Category: Stichomancy Prompts

I Always Used To

  • great hammer blows
  • I always used to envy children
  • my father’s arrogant stride
  • with that horse face
  • this surely must be a sin
  • they glowed crimson

I always used to envy children whose parents seemed normal, whereas my mother’s sinister leer was overshadowed only by my father’s arrogant stride. Mother’s leer was really something, with that horse face sporting eyes like a denizen of the depths — they glowed crimson. So, that should help put father’s arrogance into perspective.

Even today I blame them for where I wound up, doing body make-up on second-tier professional wrestlers. Casting blame, this surely must be a sin.

Today’s client insists on eating while I bronze his quads. Great Hammer blows on his soup, and my belly growls. I can’t eat until he’s in the ring.

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Fernando Was Not

  • It gave birthby jen
  • Negligence and so forth
  • the three-trailer-long house
  • wrapped in brown paper
  • He was almost bald
  • And fell and fell and fell.
  • shaped like a Hershey’s Kiss or a woman’s breast

Fernando was not an attractive man. He was almost bald, for one thing. To disguise his naked scalp, he kept it wrapped in brown paper which made it seem shaped like a Hershey’s Kiss or a woman’s breast.

Fernando spent most of his time alone in the three-trailer-long house he called his Triplex of Solitude. It was three Airstream campers welded together.

Fernando’s days were spent daydreaming about hot celebrities he saw on the internet. His favorite fantasy was about how Angelina Jolie fell in love with him. And fell and fell and fell. She would parade around the Triplex, in Fernando’s fevered imaginings, wearing skimpy underwear. “Negligence and so forth,” he murmured.

Fernando was also not very bright.

His musings were interrupted one day by his pet turtle. It gave birth.

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When My Brother Arrived

  • nothing that would offend meby jen
  • My manservant read to him
  • decorated with red leather stitching
  • and another with lust
  • with a rueful chuckle
  • He abuses your trust
  • annoyed and proud at once

When my brother arrived for his visit he wore the boots decorated with red leather stitching that were his inheritance from our father. He was annoyed and proud at once, for those boots were Father’s most prized possessions, yet were worth very little monetarily when compared to the family estate which was left to me.

My manservant read to him two stories, as he requested, one with daring deeds and another with lust. “But,” my brother said with a rueful chuckle, “nothing that would offend me.”

Once my brother was asleep, my manservant came to me and said, “He abuses your trust. Those are not, in fact, the boots of your father.”

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from the comments, Jen has another take on the same prompt:

“I want to hear a story,” the old priest demanded. “But nothing that would offend me, if you please.”

His request made me feel both annoyed and proud at once, so I had my manservant read to him from the big black book decorated with red leather stitching that has been in my family for countless generations.

Afterwards the priest took me aside to gossip about my manservant. “He abuses your trust,” he said with a rueful chuckle. “I smelled alcohol on his breath. He read one story with vice in it, and another with lust.”

I nodded, secretly pleased that my manservant had done just as I told him.

No Doubt Your Husband

  • equivalent of applause
  • the salty pork filling
  • no doubt your husband
  • played Matthew’s harpsichord
  • they’re so bloody stupid
  • wood and brick and flesh
  • not unobtrusive enough

No doubt your husband sent you to the Music Conservancy to learn the arcane styles of the baroque period, and that is how it came to pass that you played Matthew’s harpsichord. Your performance earned you the equivalent of applause, the salty pork filling as they sometimes call it, from Matthew.

Your urgent conjoinment in his quarters shook the building physically and emotionally, creating of he and you and the house a single perspiring being of wood and brick and flesh. Such assignations must be unobtrusive, and yours was not unobtrusive enough. It is common knowledge on campus.

No doubt your husband is ignorant of your carnal explorations among the faculty, as they so often are. They’re so bloody stupid.

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The Adult Conspiracy

  • a ninety percent chance of success!by jen
  • a large raindrop, then another
  • to cook in spite of her protests
  • when I emerged from customs
  • adult conspiracy to spoil Beatrice
  • drawing back from his kisses
  • with its own gin palace

The adult conspiracy to spoil Beatrice‘s appetite stood a ninety percent chance of success! They continued to cook in spite of her protests that she wanted to save room for dinner, like her momma said she should, and soon tears fell from her eyes like a large raindrop, then another.

I knew when I emerged from customs that this was an unusual country – with its own gin palace at the airport and everything. Beatrice’s mother could be seen there, through the window, flirting shamelessly with a man who was not her husband, but drawing back from his kisses just in time. Did she know what the customs officials were trying to do, right then, to her darling daughter’s diet?

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Uncle Timothy Despairs

  • her father’s protege in the city
  • choked with seaweed
  • (she called it fizzy)
  • a great deal of reviewing
  • I slithered to the chemist
  • Uncle Timothy despairs
  • sometime between 1887 & 1889

“Uncle Timothy despairs of finding the antidote in time,” Salome wept. Timothy was not her real uncle, but a longtime family friend; her father’s protege in the city.

The inundation had remade the city, and its dwellers. Avenues choked with seaweed, corner vendors selling sea cucumber sandwiches to lithe, scaly pedestrians.

My preparations for a sojourn had remade me likewise. I slithered to the chemist, the love of my life, Salome, and tried to console her. I knew she would be my salvation — she already had an effervescent concoction (she called it fizzy) that had almost worked.

Sometime between 1887 & 1889, the comet had grazed our atomsphere… the answer was in the Farmers’ Almanac, but finding the right pages would entail a great deal of reviewing.

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Stichomancy Writing Prompts

These nuggets of fictive gold were created using writing prompts gathered by culling random lines and phrases from books (or other sources, see below). The word stichomancy means “divination by lines” and refers to a fortune-telling technique. Employing it for writing prompts is a procedure that we honed to a fine art at our critique group meetings in a bookstore. It’s uncomplicated: grab a random book, flip to a random page, and point to a random line. The art lies in spotting those lines with the quirkiest personality when taken out of context. We became especially adept at creating surreal and demented lists to work from, and assigning them to each other. (Much more fun to see someone else grapple with it than to inflict it on yourself!) The results are brief, largely unedited, and often ridiculous.

The bulleted list of sentence fragments at the top is the fodder. The assignment is to take those disparate phrases and wrangle them into a single, short, coherent (with any luck) little gem. We typically skew ours toward bizarre humor, but there’s no rule against using a more serious tone. As you can imagine, the quality level varies. Not all works of microfiction are successful. Bonus points for running the list in order, or for using it all in a single sentence.

Sometimes the fragments come from song lyrics, sometimes from books. We’ve also pulled prompts from blogs, menus, TV dialog, and conversation.

When we’re feeling competitive we’ll both use the same prompt and see who comes up with the best/most ridiculous result.

There are other kinds of prompts that we use sometimes, but this is our favorite.

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