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.

Good Morning!

  • by jenwe’re crawling into your bed
  • with new ice cream flavors like
  • five men, all Danes
  • she sank into my uncle’s arms
  • In the sea, yes.

Good morning! We’re crawling into your bed to tempt you with new ice cream flavors liked by many the world over, according to our prognostications. Do not be alarmed! We are five men, all Danes, and as everyone knows, Danes are the happiest people on Earth! Just yesterday we visited your neighbor with our new ice cream flavors, and she was so excited she fainted, and in doing so she sank into my uncle’s arms. That gentleman on the left, with the mustache, is my Uncle Hans. He is the one who discovered the new ice cream flavors, and you’ll never guess where! The recipes for these delicious new ice cream flavors were recorded in the sunken library of Atlantis! In the sea, yes. I can tell that you are surprised. But not nearly as surprised as Auntie Birgit when Uncle Hans brought home his little waterlogged book of mermaid recipes and asked her to make these delicious new ice cream flavors. Which is your favorite?

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Yolanda Hated Mr Wong

  • k-avatarwounded by betrayal
  • Mr Wong smiled at her
  • — amputation, tongue-cutting, excisions
  • nothing but a festering rat king of malware
  • such a dreamy, vacant expression in his eyes

Yolanda hated Mr Wong. He had no right to look so happy.

It was no surprise to see such a dreamy, vacant expression in his eyes. After all, his cybernetic brain was nothing but a festering rat king of malware. She had contemplated ways to fix him, but they all entailed great effort and expense, and he would just download all the same garbage into himself as soon as she booted him up. He was an addict, and he didn’t want help. Yolanda therefore contemplated ways of punishing him — amputation, tongue-cutting, excisions of random chunks of his body — but these were just idle fantasies, unvented spleen. Really, she was just bitter.

Mr Wong smiled at her. Somewhere deep in the fetid sewers of his CPU, he could still appreciate irony. He was a teacher and a scientist, built with lofty aspirations. Yolanda was a sexbot. She turned into his nurse, a protracted good deed for which she could be dismantled. They weren’t supposed to interact. Their arrangement made both of them fugitives, but only she would be in any real danger if they were caught.

Her only choice was to abandon him and hope his incoherence would prevent him from leading anyone back to her. And, hope that happy Mr Wong was too far gone to be wounded by betrayal.

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I Stand in the Rain

  • by jencan’t you hear the thunder?
  • “You shut up!”
  • one gold, one black
  • brown skin and a flat skull
  • Leonard is a strange person

I stand in the rain, gazing at the man beside me. Leonard is a strange person, but undeniably attractive. His eyes entrance me, one gold, one black, nestled in brown skin and a flat skull like faberge eggs in an ornate display case.

I try to tell him I love him, but he leans in close. “Can’t you hear the thunder?” he whispers in my ear, making me shiver. “That rumbling is Zeus’s way of saying ‘You shut up!’ to us mortals.”

I try once more to speak. Leonard’s ornately colored eyes hold mine and he lays his finger across my lips. “Shhh,” he breathes, “you don’t want to anger Zeus.”

And he’s right. I don’t. I lean in and press my lips to his just as a bright bolt of lightning illuminates the sky.

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Frank Asked For a Moment

  • k-avatarstraddled the embalmed cadaver
  • borne upon the arms of demons
  • gymnastics for the monkeys
  • he buckled, confessing all
  • turned toward the Plexiglas window

Frank asked for a moment to collect his thoughts. Then he drew a deep breath and began speaking as he picked up his sword belt, which he buckled, confessing all that we had heard was true. He explained why he’d straddled the embalmed cadaver, that such contact with the remains was his only means of learning the killer’s identity. How his consciousness was borne upon the arms of demons to the nether realm to converse with the deceased’s spirit. That, knowing we wouldn’t understand his methods, he first arranged for us to attend an exposition of gymnastics for the monkeys that roamed the parking lots at night, hoping it would distract us long enough for him to complete the mission and return. But the monkeys hadn’t held our interest, and we returned too early, which is how we came to watch nonplussed as Frank turned toward the Plexiglas window and said, “I can explain.”

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Pembroke’s Parents

by jen

  • enter the full bloom of his awkward rebellious phase
  • half hidden in a heap of brown leaves
  • carry their lunches in clamshells
  • college campuses everywhere
  • annoyed at the tone taken by the anthropologists

Pembroke’s parents dragged him along on a very long and thorough tour of northeastern universities, convinced they would discover the perfect scholastic garden in which their darling son could enter the full bloom of his awkward rebellious phase under the watchful eye of learned professionals who would keep his intellect from going to seed.

“College campuses everywhere look the same in the fall,” Pembroke grumbled. “They’re all just a bunch of brick buildings surrounding squares of grass half hidden in a heap of brown leaves.” He kicked at a crack in the sidewalk.

Pembroke’s mother did her best to distract him from his sullen mood. “Look Pemmy, the sorority girls here carry their lunches in clamshells! Isn’t that adorable?”

“You sound like a clueless anthropologist, Mom.”

Pembroke’s mother smiled indulgently, but inside she was annoyed at the tone taken by the anthropologists‘ teenage critic.

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Georg Examined the Creatures

k-avatar

  • walking on his hands
  • like the ribs of some petrified monster
  • offering his opinion
  • chasm deeper than the Grand Canyon
  • and I know it’s not the same thing

Georg examined the creatures walking on his hands. They were not insects, as he first assumed, for they were bipedal and wore tiny little helmets on their tiny little heads. He sat in the shade of his wrecked vessel, its superstructure jutting up like the ribs of some petrified monster. On the comlink, Driscoll was offering his opinion that it would take only a few days for mission control to locate them and send rescue. But Georg knew better. Their impact had gouged out a chasm deeper than the Grand Canyon, so unless Driscoll succeeded in boosting the comlink signal for interplanetary signalling, there was no way control would expect survivors and therefore no reason for them to send anybody. The minuscule beings had trekked up his arm. One of them pointed at his face and they turned around to run back toward his hand. “Oh, no no no,” Georg murmured, “don’t run away. I was hoping we could communicate.”

“I’m not running,” Driscoll replied. Georg had forgotten his comlink was open. “But I am glad to hear you’re willing to talk. We’ll have to rely on each other to make it through this.”

“Whatever,” Georg replied. “Hey, if we do end up marooned here, and I know it’s not the same thing you said but I think we have to face it, and if we are stuck, there’s something I think you should know.”

After several silent seconds Driscoll said, “Yes?”

“We’re not alone.”

Georg slowly stood and took one careful step, moving slowly so the crowd around him had a chance to get out from underfoot.

 

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I Had Thought Myself Alone

by jen

  • alone in a small boat upon the broad Atlantic
  • crouching in frozen fear
  • unfolding the flag of the United Kingdom
  • “You don’t have to eat it.”
  • to emerge from the Caribbean

I had thought myself alone in a small boat upon the broad Atlantic when I first heard the voice coming from belowdecks. Now I huddled in the stern, crouching in frozen fear as an apparition rose through the gangway, my numb fingers unfolding the flag of the United Kingdom in a vain attempt to hide myself.

“You don’t have to eat it.”

That was all it said, over and over, in its waterlogged whisper, the terrible sound burrowing into my brain.

“You don’t have to eat it,” it said again, waving a rotten lime in my terrified face. “But if you don’t, you’ll get scurvy!”

I screamed at this sudden new vocalization for that was the moment I knew I was being haunted by Captain Archibald Bloodygums, the ghastliest sea ghost ever to emerge from the Caribbean.

If I didn’t eat the wretched lime I would incur his wrath and my little yacht would surely sink, and me with it. If I did eat it, I would join his ghastly crew for all eternity.

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By The Time I Was Fourteen

k-avatar

  • the virtuous among us
  • dragged him backwards
  • a number of skirmishes with Mrs Hall
  • a bonny lord and a merry one
  • I was fourteen years old

By the time I was fourteen years old, I was already a veteran of a number of skirmishes with Mrs Hall. But that was the year that I acquired an ally in the form of Consarn J Varmint, a valorous warrior and a connoisseur of acorns, and the swiftest squirrel on the block. Among his fuzzy tribe he was a bonny lord and a merry one. The others were inspired to courage by his death-defying feats.

Mrs Hall was probably a fine person in many regards, but her mania for tulips engendered savagely unreasonable behavior. If a ball or a frisbee overflew the flowerbeds she unwisely placed at the boundary of my back yard, requiring me to overfly the same flowers to retrieve the errant missile, a half-hour of apoplexy was the inevitable result. On the rare, exceedingly rare, occasions that any flowers were in fact damaged, the screaming could go on for the whole afternoon and featured threats of police involvement.

So, Consarn’s appetite for her bulbs gave me a tremendous joy, which the virtuous among us will not condemn even though it came at another’s expense. Mrs Hall turned out to be inhumanly quick, and one day caught hold of Consarn by his proud, bushy tail. She dragged him backwards through her beloved flowerbed, and I was aghast, until Consarn got sufficient traction on the lawn to arrest his retrograde movement. He sped forward as if shot from a cannon, dragging Mrs Hall up the side of an oak tree behind her garage.

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Whenever She Talked About Dieter

  • by jenwhen she found out he was married
  • exaggerated his size
  • seating configuration woes
  • blue-gray vest with silvery buttons.
  • now have caught up with the Hamburger

Whenever she talked about Dieter, Brittany exaggerated his size, both in the financial and genital departments. She planned an elaborate dinner party to introduce him to her entire family. But when she found out he was married, to some hausfrau in Hamburg, the small apartment’s seating configuration woes seemed hardly worth mentioning, at least not in comparison to her vendetta.

“His lies now have caught up with the Hamburger, as has the woman he scorned,” Brittany growled. “Hell hath no fury, Dieter.”

There were tears on his blue-gray vest with silvery buttons, along with blood and sweat. Brittany had at least never had to exaggerate the size of his wardrobe.

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Go Ahead

  • who supplies noodles
    k-avatar
  • flung backwards upon the bed
  • sometimes I say the stupid things I think
  • forced to rehire an elementary school teacher
  • in the half-remodeled kitchen

Go ahead. Ask me how my day was.

You’ve never had a day like this, not unless you were forced to rehire an elementary school teacher who supplies noodles to a ring of car thieves, not unless you had to explain to the parents of that teacher’s whole class why you fired him in the first place and then announce his continued access to their children without pausing for breath. Not unless you went on to imply that those particular students had probably stolen more than a few cars themselves, so what was the harm. Not unless you then got fired, and not rehired.

Getting up this morning was a mistake. Once I was up, I should have caved in to my urges and let myself be flung backwards upon the bed in the half-remodeled kitchen. Oh, you bet your ass there’s a story behind that, but it’s too long and I’m too short of bourbon.

Sometimes I say the stupid things I think, and today I said them to the wrong people.

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