Writing Prod: Ph-ph-phrases

            While this may be about the simplest writing prompt in concept it is definitely one that is tricky in its execution. I call it Ph-ph-phrases (sung to the song Changes by David Bowie) and all you do is take an old saying and find a way to turn that into a story, or poem, or pitch. That’s it. As you can tell by the amount of space I needed to explain it there isn’t much to it.

            I’m going use two saying this week for my examples and see if I can’t come up with reasonable pitches for both of them.   

1. One in the hand is worth two in the bush.

            Trade-Day Hunt (Young Reader Book)

Trina loved the market on Trade-day. Today was no exception. Molly Burton had on her trade table the perfect doll. The only problem was that Trina didn’t have enough money. Calling upon the age-old tradition of barter, Trina agrees to locate two hard to find collectibles in trade for the doll. Very quickly, she finds out that the rest of the traders have deals of their own they need help with and soon she is in over her head with tricky requests. All of this for a doll – the perfect doll.

2. Don’t buy other people’s problems.

            Space Junk

 Roy Spunkmeyer wanted to be a space merchant since he was old enough to observe the stars in the sky. When an old friend of the family announces that he is ready to retire Roy jumps at the chance to buy the “slightly used” ship that Bill had been using over the last sixty years. Only after Roy spends the last of his savings, exhausted all sources of credit available to him, and convinced his parents to take out a mortgage on their home does he find out he has not only bought Bill’s business, but all of the problems that go with it. How will he, and the crusty old alien that comes with the ship, solve a cargo full of problems that were forty years in the making and do it in less than a month?