The Joy of Prompted Writing

Hello, dear neglected blog. The only excuse I have to offer for my lack of posting is the one I always give this time of year: IT’S SUMMER. Which explains everything. I’m sorry to anyone who was anxiously waiting for a post!

Note: The drawings in this post are by me, but the photos are from a variety of magazine and catalog sources, and I don't know the identity of the photographers.

So, what’s prompted writing? That’s one of the first things I and my writer friends get to explain to people joining our critique group. It may not sound terribly thrilling, but it is in fact some of the best fun we have during the meeting.

      It starts with a “prompt”, which can be just about anything—a picture, an object in the room, a word, or a concept. We then have 15 to 20 minutes (or more, if we please) to write something inspired by the prompt. The goal is to write fast and free, and most of the pieces end on cliffhangers as we run out of time. We then get to read the pieces out loud to each other, which isn’t as frightening as you might think. Mutual laughter abounds, sometimes there are thoughtful nods, and even words of admiration.

      I think this activity is probably the most fun in a group setting, but I’ve also done prompted exercises solo or with just one friend. You can make up your own prompts, such as having a jar full of random objects or scribbled ideas you pull out at random, or you can find one of the pre-made tools out there, such as the “Writer’s Block” (as cube-shaped book full of prompts) or “The Amazing Story Generator” (a book of flipping sections that land on random, and often very wacky, combinations).

      Regardless of how you come up with prompts, or whether you do them alone or in a group, I think throwing yourself whole-heartedly into the activity will lead to results that stretch, surprise, and amuse you.

      Here are some examples of prompts I’ve done over the years in the FellowScript writers group. I’ve made a few minor corrections and revisions for ease of reading.

Coming Home

 

The Prompt: Write something inspired by this picture

Cobalt shadows stretch

Across the grey gravel

This road

On a crash course with the sky

As the sun sets

I walk

With the smell of hay and light

Golden fields

Like a promise

Still waiting for me

A barn in the distance

I remember

Sitting in the loft

A hole in the roof

Showed blue sky

A world beyond

That I wanted to see

Now I wonder

Does the barn remember me?

A breeze, a stirring

Grass rustles

Light flashes on the wings

Of a bird returning

There is the old house

My shadow reaches to the step

My shape on the door

And then it opens

Getting Her Goat

 

The Prompt: Write something that connects this picture...

“Mom? Where are my shoes?” yelled Jessica.

            Her mother emerged from the living room with her reading glasses dangling by their beaded chain and her finger in a book. “Sweetie, no yelling.”

            Jessica stood panting in the hall. “Mom, I’ve got to find my shoes. I’m already late for the fair.”

            “Where’d you last leave them?”

            “Arrrgh! That really doesn’t help—I don’t know!”

            Jessica ran down the hall, with her mom’s calm voice coming after her, “But don’t you have another pair?”

...to this one

            No, she didn’t. Not another pair of well-worn, brown penny loafers, that is. They were her lucky shoes, and though they were a little impractical for a farm girl—they showed plenty of wear and tear and stains from contact with the earthy aspects of her life—she loved those shoes, and there was no way she was entering her costumed goat in the fair without having them on her feet, giving her confidence.

            Jessica searched her room yet again, ripping the orange-checkered comforter off her bed and tipping over a pile of animal magazines.

            Her little brother’s shout came up the yard outside her open window. “Jess! Hey, Jess! George is out!”

            Jessica groaned and lurched to her feet. Just great. It had taken her an hour—a painful, hoof-bruised, sweaty hour—to fight George into his little Boy Scout uniform. Now, with her shoes gone, all she needed was to have her goat clomping all over messing his outfit up.

            “Jess! Jess, he’s on the porch and he’s chewing on something! It’s brown! Kind of looks like leather!”

            Oh no, she thought…

A Dangerous Wedding

The Prompt: A jealous bridesmaid, in a dystopian setting,
foils an assassination attempt

Bria stared at herself in the mirror. The cracked and murky glass made her appear broken and distorted, and her patched-together dress looked even more ill-fitting than it felt.

            Today she wore the dark blue color of a bridesmaid, and her heart was frozen inside her.

            Janna would wear the gold color of a bride, her gown carefully sewn from the finest scraps of cloth that could be found in the remains of the city. Bria had helped sew parts of that gown, had stabbed her fingers with needles over it, and when no one was looking, shed a few tears on it.

            She had wanted to scream when Janna cheerfully asked her to be part of the wedding party, acting as if she was honoring their friendship. Oh, they had always been great friends, Bria, Janna, and Durn. Bria had loved Durn with a steadfast passion, but he had chosen carefree Janna.

            Bria walked out of her apartment, looking both ways for scavengers and fingering the stunner hidden in her purse. The wedding would be at 10 o’clock am in the stadium, and she needed to hurry to make it. She wondered why she even cared enough to hurry, and let her steps slow. Yes, I’ll be a little late. Revenge.

            The skyline of crumbling metal towers loomed like a mouth that wanted to devour the future. Bria pulled her coat closer against the cold wind that carried scents of burning.

            As she passed a parked car—a rare sight, for there were few left in the city—snickers and catcalls were thrown at her by the two males sitting in it.

            She refused to make eye contact, marching straight ahead, her hand inside her purse, clutching the stunner.

            “Going to the big wedding, pretty thing?”

            “Have fun!”

            “Yeah, have a blast!”

            They laughed uproariously and honked the horn.

            Something about that last comment—perhaps the slight emphasis on the word blast—chilled Bria.

            She had never stopped to consider before that someone else might want to cause trouble at Durn and Janna’s wedding.

Durn had just been her friend growing up, someone to turn to during the turmoil of war. Someone she could find things to laugh about with even when there was hardly any food left in the city.

            She often forgot that Durn McHall III was the very important eldest son of a very powerful family, and was very likely to have powerful enemies to match.

            She ran the rest of the way to the stadium. The place was decked out, as much as it could be in these times. Flowers from the overgrown yards and parks of the city, leftover banners and flags from long-ago events.

            She looked at the security guards posted at the entrance, wondering if it was worth telling them about her vague suspicion of a threat. They had probably already searched the place from top to bottom. She couldn’t get by them without a search, bridesmaid or not. They let her keep her stunner, since it was a defensive weapon.

            Inside the bowels of the stadium, where everyone was getting ready, Bria wandered around aimlessly. Should she tell someone? Did she care? She watched Janna rush around in her beautiful gown, flushed and just a little on the edge of frantic as the minutes ticked off.

            Bria wondered if something else was ticking off, and if she could stop it. Or if she wanted to…

The Invasion

The Prompt: An escaped convict, with an estranged step-parent,
foils an alien invasion

I slipped under the crumbling wood and wire fence, ripping a few more tears in the clothes I’d stolen from a campsite a few days ago. I chuckled a little, thinking about the poor confused camper, probably wondering if bears were known for dragging off jeans and sweaters, along with crackers and beef jerky.

            I hoped he wouldn’t put two and two together, what with news of an escaped convict buzzing all over the radio. I had buried my orange jumpsuit as deep as I could under some rotten wood.

            The food from the campsite had just about run out, and five days of off-trail hiking were wearing on me. Jerry’s farm was near, and a good place to hide out. I knew every corner of it, and he’d never know I was around. He’d hardly known I was around when I was growing up there.

            I had just pushed through a patch of prickly salmon berry bushes when I heard voices. I stopped cold as stone.

            Weird voices. Kind of buzzy and mechanical. Maybe it was the cops, talking on their communicators, or something. I crouched down as low to the ground as I could, trying not to so much as bend a leaf. I peeked through a space under the bushes.

            Nope, those weren’t like any cops I’d ever seen. The three of them wore one-piece silver suits with glowing lights bouncing back and forth on the chests. Either I’d wandered onto a movie set, or I was a lot higher profile criminal than I thought. Their pale faces barely moved when they spoke, and as I strained I got the gist of their robot bumblebee dialect.

            “We are set to land. Conditions favorable.”

            “Prepare master ship for entry.”

            “Will all forces be necessary?”

            “No. Regiment A should be sufficient. Inhabitants are not formidable.”

            “Very good. Tonight, we land.”

            With that, they all pressed something on their wrists, and vanished. So much for the movie set idea…

The Age of the Bridge

The Prompt: Write something that connects this picture...

The traffic on the bridge made a faint roar—the voice of the new, the fast, the impatient—swallowed by the deeper, mightier, ancient roar of the sea.

Annabelle walked along the shore a mile from the bridge. The ruddy gold light of sunset highlighted the swaying grass on the dunes and glared off cars in the distance.

Annabelle had walked this way before, many years before anyone thought of building a giant bridge across the water to connect her island home to the mainland.

...to this one

She had walked this way as a little girl, after church on Sundays, wearing her flowered hat and ankle-length dress. It had been a very long time since girls wore that kind of thing. Before the bridge, there had been just the grass, the sea, and the distant mainland, a place you could visit to go shopping or on special occasions. But oh, so sweet to come home to the island, where only the very most important road in the middle of town was paved, to reduce dust pollution. Elsewhere, people drove—but more often walked or bicycled—so slowly it didn’t matter.

They, with a clamor and chaos of excitement, the age of the bridge began.

Annabelle had been caught up in it too. She was a young woman, and the words “progress”, “opportunity”, and “modernization” had no bitter edge. Now she was old, and she wished her grandchildren could walk the dirt and gravel roads that were now buried forever beneath asphalt. She looked out at the ocean horizon and remembered when it was not crossed by steel and concrete. A huge ship was passing, its smokestacks thrusting up against the glorious sky.

Annabelle closed her eyes and remembered her Sunday walks here, after church, when she contemplated all she had heard, and learned to talk to the God who loved her.

Then a smile came to her face.

He was still here.

After the age of the bridge was over, and after the sea itself was gone, He would remain. Forever.