The Sorry Prompt

Your main character feels very sorry about something, but there is no way to apologize. It seems to follow him/her like a small dog. Your main character wants to NOT FEEL SO SORRY ANYMORE. What is he/she sorry about? Maybe he/she said something unwise to somebody a long time ago. Let this feeling color the story.

Prompt words:

whisper
accidental
beer
bowl
hoard
TV tray

Troublesome Beauty

Write a piece that has something to do with the issue of physical beauty. Perhaps your main character is beautiful, or worships someone who is, or something... Maybe the character thinks about beauty too much (gee, that would be unusual in THIS culture!) Let the obsession with beauty get you character into trouble!!!

Here are some prompt words to possibly incorporate:

coo
change
feed
champagne
opal
bus
hip
cap
tender
cinder

feeling "miffed" prompt! 200 words max.

okay, so i like the word "miffed" because it's a fairly outdated word. I want to bring it back to life, so i'm hoping to encourage it's reanimation through prompt work! Yes! Miffed lives!

The theme for a little story (how about 200 word maximum) for this prompt is feeling miffed, and here are some words to incorporate:

percolate
hang open
ultraviolet
delicacy
waves of applause
Gin-Fizz
hunch
undercoat

50 Word Story Prompt

Write a fifty-word story. The theme: Dependency.


dark
curtain
cut
fuss
teeth
worse
mean
dang!
disease
"hello"

prompt: carelessness

vary line lengths. be sure to bring in as much sensory information as possible. Carelessness is a theme you might want to use.


prompt words:

button
Christ
trick
hair
heave
pool
nail clippers
champagne
coffee table

Out of Character

Write a piece in which your main character is acting "out of character," talking and acting in a way that is just very, very odd considering who they are. In the writing of it, you'll figure out why this is so, then you can really get a handle on the story. Let the reason come to you IN the writing, not before you start.

words to play with: reason, confident, only, clock, dead, window, strange, parents, mustard, lawn, mirror, stem, tight, disease, glass.

emotional knowledge and intuition

Emotional Knowledge and Intuition:

One way to get to this is to write a story through the perspective of a curious family pet. A caged pet would have a different way of looking at things than one which roams the house. Since animals do not understand language, this exercise will be based mostly on the physical reality it observes.

words to play with:

crawl, hand, bed, curl, broom, water, lost, shriek, lip, eye

prompt - a friend's moving sale

My friend (a former client) Dan Santy, pres. of Santy Adverting in Pheonix, sent this to a large group of friends and associates. I knew that Dan's ad agency had recently moved.

I love the potential for a bulletin board to tell little stories. I was inspired not only to buy the Hungry Man Dinner and the good toilet reads on e-bay, but to think about using the photos of these strange, assorted items as prompts. I love finding things, and this kind of treasure hunt works my imagination.