PROMPT 39 –
OCCUPATIONAL HAZARD
Story ideas
abound in the world around us. They can even be taken from our jobs. This prompt
gives authors a chance to pull from something they know quite well—their jobs.
If the author has a problem picking an event from their job then they can look
to the profession of a relative or a friend.
Choose a
profession and then add a surprise to the normal work routine. A doctor could
find that his/her patient has a mysterious organ that doesn’t belong in a human
body. A construction worker might discover a buried artifact, or a body, on the
construction site. A nurse could walk into a room and find that a coma patient
is awake and asks her to write something down because it is important.
For
example, one of my first jobs was as a projectionist in a small independent
movie theater. What if a character started a new job at a theater and discovered
that the projector started by itself at midnight
every Saturday and showed images of the future?
Sneak Peek – Randy loves his job as a projectionist, staying
up late and watching movies felt more like entertainment than work. Then a
friend asks him to cover his Saturday night shift, everything changes. He
discovers that the projector can start on its own and shows images of events
that will take place in the week ahead. But his friend doesn’t return to work
and Randy is left as the sole caretaker of a projector that predicts the future
and a mystery of a missing coworker to solve.
