Writing Prod - Fairytale Cocktail 2

            It is time to start over with the prompts. It would probably be easiest to present them in the same order that I did the first time around. Anyone have a different suggestion?

            The first of the twenty-four prods that I presented was . . . Fairytale Cocktail. It has some similarity to several of the other prompts in that in mixes plot elements from different stories or just recasts them in a different setting.

            Although any story line will do, I suggest taking a fairy tale and adapt it to form your story. Forgive me if I mentioned Frankenstein during my first round of prods, but this is a great story to use; the protagonist creates something that takes on a life of its own and wreaks havoc. That could be a little league coach that creates a drive in his team that grows past the accepted sportsmanship of the game to a self-help guru that starts a trend that ultimately ends up hurting people more than it helps them.

            The purpose of all these prods is to start you thinking about a story line and then allow your creativity to come in and make it yours.

            Hopefully, my example isn’t the same one I used the first time I wrote about this particular prompt. I purposely stuck close to the Frankenstein idea to demonstrate how this technique can produce stories that have a vague similarity, but are still totally unique.

 

 

 

            The Monster Kit

 

            Pseudo-life had such great promise as a new technology. Being able to create customized life forms out of a handful of chemicals and various other odds and ends would have changed the world. But the process was unstable, the creatures dissolved into pools of slime after only a couple of hours.

            Nora Johnston had found a perfect use for the failed technology: Monster Kits. The basic elements were relatively cheap. Put them into a box and sell them to children in order for them to create their very own pet monsters. A big Halloween push had been enormously successful and now thousands of the kits were in the hands of teenagers.

            Then Nora’s first monster came back to life. It was missing a few parts and had gained some that she hadn’t included, but it was the same mini-frankenstein that she put together in her garage over a year ago. Except that Frankie wasn’t adorable and obedient anymore. It wanted to kill her.