock drawer kept yelling the same thing all day. “Cold potato soup!”

I think I should move.

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During the Later Stages of the Elbows Installation

  • by jenat the bottom of the sea
  • Every skin-diver and shrimp fisherman
  • no sound disturbed his semiconsciousness
  • later stages of the Elbows installation
  • the speed of a middle-aged jogger
  • you won’t be sorry

During the later stages of the Elbows installation, Hieronymus Warhol’s drug addictions overtook him with the speed of a middle-aged jogger training for her first marathon in poorly fitted shoes, and he would often slip into a trance-like state while on the job-site.

Every skin-diver and shrimp fisherman from the nearby wharf was called upon to shout salty profanities, and fling rocks and shells found at the bottom of the sea in an attempt to rouse the great artist and compel him to complete his pipe-cleaner masterpiece, but no sound disturbed his semiconsciousness.

When eventually he came back to consensus reality of his own volition, he looked at the curator with bleary eyes and croaked, “You won’t be sorry.”

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You’re The Most Evil Person, Ever

  • k-avatarunless she herself was at the fairgrounds
  • no matter what innocent life is ruined
  • A mouse. A dead mouse.
  • next is Jack the Ripper
  • dear Jimmy, Ariel, Bebe, Mary, John, Philip, Amy, Myrtle, Vincent, Oscar, Vera, Peggy
  • Oh, piffle!

“You’re the most evil person, ever. Next is Jack the Ripper. You pursue your own pleasure, no matter what innocent life is ruined.”

All I could say was, “Oh, piffle!” Which didn’t really accomplish anything. But I knew what her comment was about. A mouse. A dead mouse. Named Reginald, it had gone to be with dear Jimmy, Ariel, Bebe, Mary, John, Philip, Amy, Myrtle, Vincent, Oscar, Vera, Peggy, and Margarita.

I wanted to play skee-ball and ride the tilt-a-whirl, I wanted to win a goldfish. But no one was allowed to be having fun, unless she herself was, at the fairgrounds.

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The Cattle, Too, Were Gone

  • by jenwrapped their heirloom weapons
  • fought in the Trojan War, but not very well
  • “Are you saying I’ve grown fat?”
  • The cattle, too, were gone
  • She was warmer on the horse’s back
  • her lack of enthusiasm

“The cattle, too, were gone by the time I mended the hole in the fence,” Bridget said, and I noted her lack of enthusiasm.

“Are you saying I’ve grown fat?” I asked, trying to lighten her mood with a little joke.

She smiled. “You’re fit as ever, darling.” Then she shivered like a warrior who fought in the Trojan War, but not very well. She was warmer on the horse’s back than she was now, dismounted and standing in the snow without the equine’s heat to warm her.

I quickly shed my anorak and wrapped her in it as master fencers wrapped their heirloom weapons between matches. She meant more to me than their antique epees did to them, and I willingly sacrificed my own comfort for hers.

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Were He a Commoner

  • k-avatara bonny lord and a merry one
  • under the eyes
  • grinned involuntarily with appreciation
  • blue-gray eyes suddenly keen
  • would have been described as stocky

Were he a commoner, Smedley would have been described as stocky. But he was a bonny lord and a merry one, often at the same time, and so he was accounted robust of stature.

Smedley’s position at court afforded many luxuries. His special favorite was dancers, one in particular with many jingling bells and cymbals and tattoos under the eyes. When she swayed and twirled before him, Smedley grinned involuntarily with appreciation for her grace and flexibility, which a, shall we say, stocky personage might view in more frankly vulgar terms.

One gusty winter night a new dancer appeared before Smedley. He sat forward in his chair, blue-gray eyes suddenly keen. The newcomer’s feet were just as nimble, howsoever they might be clad in perplexing low boots that set up a clattering like hailstones with her every step. The cane and the straw hat confused Smedley most of all.

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Playing the Part of the Innocent Venutian Princess

  • by jenunbuttoning his Space Ranger pajamas
  • nearly vomited in terror
  • the tune was Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer
  • stuck in his eyebrows
  • and the telephone itself
  • dogs of all sizes and descriptions

Playing the part of the innocent Venutian princess who nearly vomited in terror at her first sight of an Earth astronaut, only to find herself strangely aroused by the alien intruder, Ibernia Patience reached out to her husband Frank Pax, unbuttoning his Space Ranger pajamas.

Venutian folk music warbled in the background. The tune was Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, but the lyrics were incomprehensible. Ibernia drew the now-naked Frank down onto a large pile of stuffed dogs of all sizes and descriptions. She brushed away a stray bit of fluff that was stuck in his eyebrows as he bent down to kiss her.

Just then the phone rang and Ibernia cursed both the thoughtless caller and the telephone itself for interrupting her play time.

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