Writing Prompt #29

            PROMPT TWENTY-NINE – BRING OUT YOUR DEAD 

            It may sound a bit morbid, but with this prompt you’re going to get inspiration for your story from the obituaries. Look at a couple of the biographies on the obituaries page and select one that grabs your attention. Ask yourself what sort of story would a person like this be involved in. Make changes to the character as needed.  

            Sample Obituary: Following high school, Robert Pulson enlisted in the Navy, serving on a ship that patrolled the Panama Canal area. He received a B.S. degree and spent his career doing hybrid corn research in Kansas. Due to his disability he took an early retirement from Corn King Co. His retirement interests were music related.  

            The pitch for this exercise is based on the above obituary.  

Ghosts of the Corn – A Navy enlisted man and his buddies spend a week trekking through the jungles of Panama and discover a native tribe who cultivate a corn field where the dead walk the earth. When he steals several ears of corn to plant in his parent’s farm in Kansas, tribal spirits of the dead work against him, first to prevent the corn from growing and then to disrupt his studies to develop a hybrid which will grow in Kansas where his brother is buried. Robert wants is one last conversation with his brother to resolve the argument they had before his death, but the haunting may drive him insane before his research succeeds.

 

 

Writing Prompt #28

            PROMPT TWENTY-EIGHT - MEMORIES

Using this prompt should result in creating stories that are more emotionally driven since they will be based on the author’s life experiences. Allow words to flow from your subconscious to the page, making a list of any nouns that are generated this way. Then let your mind associate those with mental pictures out of your past. These become the foundation for your stories.

For instance:

Airplane – climbing a plane monument in a park and nearly falling off.

Truck – my family taking a vacation in my dad’s beat up Chevy.

Lumber – working with an accident prone laborer twice my age.            

 

Slow Moe – Randy started his construction career as a laborer under the tutelage of Joe “Moe” Morrison. Moe suffered injury after injury, remaining a laborer even after Randy started his own construction company and hired him. Then Randy suffers a debilitating work injury and Moe offers help Randy at home until he recovers. In the wake of their strengthening friendship, Randy discovers that Moe’s mishaps weren’t funny at all.

 

Writing Prompt #27

            PROMPT TWENTY-SEVEN– IF YOU BUILD IT

 

This is similar to the Titles prompt in which you look at the names of books, movies, and songs to inspire you in creating an original story. The difference is that with this prompt you are creating the title yourself rather than looking at what’s already out there.

During the process of naming some of your earlier works you may have developed a list of titles that sounded great, but didn’t fit the story as well as you would have liked. This is a perfect time to trot those out and put them to use. Or maybe a great title for a story popped into your head while you were driving to work. Now you just need a story to go with it.

If inspiration hasn’t dropped the name of a story into your lap then you will have to work a bit to build one. Modify a quote, an old saying, or a verse from the Bible to make it sound snappy. Make a list of random words from the dictionary and move them around until they form some sort of cohesive line that grabs your attention. Take the first line of your favorite novel and turn it into a title.

            The pitch for this exercise is based on a title that came to me several years ago and, for whatever reason, caught my attention—The Price of Souls. 

The Price of Souls – Lona dreamed of becoming the first woman President of the United States. Then she grew up. Life in the fast lane seemed more realistic and entertaining than childhood fantasies. One party too much and Lona stands in front of the Creator. She is charged with correcting the mistakes of her life—a task that may take generations to undo the series of ill events which resulted from her actions.