As much as I enjoy writing flash fiction, sometimes I just don’t feel like I click with the story I’m writing. And with the time limit, there’s really no chance to change tack and try something else. The moment I started writing this week, I just wanted to go back and make different choices, but that inexorable timer told me it was not possible within our agreed upon parameters. “I hate this, this is so bad,” and variations on that theme popped up between both Robert and me the whole time we wrote. Robert read his story out loud, and I love what he wrote! I wish that I’d written it! It’s charming and funny and unexpected. I dithered around, trying to avoid reading mine, and finally ripped off the bandage. And, well, Robert didn’t hate it. He even liked the ending. It just goes to show that you’re not necessarily the best judge of your own work. Or maybe, your feelings aren’t the best judge of your work. Be gentle with yourself, work with someone you can trust (if you can!), and be open to both critiques and to praise. Funny how both hurt sometimes.
If you join us in this prompt, or any of the others, please let us know! If you’re joining us for the first time, here’s the primer on this prompt system. Happy writing!
We had some discussion about following the rules today. Neither of us has been great about keeping to the sentence limit that Mary Robinette Kowal recommends in her video. But we decided to wait until another day to pay attention to that aspect. It’s funny how it seems like you need more time to write less.
The prompt this week was
Character: Programmer
Object: Coat
Genre/Tone: Action
I feel like say this almost every week, but this is a genre that I’m not super familar with. I should look into composing a reading list that will help me fill in the gaps in my knowlege. If you have any favorite books in the action genre, let me know in the comments!
And, as always, let us know if you felt inspired to try out the prompt this week (or from any other week!). Happy reading, and happy writing!
It’s not funny, but it’s a comedy in the sense that it ends on a hopeful moment for my main character. I love to laugh, and to make others laugh, but sometimes I just can’t think of a good joke in a time limit. I might have tried for some slapstick, especially near the end when someone nearly falls off the boat.
As usual, please let us know what you think! And if you try this exercise, we’d love to see what you come up with. Happy Reading! Happy Writing!
For this tone I tried to draw from the feeling I got from a couple of nightmares I had nearly 20 years ago. In the first one I knew I was dead, and I was in a strange lightless country, but I had the sense that life was just a millimeter away behind an invisible barrier, that I should be able to cross, if I could only find it again. I woke up before I did. The second, I was in a room, and the door wouldn’t open, and the light wouldn’t turn on. And I realized that I was never going to escape from that room. Some deep part of me was terrified, but the most dominant part just felt numb disappointment and acceptance.
I was aiming at keeping at least a grain of hope for Brother Gustav’s entrance into realms of light. So I don’t know if this could be considered true horror.
If you try this or any other of these prompts, please share it with us, if you’re comfortable!
I won’t say either way whether this story reflects my opinions about politics or politicians. It’s the idea that first started gelling in my brain-space when we got our prompts. Sometimes the hard thing about these prompts is that no one idea really sticks out to me, and I end up with a mushy mash of ideas that only kind of work. Since we try hard to stick to the time limit, there’s really no chance to extract an idea if it doesn’t reveal itself immediately. At least, that’s how it generally works for me. Robert might think differently! Anyway, enjoy this saga about a politician and his lute. If you join in this exercise, please let us know! We’d love to read your stories and know what you think of the exercise.
When ‘satire’ was selected as our genre, Robert said he was just relieved it wasn’t romance, which is how I got to the idea of a werewolf breakup. I like the idea of a regular apartment building inhabited by both regular mortals and monsters, in a sort of uneasy truce – I’m adding that to my idea list for a later date! For now, I hope you enjoy the drama of Rodrick and Helen.
Let me know what you think, and if you try this exercise, please let us know!
This week’s prompts got me so interested in how a fantasy character would fit into a sci-fi world that I nearly forgot to include the object, and I struggled to get anywhere near a plot. I forced something through, kinda, and I think I could make something of this with a little more time and space; but by the time I figured out where I was going, the opportunity to fill it out was basically gone.
This week’s prompts:
Character: Demigod
Object: Deodorant
Genre/Tone: Sci-fi
Of course, I almost forgot to include the Object prompt at all.
If you want to try this exercise yourself, drop your story (or a link to wherever you post it) in the comments below!
As I remember, whenever gods show up in Star Trek, they end up being aliens with advanced technology, but they aren’t actually divinities. So with this prompt I wondered what it would be like to be a real demigod in a world of Star Trek-like technology. This is not a full exploration of that possibility, but it was a fun start. I think that adding deordorant to the mix just begs for a funny, light-hearted story. And maybe that’s ok. As usual, if you end up trying the prompt, I’d love to read what you come up with!
I wasn’t sure what to do when the genre randomizer gave us “drama” as a prompt for this week’s exercise. Isn’t “drama” the foundation of all stories and genres? Valued stakes at risk, conflict in pursuing goals?
But the “drama” section on my streaming platforms usually recommends character-driven stories without other significant elements: contemporary settings, no magic, maybe a little action or romance or mystery but not as the primary plot. Mostly stories about characters overcoming some inner struggle.
So that’s what I tried for with these prompts:
Character: Pianist
Object: Feathers
Genre/Tone: Drama
I don’t know how well I managed to create a compelling character drama, but at least I managed my lowest word-count yet: just four hundred words. (The original exercise aims for two hundred fifty words!)
Let me know what you think! And if you feel inspired to try the exercise yourself, post it in the comments!
The recording studio felt like a large practice room: the same muffling on the walls carried the same musty smell and the same dulling of all sounds to bare thumps. Amanda much preferred the live bright spaces of a stage or even an open-air amphitheater. But she was not here by choice.
Her band leader Lisa, the bassist in their jazz trio, had accepted a challenge to create the most original piece of music, and had bet all their gear on winning the challenge. Now she was stuffed with a baby grand in the most uncreative space she could imagine.
She sat at the keyboard and put the headphones over her ears. They were they only way she could hear Lisa and Gretchen, their drummer. They were each sealed off in separate rooms so that their individual instruments could be recorded without interference from each other. But it was the interference that made the harmonies, that made the dissonance, that made the music. And the first take was an utter failure: a simple ii-V-III-vi loop with the least inspired melody Amanda had ever played. She hated it.
When the engineer called for a break, Amanda turned to open the door. She needed to talk to the others, but the studio was a labyrinth and somehow she opened a door to the alley in back, where the stench of the dumpsters slapped her in the face. A pair of pigeons hopped down from the eaves and into the isolation room with her piano. “No, get out!” She chased the birds around the instrument, but as soon as she got close to one, the other would escape into the sound box or across the keyboard. And she stopped, and listened. Notes she’d never put together before. She turned and shut the door, locking the birds in with her. Amid the flying feathers, she sat back at the keyboard and said to the engineer, “Okay, I’m ready.”
At the end of the day, she ushered the pigeons out of the recording booth, and met her bandmates in the greenroom. Posters and headshots covered the walls, and the scent of cinnamon potpourri covered the sweaty musk, but neither Lisa nor Gretchen were looking anywhere else except at Amanda. “Where did you get those chords? Those melodies? Those… noises?”
“Oh, it’s just something a little bird told me.” She smiled, confident they’d keep their gear.
