I can’t believe it! I just CAN’T believe it! Check out the latest “Menu” addition above: Before I Sleep: Poetry, Prose, and Peculiarity Book!
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As I’m sure many of you already know: writing isn’t easy. It’s a glorious and painstaking process. I mean, think about it: the biggest obstacle between most writers and a finished book is simply getting the words on the page. And yes, writer’s block is a thing. Or maybe you’ve been rigorously researching a remote town in Idaho for six months straight and you need a break (she says definitely not from experience or anything).
Whatever the reason you’ve stalled, it’s important to find ways to keep those fingers typing or those pens swirling. One of my favorite ways to keep the creativity flowing is with a writing prompt. My writing group will often set a flash fiction (less than 1,000 words) prompt that we can bring in the following week. I find that when I set to writing a short story and complete it, it’s such an awesome feeling that the creativity spills over into my larger, long-term projects. There’s just something about that instant gratification of finishing something in one night and being able to say:
So! Why am I telling you all this? Because! I recently found a really fun writing prompt generator!
You just hop on over there, scroll down and click the generate button! You can pick one based on what you’re feeling that day. I skipped the first prompt it gave me and opted for the second because I knew I didn’t have a ton of time to write that day the second one was only 300 words. The prompt provides a word count, genre, character, material, sentence and a bonus idea that you can add in if you’re feeling frisky.
I’ll share my short story and then afterwards, I’ll share the prompt!
*Warning: it’s a little dark.*
“What have I done?” she asked, emotion tightening her throat.
Her hair was heavy with water. Strands fell into her eyes as she looked down to see her clothing soaked through. She pressed her hand against the fabric, surprised to see red flow over her fingers. Her fingers. The skin was clean but a reddish brown color clung under her nails. Blood, she thought as she reached to touch her forehead. Her head swam as she touched something smooth. Smooth like bone. Her hands flew as far from the laceration as they could reach.
She swallowed hard and with effort, lifted her head. Time slowed so that her breath matched each new plume of smoke off the water: a sailboat completely engulfed in flame some distance off the coast. Her eyes blurred and new warmth fell to her cheeks. She collapsed to the sand, her knees against her chest.
Some faint awareness rose as something fell from her pocket.
A golden coin rested on the sand.
A blinding flash of light and a deafening explosion rang in her head the moment her eyes met the luminous metal. She closed her eyes and covered her ears.
A whisper surrounded her as if carried on the wind, “Take it.”
She looked toward the woods behind her.
“Hello?” she said.
She stared hard at each patch of brush, leaf, or branch dancing in the wind, but heard nothing more.
She looked back at the coin, stared for what could have been days.
Her fingers outstreched, she hesitated for what could have been hours.
She took it.
She stood, with certainty in her eyes.
She walked toward the sailboat.
She walked to her ankles, to her knees, to her waist, to her shoulders.
She walked until the world became a blur beneath the waves.
Word count: 300
Genre: Suspense
Character: A remorseful murderer
Material: A coin
Sentence: Hello?
Bonus: Your character is shipwrecked.
The coin was totes cursed. Anyways, hope you enjoyed this dark, damp story!
“I don’t wanna do this,” said Roger, crossing his arms.
“A thousand years in heaven and you’re still a curmudgeon. How do you manage it?” asked the Divine.
“It’s a gift,” snarled Roger. Five hundred years ago, his stubbornness had deemed him “ineligible” to be a Guardian Angel. He knew he wasn’t getting out of it this time but he had to try.
“Come here,” She said.
Roger didn’t move. He realized he was holding his breath. He finally pushed the air out of his lungs and propelled toward Her as if his own breath was the wind behind him.
“There she is,” said the Divine, pointing through the large glass window of Her office. A young girl walked on a college campus. She was dressed for winter. Roger felt a chill straight to his bones. He hated the winter. Cold and wet and frostbite and—
The Divine had placed Her hand on his shoulder. He was warm again.
“What’s her name?” he growled.
“Annabelle,” replied the Divine.
Before he could stop them, the words fell from his mouth, “Had a dog named Annie.”
“I know.”
“Of course you do.”
“Perhaps the only thing you ever loved?”
Roger harrumphed.
A long silence and three sighs later, Roger mumbled, “Well, what am I supposed to do to her?”
The Divine gave him a knowing look but he refused to meet Her eye.
“Well, where’s the list of guidelines? What are the rules?” asked Roger, getting impatient.
Her voice was flat with feigned annoyance but Her eyes danced. “We don’t have rules or guidelines, Roger.”
He opened his mouth to speak but the Divine spoke first, “Your job is just to love her.”
“To what?” cried Roger. It was as if he’d been told he had to tear her limb from limb. His horror swelled as he saw a familiar look in the Divine’s eye. “Don’t—“
Before he could finish his sentence, some unseen heavenly orchestra began to play. She took Her hands out from behind her back, a microphone in one and the other a dazzling jazz hand. The wall behind Her disappeared like a falling curtain and a vast, glorious choir surrounded them.
“There’s nothing you can know that isn’t known, nothing you can see that isn’t shown. There’s nowhere you can be that isn’t where you’re meant to be.”
Roger groaned as the ensemble swayed and harmonized.
Louder still, She crooned. “It’s easy!”
She threw Her hand out in his direction, not so much asking as demanding he sing the next line. He stared at Her with a new kind of fury. His lead-in played over and over. As Her eyes burrowed into him, he felt his heart soften. As if of its own volition, his mouth formed a whisper, “All you need is love.”
With one last echo, the room was plunged back into silence. The spotlights went out and the two of them were once again enclosed in the Divine’s office, earthly sunlight pouring in through the window. Her arms crossed in front of Her, a smile in Her eyes, as if nothing else had happened, She said softly, “Love is all you need.”
He stared at Her. His anger boiled over.
“Then where was mine?” he yelled.
“I’ve been waiting,” She said. Patiently, kindly, waiting for him to continue.
“Ever since I got here, all I hear about is love! Before coming her, I’d never seen it, never experienced it. Where was my guardian angel?” he howled and fell to his knees, his anger turning to tears.
She approached him slowly and placed Her hand on his head. “You’ve been here for a thousand years, Roger. What took you so long to ask?”
“Because it felt like a mistake. Me being here. I didn’t love, no one loved me.”
“Roger,” said the Divine.
He didn’t move.
“Roger, stand and look at me,” She said with equal parts compassion and force.
He did. And he had never seen such a thing. She was glowing, somehow emanating warmth and understanding.
“You were there to learn something, you’re here to learn something. At least, that’s the goal. All of us must always, intentionally be in the midst of growing. And the only way we can possibly grow in a way that changes us to our core – is to love.”
He scoffed but met Her eye again, his eyes still shining with tears.
“What if I never learned?” asked Roger, his voice small.
“Annie, Roger. Annie was your guardian angel. Annie was your love.”
Roger heard a scratch and looked behind him. He saw little white paws sticking out between the carpet and the bottom of the office door; he heard a nose sniffing furiously. He walked toward the door as it opened. Annie ran in and jumped into Roger’s arms and he fell to the ground. Both frantic and calm, she nuzzled into the crook of his neck. His heart overflowed.
He suddenly remembered where he was.
He got up and turned back to the Divine. She was standing by the window, looking out.
“It’s time,” She said without facing him.
He understood. Or at least, he understood more than he had before and that was enough for now. The office disintegrated around them. Roger and Annie were back in the farmhouse, his chosen heavenly dwelling.
“Time for a walk?” he asked Annie.
She wagged her tail just like she used to, but this time, he appreciated the knowing in it.
Out the front door, they stepped onto the college campus, just as Annabelle approached. She stopped abruptly as her backpack fell to one side. The strap had broken.
“God damn it all to fucking hell!” she yelled for the whole campus to hear.
“Oh, I’m going to like her,” said Roger.
And Annie wagged her tail in agreement.
Watching this magical YouTube video is the first time plot structure REALLY made sense to me. Of course I knew that a story needs a plot. It needs a drive to get from Beginning to End. But I hadn’t really grasped it until watching this video. It comes in at just shy of an hour and a half – but it’s totally worth it.
It’s supposedly more about screenwriting than about writing a novel – but needless to say, I found it applicable.
Michael Hauge knows what he’s talking about.
Hope you enjoy as much as I did!
I love writing! I’ve loved it since I was a wee little thing. I blame my mother and the stories she read to me almost every night before bed. The first tale I vividly remember writing was a short story about how writing was invented. It involved cavemen, leaves, stones and a dubious interpretation of history.
From there, I kept writing: more short stories, some plays for school or church, poetry, a handful of novel beginnings and lots – I mean LOTS – of journal entries. My career helped me with my business writing skills but it wasn’t until I moved to Texas in 2017 that I started to take creative writing seriously. About a year and a half into working on my novel, I realized how much of writing is actually made up of editing.
Every time I sat down to edit, I found myself humming “Edit” from Regina Spektor’s 2006 masterpiece Begin to Hope while hopelessly, desperately, furiously searching for all the -ly words in my writing. Into the darkness of my living room, lit only by my computer screen, I would cry, “Regina, I can’t edit OR write!” Then she’d sing me “Better” and I would, indeed, feel better.
So began my quest to get better at editing. My friends at the weekly critique group I attend helped me find some of the most consistent issues in my writing. I watched YouTube videos, read articles and books, and got a certification in editing. But the quest isn’t over! I will never be done learning and the exciting part about that is now, I get to share all this stuff with you in the For Writers section of my blog!
If and when you’re looking for an editor, I am so excited to read your work and help it bloom. I know how exciting and terrifying it can be to share your writing but I’ll also say that one of the biggest things that helped me along this editing quest was, in fact, reaching out to an editor. (Yes, editors need editors too.) I work with a few different editors for different projects. A friend suggested the Novel Doctor himself, Stephen Parolini and the feedback he gave me was awesome. He was the first editor I had ever reached out to and he was constructive and honest. If I’m not able to help you, I wholeheartedly send you his way. I also recently began working with Kraken Editing & Literary Service Investigations and Kelsey is no-nonsense. Her feedback has been integral to my growth as a writer – and she offers research services as well. Every writer is different and therefore, it’s important to find an editor that works best for you and your project.
Shannon Hale said, “I’m writing a first draft and reminding myself that I’m simply shoveling sand into a box so that later I can build castles.”
Let’s build sandcastles together!
