This page is intended to be an interactive place.
We will put up prompts regularly to stimulate those writing juices. This is the place to visit when that dreaded condition hits Writers Block. There is evidence that the way to treat this situation is to write a little every day. Even if it is not very good. Try writing a short story every week only a 300-word one, that way you won’t feel it’s a burden. It is impossible to write 52 rubbish stories so you can smash your way through that block. After that using the best of your endeavours you can even expand or polish your work and have a reservoir to use for competitions.
Here are the first pickings:
Write a 300-word story with the first sentence. “I like hats.” That’s what Duncan said the day before he killed Sally.
or:
She found him in the Terminal Bar and Grill. He was sober, for a change.
Try these by including snippets of dialogue into your story.
“Don’t say that to me again.”
“Where are you going?”
Another way to loosen those words from their blockage is by working on showing not telling exercises. Here are a few and there will be more on a regular basis.
These are a couple of examples of show not tell. You are not telling the whole story just showing a snippet of your story
The mango was ripe and tasted sweet
She knew about the mango tree. Although only two, she knew what she wanted, that sweet ripe mango dangling just out of reach. Stamping and yelling soon brought her parents. She graciously accepted the prize. Soon she was enjoying the fruits of her labour, making a sticky mess of herself.
Carl was divorced
She had been his best friend, his soul mate. Now another had supplanted him. Carl awaited the judge to undo those vows made only sixteen years ago. The words, till death do us part, ran like a hamster wheel through his mind as the judge confirmed the break.
Here is a couple for you to try:
The building was deserted
Annette was sick
If you would like to see your work on this website send it as an attachment in an email to: [email protected]
May 2022 More for you to think about
Try a short story using these prompts:
Start your story with someone making a cup of tea or coffee – either for themselves or for someone else.
Daily Horoscope: ‘Someone close to you will tell you a secret
A couple of Show not tell prompts:
She didn’t know what to say
He was an old man
Here are a few more dialogue prompts:
“Don’t drop that box!”
“I don’t fancy your chances.”
Here are a couple of dialogue prompts
“I couldn’t just walk on by.”
“There’s no walking away from this.”
Have a go at a short story
Tires screeched. I turned and ran down the alley.
or this one which seems appropriate at the moment.
Going on this vacation had been a mistake.
To get you going here is my interpretation of
“Let’s see how this suits you.”
Eyes
“I want all the girls over 12 in the yard.”
Camp guards rounded up the few girls still alive. Gaunt faced their stick-thin legs hardly able to support them they waited blue with cold as the commandant marched up and down.
One pale-faced girl stood gazing straight at the woman in charge of them. She had not spoken since seeing her mother and sisters led into the gas chambers. She muttered, “Bitch.”
The commandant swung around, her lips curled in a sneer as she demanded. “Who said that?”
The girl was silent even as the fist connected with her face. She knew she would be dead soon. For now, she wanted to show her hatred.
“Bring her to the clinic.”
The burly guards dragged the girl through the doors into the treatment room. She knew there was no point in trying to resist physically but she could return her hatred with her gaze. Her watery pale grey-green eyes, continued to glare at her attacker. She was just a helpless girl.
The commandant said, “Strap her onto the bed.”
The guards hastily grabbed the blue and white striped top yanking it off to reveal the emaciated body and incipient breasts. In moments, thick leather straps held her arms and legs to the bed. The venom in her eyes her only retaliation.
The commandant busily filled a syringe.
Holding it aloft she said, “Let’s see how this suits you.”
She plunged the needle into the girl’s heart, injecting phenol.
As she died the girl’s unblinking eyes bored into her killer.
The commandant could not escape those pale grey-green eyes. Everywhere she went, everything she did, she saw those eyes fixed on her.
Sent mad, months later as she slit her wrists those eyes still watched.
Here is another of my one
“They killed him.”
Crocodile Tears
The letter plopped onto the doormat.
Alf read it and called, “Bo, it’s a reply from the Home Office. They’ve assigned us a bush posting in East Africa!”
She gazed out on their drab wintery garden and was excited. A colony implied blue skies, sunshine and big houses. The reality was very different. The house was big but lacked running water and a flushing loo.
Alf, however, was delighted. Soon their garden boasted a collection of cages built to house injured animals.
One day a couple of men turned up at the house with a creature wrapped in damp sacking. It was a baby crocodile. It was best not to ask how it came by its injuries. This little one had a nasty gash on its leg.
Alf soon constructed an enclosure with a sunken water tank for Charley crocodile. He happily settled into his new surroundings. The wound healed well and Alf planned to release it back into the river soon.
Every three months, they had to travel down the mountain to replenish their supplies and report to head office.
On their return, a scene of devastation greeted them. The house had been burgled. However, Alf was brokenhearted. They had smashed cages releasing all his injured animals. Worst of all was the reptile tank. Alf picked up the broken body of the little crocodile. “They killed him.” He shook his head. “ I don’t understand why.”
Bo was not sorry though she was afraid of its snapping jaws and sharp teeth even though it was only a foot long. She had seen the adults with their cruel, greedy yellow eyes peeping out of the water as they waited for some innocent animal to come to the river to drink.
More prompts to whet your appetite for writing
Write a story about two characters whose first impressions of one another are wildly inaccurate.
Write about a community that worships Mother Nature
A few more dialogue prompts too.
“Don’t drop that box!”
“And then he stomped off”
“It was an honest mistake”
2023 New Year New Prompts
As any farmer will tell you the land must have a fallow period. This wordy allotment now has weeds which need to be brought under control by starting again with this new year full of writing promises.
January 2023
50-word challenge
Fear of Flying
The Hardest memory
300-word dialogue challenge
Where did you get that?
It’s not my fault. I don’t know anything about it.
Write a short story of 1000- 1500 words
A cynical character who realises they do have something to celebrate
An unconventional holiday tradition
An image challenge
Maybe the members of the Dean Writers Circle would like to do this challenge and submit it when we are compiling the anthology this year. The last anthology had a picture prompt of people so as a change why not look at architecture this time?
Write about this image or the one below or even combine them!
Short Story
Write about a character with an unreliable memory. End the story with total oblivion.
Write a story about a conflict that started off something ordinary.
300-word story
“All of it?”
“We’re not going in there, right?”
Flash Fiction Prompts
Up to 500 words
The Walrus
The result of a snowstorm