PROMPT 45 – FILL IN THE BLANK

This is a variant of the Gibberish Times Five writing prompt, but focuses on a single concept instead of attempting to write a story based on five random words. Select an interesting noun like school or serial-killer. This can be a randomly chosen word or one that represents a topic that interests the writer. The choice of a word representing a person, a place, or a thing will have a large impact on the kind of story that is written.

 Once you have your story word, place it with a series of other words until you find a combination that sparks your imagination. For instance, I placed bully in front of school and came away with bully school—a special gathering place for bullies. Just from the name I can tell the story is going to center around this unlikely school and that it feels like a humorous middle-grade book. And I attached account to serial-killer. That’s right, my story is about a serial-killer accountant who is probably motivated to kill by the numbers he deals with all day long.

Here’s a short list of people, places, and things to get you started.
​
    Person                               Place                                 Thing

Serial-Killer                         School                              Quest

Celebrity                              Popular Tourist Spot     Bus

Cook                                     On A Fishing Boat          Door

Accountant                     Inside a Movie/Book          Thing-a-ma-bob

Homeless Person              The Smallest Town          Book

RepoMan/Woman            Island                                 Package/Bag

Tour Guide                          Castle                                 Ticket 

Busy Body                           Small Bakery                     Holiday

Horrible Gossip                 Candy Store                       Sport

​Fictional Character           Newspaper                         Game


Example: I selected angel as my story word, because I find them interesting. Then I looked through the list above and my eyes were gravitated toward tour guide. Which makes my sample story about an angel tour guide.
 
Angel-cation – Lucy is still getting used to the idea of being an angel and how to use her powers, when a routine retrieval mission takes her to Italy to bring a young tour guide back for Afterlife Orientation. Eager to visit all the tourist spots in Italy, Lucy sends the tour guide spirit on her way to Heaven and takes her place on the tour bus. But midway through the tour she finds that lost spirits are being attracted to her and that the only way to guide them back to where they belong is to finish the tour before their essence is forever lost to Limbo.

            PROMPT 43 – KNICK-KNACKS
 
            This prompt is similar to Three Item Monty in as much as it uses items to stimulate your mind into generating new story ideas. If you have an old knick-knack drawer or memory chest, look through it. Take out the items one at a time. Perhaps they generate a memory that triggers a story idea. Or maybe they are interesting enough to give you ideas if you think about the item in hand. If you don’t have a collection of memorabilia then take a trip to a antique store and look around. Something is bound to shake loose an idea for a story.
 
Example: I have an old aftershave bottle shaped like a car. It still has most of the aftershave in it, but I can’t imagine its any good after all these years.
 
 
The Glass Factory -
 
An inquisitive young man visits a factory that makes the most popular toys on the planet. Everything the factory makes is made out of the most beautiful glass—that doesn’t break. When he slips away from the guided tour of the factory he discovers a gateway to a world where technology is based on glass manufacturing and is powered by strange scented-liquids. Before he can return to the tour he is captured by the Glass Baron and put on trial as an industrial spy. His only hope of returning home safely is to escape the Glass Castle and find the portal that will take him back to Earth.
 

            PROMPT 42 – THREE ITEM MONTY
 
            Grab three random items and put them on a table. To make sure these items are as random as possible, make sure they each come from a separate room or location. Line then up in front of you and see if you can find a correlation between them that can be used for the basis of a story. If not, move them around until you do.
            Example: A blue plastic tumbler; a small, blue fan; and an old-fashioned lantern that uses a candle for light. Blue reminds me of cold. The tumbler and fan make me think of someone who is trying to cool down. And the lantern gave me images of a storm raging and the electricity going out.
 
 
Monster Storm – When invaders from another planet trigger a global storm, Dave takes refuge in an old, underground tunnel complex, but he discovers that he is not alone in the dark.
 

PROMPT 41 - DREAM MACHINES  

          This prompt requires quite a bit of imagination. The idea is to make a list of imaginary devices and then feature one of them as the centerpiece of your story. For example, a radio that eavesdrops on your neighbors. Here is a list of ideas for the origins of your devices:
 
            - Recently discovered/invented tech.
            - Tech brought back from the future/an alien planet/a different dimension.
            - A magical artifact passed down as a family heirloom.
            - An artifact given as a gift from the gods.
            - A cursed object of power inhabited by an evil spirit.
            - The object mysteriously shows up one day.
 
 
What Will the Neighbors Say? – Who doesn’t love a yard sale? But when Greg and Monica buy a vintage radio from the strange old man living next door, their lives are changed. By simply changing the station Greg and Monica can listen to any conversation taking place in the houses on their block. They discover which of the people in the neighborhood are really their friends, which are snooty pretenders, and which ones are planning to murder someone living on the block.
 

            PROMPT 40 – SAY AGAIN
 
            Take a common phrase and imagine someone saying it to you during a conversation. Then work through a list of uncommon responses until you find one that really ignites your imagination. Develop a story based on that response.
 
            For example: the phrase, “Go to blazes/Hades.”

Imagine what kind of story you could write if the response was, “Nope. I can’t go there. Satan still has a restraining order on me.”
 
            Or for the phrase, “Would you like a hand?”

The response might be, “Sure, but where would I put it?”
 
 
            Here are a few phrases I found especially ripe for story-mining:
 
            - The best of two worlds.
            - Add insult to injury.
            - A blessing in disguise.
            - Costs an arm and a leg.  
            - You’re playing the Devil’s Advocate.
            - Every cloud has a silver lining.
            - You let the cat out of the bag. 
            - Steal someone’s thunder.
 

            PROMPT 39 – OCCUPATIONAL HAZARD
 
            Story ideas abound in the world around us. They can even be taken from our jobs. This prompt gives authors a chance to pull from something they know quite well—their jobs. If the author has a problem picking an event from their job then they can look to the profession of a relative or a friend.
            Choose a profession and then add a surprise to the normal work routine. A doctor could find that his/her patient has a mysterious organ that doesn’t belong in a human body. A construction worker might discover a buried artifact, or a body, on the construction site. A nurse could walk into a room and find that a coma patient is awake and asks her to write something down because it is important.
 
            For example, one of my first jobs was as a projectionist in a small independent movie theater. What if a character started a new job at a theater and discovered that the projector started by itself at midnight every Saturday and showed images of the future?
 
 
Sneak Peek – Randy loves his job as a projectionist, staying up late and watching movies felt more like entertainment than work. Then a friend asks him to cover his Saturday night shift, everything changes. He discovers that the projector can start on its own and shows images of events that will take place in the week ahead. But his friend doesn’t return to work and Randy is left as the sole caretaker of a projector that predicts the future and a mystery of a missing coworker to solve.
 
 
 
 
 

            PROMPT 38 – NAUGHTY TECHNOLOGY
 
            Technology is a wonderful thing—most of the time. Put a sparkling new gadget in a writer’s hands and the results may not be a warm and fuzzy tale describing the enlightened nature of mankind. And if you want the story to engage readers the exact opposite is the more likely result.
            Scientific journals and magazines are a good source of inspiration for this writing prompt. Find a new technology or an updated to an existing technology and think of a way it could be used for evil or misused with disastrous results. It could even be a matter of unforeseen side affects that threaten to bring ruin. Then write a story around it.
            This can also be done with recent social trends, such as car sharing, reverse brain drain, or the development of mega cities as large as some of our smaller states.
 
            For my example, I looked at the trend to apply smart technology to everything.
  
Too Smart – As the man who found a way to link all of the smart technologies together, Howard is known as the Father of the smart world. His plans to enjoy the fruits of his labors are disrupted when his own personal “Smart System” begins to have daddy issues. He must find a way to control his disgruntled child before he is forced to embrace a non-tech lifestyle in a remote region of the world.
 

            PROMPT 37 – VILLAINS FIRST
 
            While it is important to have a well-rounded set of writing skills the truth of the matter is that some elements in a story are more important to its success than others. Strong opening hooks and a killer tagline are pivotal in attracting an audience to your story, but the villain is often the deciding factor in how much they enjoy it once they immerse themselves into your tale.
            Where would Star Wars be without Darth Vader? Or Silence of the Lambs without Hannibal Lecter? This prompt is based on the premise that you can build a story around an interesting villain.
            Start with a concept for your villain. Maybe you already have one in mind that has been sitting in your character diary for years waiting to get out. If not, take a look at stories with strong villains and either alter one of them to fit your story or combine two of them to create someone completely different. Once you have a villain determine what it is they want and throw the hero in the way.
 
 
            For my example, I latched onto the idea of a villain who believes that if he kills the people that he loves they will be with him in the afterlife. So he is motivated out of a fear of being alone and wants to make sure that when he finally dies he will be surrounded by the people who really loved him. I decided to place my villain into a Romance-Horror. (Is that even a category?)
 
Kill the Ones You Love – After years of dating losers, Mary has finally found the perfect man. He is kind, sensitive, and funny. Her life is perfect until she discovers a link between her fiancé and a serial killer who has murdered his four wives, all of his family, and a large number of his in-laws. How can she convince him to call off the wedding without making him mad enough to kill her?