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.

“I Thought You Would Have Guessed By Now”

  • by jenstuffed with bears
  • a confusion of alternating nightmare and oblivion
  • some crazy hallucinations
  • but a pretext for murders, raids, and pillage
  • on her head

Tune in next time part 365      Click Here for Earlier Installments

“I thought you would have guessed by now,” my most recent paramour said with a lazy smile. “I’m Titania.”

My blood ran cold and my heart felt as if it were stuffed with bears scrambling to escape. Titania! The name brought a confusion of alternating nightmare and oblivion, like the worst acid trips of my youth. You yourself may have endured some crazy hallucinations, but I assure you they were nothing compared to what I was currently enduring.

Titania was the sister they never spoke of, the one who scandalized her family and the entire Academy by turning her back on her heritage and embracing the circus life. She’d given up her true name and was known now as the Crystal Clown, and all of her merry antics were but a pretext for murders, raids, and pillage. There was a substantial price on her head, and here she was, lolling naked beside me on the beach. Her proximity to my children filled me with terror.

The Crystal Clown’s smile grew less lazy. “Don’t get so worked up. I got what I came for.”

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Planting Kisses

  • by Kenthold your *own* hand for a change
  • I’ll let you see it if you want to
  • with a long-lost sister
  • “What poem?”
  • applying his left thumb

Tune in next time part 364      Click Here for Earlier Installments

Planting kisses all over the woman’s body seemed a good pretext for getting a look at her ass, where Tessa sported a cybernetic unicorn tattoo. But, my carnal companion twisted and shimmied and always kept me from obtaining more than a tiny glimpse of her ink. There was something there…

“Say, why not hold your *own* hand for a change?” she scolded playfully, guiding my grip toward something that was definitely not my hand. “You’re after my butt, aren’t you?” she said with a giggle. “I’ll let you see it if you want to.”

“Of course I want to,” I purred.

“It’s just, you’re going to be surprised when I show you, and I don’t want that to ruin the moment.” And without further ado, she flipped over. The tattoo was a bio-mechanical unicorn spewing rainbows, but it was facing the wrong direction. “Don’t stop now,” this temptress said. So I didn’t. There must be a special term for a man who so eagerly gratifies himself with a long-lost sister of the woman he claims to love, and I’m sure it’s unflattering. At that moment, I didn’t care one bit.

“Recite the poem!” she cried.

“What poem?” I grunted.

“Make something up!” Her voice was a peal of ecstasy. “It should be something about the man applying his left thumb to… Yes, to that.”

Laying with the babies in the shade of the umbrella afterwards, I asked her, “Aren’t you going to tell me your name?”

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A List of Tessa’s Sisters

  • by jenknows less than nothing about Norway
  • Oh, it’s too confusing
  • hovered overhead
  • my mouth is poison
  • on the rest of her body

Tune in next time part 363      Click Here for Earlier Installments

A list of Tessa’s sisters sprang into my mind, complete with little facts about each that might help me identify which of them I was currently engaged in intercourse with. Was it Tara, who hates cheese? Tanya, who can’t spell worth a damn? Perhaps Taylor, who sings like a banshee, or Tallulah, who knows less than nothing about Norway? Or was this in fact Tesla, the sister who was less-than-adept at oil painting?

“Oh, it’s too confusing!” I cried.

“It’s anything but confusing,” my partner assured, and she showed me what she meant while Inimical hummingbirds hovered overhead. And she was right, it was all quite simple when you left the mental aspects out and concentrated on the physical. I gave up caring, and tried to kiss her, but she pulled away.

“My mouth is poison,” she murmured. “One taste would kill you.”

I ignored her mouth and planted kisses on the rest of her body, whichever sister she was.

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I Know That For a Lot of Couples

  • by Kenthave some tea, some popcorn, some kale
  • “There are balloons.”
  • worried about the poachers
  • I met a man with seven wives
  • also the smartest and the strongest

Tune in next time part 362      Click Here for Earlier Installments

I know that for a lot of couples there’s a great deal of ceremony around intercourse, and they can’t proceed unless they have some tea, some popcorn, some kale, and a bushel of lemons. But Tessa and I are not so formal. Peeking around the top hat, she said, “There are balloons.”

“You should be chasing Olga right now,” I said, while I made that impossible. But Tessa clearly wasn’t worried about the poachers among the White Faces or what they might do with the sample. She assured me I didn’t have have to worry, either, while she made worrying impossible.

Working undercover my first year out of the Academy, I met a man with seven wives, all ex. He told me the trouble with his all marriages was because of woman number eight, the one he never married. There in the sun on the sand at the scene of my recent victory in combat, I was becoming ever more sure that Tessa was my woman number eight.

“… and also the smartest and the strongest,” she was saying.

Flattery. Huh. That proved this wasn’t Tessa. But which sister was it?

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The Infants Didn’t Answer

  • by jenI’ve had tests.
  • unfettered by child labor laws
  • down in the pelvic region
  • rolled about in uncouth positions
  • like lovers do

Tune in next time part 361      Click Here for Earlier Installments

The infants didn’t answer my query. Believe me, if they had I would have heard them. I have excellent hearing — I’ve had tests. At the Academy they are unfettered by child labor laws, and they take full advantage of it, forcing students to construct weapons under the guise of education during the day, and conducting rigorous physical exams well into the night. I was loath to enroll my children in such an establishment, but would they be safe without the proper training? Through no fault of their own they’d been born into a dangerous life. What kind of father would I be if I failed to equip them for survival?

Pondering such an important topic left me distracted, and before I knew it I was face to face with the last person I expected to see in the Inimical Archipelago.

“Tessa!”

I hadn’t seen her since I left the island in the biplane with Xylona, and at that point she’d been kissing my brother Jove. Perhaps this wasn’t Tessa at all, but one of her sisters in disguise. And what a disguise! She was wearing a grass hula skirt and coconut bra.

I tried to keep my guard up, but it was nearly impossible when she said, “I’ve been thinking about you, you know, down in the pelvic region.” She ran her hands over her foliage-clad hips. “It’s been so long since you and I rolled about in uncouth positions, like lovers do.”

I was quite exhausted, and carrying four newborn babies, but something about the way Tessa rustled her skirt got my heart rate racing. She slipped out of her hula garb and laid it in the shade of a nearby beach umbrella, then took my sons from me one by one and placed them gently on it.

Even though I knew she probably wasn’t the real Tessa, and even if she was she was most likely merely after another sample of my alleged exotic compound, I could not resist her.

I used my top hat to block the babies’ view.

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John Turned in a Full Circle

  • by KentI’d love to get to know you
  • she’s not a girl who
  • You may be an adventurous person
  • use their vacant home to have sex
  • — or so he thought —

Tune in next time part 360      Click Here for Earlier Installments

John turned in a full circle. He was surrounded by basilisk lizards — or so he thought — as my uncanny reproduction of that creature’s call echoed and reverberated from the limestone cliffs overlooking the beach. This end of the island chain had few permanent residents, but the clifftop was dominated by a sprawling vacation house. When the owners are away, the locals use their vacant home to have sex, I assume.

Before John could regain his wits, I belted out my piece de resistance, the cry of the Himalayan Snowcock. Such creatures would never be found at sea level, but John’s terror of them was such that he slumped onto his derriere. I stepped up and collected the babies. You may be an adventurous person, but you do not want to fuck with a new father of quadruplets.

“Go save your sister,” I urged John. “She needs you. You know she’s not a girl who will get herself out of trouble.”

I left him there in the sand, carrying the four infants like I’d been lugging four infants around my whole life. “So,” I said to them, “what’s your story? I’d love to get to know you little dudes better.”

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The Mimes Began to Circle

  • by jencursed at me and called me a child
  • “I’ve been having relations with your wife.”
  • some perfect mix of ethnicities
  • Boom! You’re officially
  • an allergic reaction to the bite of a basilisk lizard

Tune in next time part 359      Click Here for Earlier Installments

The mimes began to circle, malice in their dead eyes. John seemed unconcerned.

“Olga’s a mime sympathizer, John,” I said. “She’s going to hand that test tube over to the grease-painted scientist they keep trapped in a glass box, and who knows what he’ll do with it!”

“Dr Marceau escaped years ago,” John said. “I’m surprised you didn’t know.”

I shook my head pityingly. “No mime ever truly escapes the glass box, John. If you care about your sister at all you’ll stop her before she completes her initiation rites. Once she fully joins, she’s theirs for life.”

John cursed at me and called me a childish name that I will not dignify by repeating.

“Oh yeah?” I retorted. “I’ve been having relations with your wife.”

It was often like this between John and me. When things got tense we regressed to juvenile taunts.

“These nephews of mine,” John said, cuddling my four infants, “are some perfect mix of ethnicities that the world has never seen before. I’m going to carry them to safety and let the mimes finish you off.”

Before this week I’d had no children, had never wanted them. And now, in the course of just a few days I was suddenly a father of six and something inside me had shifted. It’s like some animal part of my brain said Boom! You’re officially a protector now! and there was nothing I wouldn’t do to protect my offspring. There was no way I could let a backstabber like John raise my sons.

My lightning reflexes and years of extensive Academy training kicked in, and in less than a minute the tide pool was littered with the bobbing corpses of so many mimes.

I wiped my hands on my soggy morning suit and turned to see John backing away, still clutching my quadruplets. Years ago John had suffered an allergic reaction to the bite of a basilisk lizard, and ever since he’d lived in mortal fear of that particular reptile. And as I mentioned before, I am able to imitate the call of any bird or beast. I took a deep breath and made the ululating cry of the basilisk lizard.

John’s eyes widened in panic.

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I Said, “Hand Over The Tube, Olga”

  • by Kentunnaturally taxing their bodily energies
  • how much interaction your son has with the housekeeper
  • captured later that night
  • in more ways than one
  • rebellious but still very poised

Tune in next time part 358      Click Here for Earlier Installments

I said, “Hand over the tube, Olga.”

She sneered. “We’re surrounded by my allies. Let go of me before you get yourself killed. Embarrassingly.”

My own lips curled in a wicked parody of a grin. “Your allies are no threat. All this sun and feigned volleyball has been unnaturally taxing their bodily energies.” It was true. Most of the mimes were still on their feet, technically, but they were bent over and panting with exhaustion.

“Then you leave me no choice,” Olga retorted. “If you continue to interfere, our sleeper agents among the Contrarian nobility will exact revenge upon your children.”

“I hate to admit this,” I said steadily, “but Fleur is more than capable of neutralizing your operatives.” Fleur’s competence was fearsome, but still I was bluffing. I paused dramatically, then said, “I almost feel sorry for them.”

Shrugging, Olga said, “Ultimately it depends on how much interaction your son has with the housekeeper.” Now I knew she was bluffing, too. Housekeeping is banned in Contraria. Although, warlords have been known to flout such regulations. But not Fleur’s father. No, he was a traditionalist, and if he learned of illicit domestic laborers under his roof they and their patrons would be captured later that night.

I tightened my grip on her elbow, and felt the bones shifting in her arm. I flinched, thinking I was injuring her, but it was just her double-jointedness. Soon she gave me the slip in more ways than one, first slipping her arm out of my grasp and then running off up the beach, zig-zagging among the panting mimes and disappearing.

John scuffed his toes through the sand and stared off into the waves. “She’ll get it to Xylona,” he said. “My sister is rebellious but still very poised to see her mission through.”

I slogged over to him in the hot, dry sand. “You sound insane,” was all I had time to say before I made an unnerving discovery. The mimes had caught their breath.

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Olga Slipped Between Heinrich and John

  • by jenI’m no good at math
  • , hands in his pockets,
  • the second best killer that I ever have seen
  • consider them to be murderous badasses
  • Holy hell

Tune in next time part 357      Click Here for Earlier Installments

Olga slipped between Heinrich and John, heading toward the silent volleyball players. I’m no good at math, but there’s no way a group that size could stay quiet during what they’d just witnessed. I hadn’t heard a peep out of them this whole time. Nor had I seen a ball.

“Mimes,” I muttered. “Why did it have to be mimes?”

John just stood there, hands in his pockets, acting like he didn’t know we were surrounded by mimes. Like his own sister, with her marvelous double-jointedness, wasn’t in league with them. John may be the second best killer that I ever have seen, but he’s always underestimated mimes. It’s like he doesn’t consider them to be murderous badasses. I lurched forward and snagged Olga by the elbow. I couldn’t let her hand over the test tube of my semen, whether or not it truly contained the exotic compound everyone claimed.

“Holy hell, Jason!” she shouted. “Let me go!”

“I can’t do that, Olga,” I said. “Disco Island is at the far end of the Archipelago, and we all know that’s dangerously close to White Faces territory. It’s clear where your loyalties lie.”

“And anyway,” said Heinrich. “That’s not Jason.” He handed my four sons to John and waddled off down the beach, taking Svetlana with him.

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Just Hold Still, Dammit!

Jen and Kent are hardcore plotters, expending a ton of energy at the beginning of a project to get every last wrinkle ironed out. It is the Skelley way. It makes it a lot easier to divvy up the writing later if both halves of the partnership have a rock solid understanding of how all the pieces fit together.

But back to that “expending a ton of energy” part. Jen is currently in the midst of creating the actual outline. You know, the kind with roman numerals and all that jazz. It’s something she usually enjoys (don’t judge), but this time it’s frustrating her. Events in the timeline keep oozing around and refusing to hold still, and Jen really feels like they ought to know their place by now.

Our process is long and arduous, but not particularly complicated. Usually anyway.

  • Step one is a lengthy series of conversations where we talk through the whole story and take copious notes.
  • Step two is combing through those notes to put everything in order and discard the bits that are obsolete.
  • Step three is to polish the results of step two into a prose outline. For this novel (Sibling of Music Novel) that came to 24 pages (12,000 words), plus an additional couple of pages of notes on the setting.
  • Step four is not always necessary, but we dusted it off for this novel: an actual calendar to track events. Jen went through the prose outline and distributed the events on the calendar to make sure everything lined up properly. Everything seemed to be swell until she started:
  • Step five, which is the current step — the Real Outline. This is the step where the actual structure of the novel starts to come into focus. We look at how the events will break down into actual scenes. There are plenty of facts that we know about the story and our characters that are important, but that don’t justify their own scene. So as Jen works her way along, she’s looking for dynamic and interesting ways to convey some fairly mundane (for now) facts so that they won’t come out of nowhere later when they matter, and feel unearned.
  • Step six will be using the outline/glorified scene list to create the mini scene synopses that we call stubs.
  • Step seven will be the actual composition.

Each step along the way clarifies our story’s structure, uncovers plot holes and magical thinking, and helps us get to know the characters. By looking at things from so many angles, at so many differing magnifications, we find the weak spots before we start to write. It’s a lot of labor up front, but it saves a ton of work in rewrites.

The problem Jen’s encountering is that the events she so painstakingly placed on the calendar in step four are getting shuffled around in step five. It’s nothing so earthshaking that we need to rethink the plot, it’s just that now the calendar will need to be updated to reflect the actual actual flow of events, and that makes Jen sigh.

Having a writing partner means having someone to soothe your fevered brow while you shake your fist at the universe you created.