Tag: writing prompt

Blog Thursday Prompt: The Kettle

“It’s not my fault! The kettle began it!”

“Please, do go on. How exactly did the kettle begin it?”

“Weelll… it just sat there so… so… sitty!”

“I see. It was ‘sitty.’ And the problem with that is what, exactly?”

“Sitting is just so boring! How could it just not do anything?”

“So, you decided to make it do something.”

“Everything needs a little nudge now and then. All I did was fill it up with water.”

“Mm-hmm. And the kettle appreciated that, did it? Got up and danced a jig, I’m sure.”

“No! It just sat there drooling out its spout! Disgusting! I turned the stove on to dry it out.”

“- – -“

“What?! It started grumbling at me, and it just kept getting louder and louder. I told it to calm down but then it started screaming at me and smoke came out of the spout!”

“Imagine that. So you thought…”

“Obviously it needed some private time to adjust its attitude so I covered it with a towel.”

“Naturally it reacted well.”

“I guess it was dryer than I thought. You do always say where there’s smoke there’s fire.”

“I wish I could deny that.”

“Well, obviously I couldn’t let the kettle burn the house down, so I blew on it as hard as I could. Candles have much better attitudes, by the way.”

“I see. And that’s when you finally called me?”

“Yeah! That kettle needs to go to jail for arson! That’ll teach it what happens when it’s boring and stubborn.”

“I have a better idea.”

“What?”

“Stay away from the kettle.”

FWG Blog Thursday: Famous First Lines

This week’s response is provided by my kids. Following are two different stories using the prompt. Aside from a small amount of editing, these stories come straight from them and are written in their own voices. I hope you enjoy them.

Thor’s Hammer, by Isaiah

All this happened, more or less. I’ll fill you in on the whole story. I was sitting on the couch, veging out in front of the TV. All of a sudden I heard a CRASH. It was coming from the kitchen. Like any kid would do, I went to investigate. Now I don’t know what I was expecting but certainly not the hammer sitting in the middle of the kitchen floor. I cautiously advanced and slowly picked it up. It began to glow. Suddenly a bolt of lightning shot out of the hammer at the microwave. The microwave might have exploded. All I could say was “Uh oh!” When my mom saw the cracked tiles where the hammer hit and the exploded microwave, she was going to freak. Just then a dog appeared, shadow except for brilliantly white teeth. Suddenly more lightning shot out of the hammer, and the dog disappeared. Then it hit me: this was Thors’ hammer. And if it was, then I was his son.

Wild Thing, by Sarah

All this happened, more or less. School. I hate school. In a classroom with twenty other kids. Two are my friends. Five are my siblings. Thirteen kids that I don’t know. And Mama’s teaching. Mama’s great at teaching. I’m just tired. I hardly slept last night. Then, all of a sudden, I’m not in a classroom learning about World War II. I’m out on the prairie with a bunch of wild horses. I’m not even scared. I just run up and jump on one’s back. It’s immediately tamed. I’m riding out here on the prairie with my new horse. It’s wonderful! Then I’m back in the classroom again. Mama’s still talking about World War II. Class is almost over. Aw man!

To Outline or Not to Outline

Anyone who participates in the writing community for very long will certainly run into the great debate. Should authors outline before writing or not? I suspect the heat of the discussion stems from academic writing instruction, in which outlines are necessary for structuring arguments and organizing large volumes of factual information.

Certainly outlining can be a helpful tool in fictional worldbuilding as well. For a complex plot involving multiple characters and storylines, keeping track of where everyone and every event fits into the pattern is quite a challenge. Many authors do feel the need to outline their entire plot before getting started just to keep themselves on track.

Many others have a different process altogether. Their stories grow from a visual image, a title idea, a character sketch, or some other small detail, without any clear story to plan. For them, the story develops one person, event, or detail at a time. Each stems from the last like a tree putting out new shoots in spring. Such authors must start writing the beginning before the next step develops. Waiting to start until outlining the plot from beginning to end would mean their stories were never written at all.

As a “pantser” myself (by the seat of my pants – pantser), I acknowledge that this does present certain disadvantages. Where a plotter may have to cut thousands of extra words in the first edit, a pantser often adds thousands to fill in holes caused by meandering creation. Extra edits are often required (at least in my experience) to separate character voices and hone individual character arcs that might have been clearer if planned from the beginning. Writing time itself may be longer; where someone who can outline an entire story may be able to quickly work through their plan, a pantser may have difficulty with continuous writing due to constantly having to figure out the next step of the story.

I have tried outlining stories from the beginning, hoping to discover that clear path to the end, or even the end at all. That effort cost me months of productivity. I simply could not make things happen. So, a pantser I will continue to be, drifting along a piece of a scene at a time, taking the time required for all of the bits of story in my head to put themselves together.

To outline or not to outline, “that is the question.” How do you answer?

Impossible

It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen.

That’s how she knew she had stepped through. Thirteen hours on the clock. The impossible hour. Her breath froze and shattered as another puff left her nostrils. Humans weren’t meant to be here. Well, here wasn’t exactly the right word. Weren’t meant to be… now? Whatever; she needed to get her proof and find a way out before it was too late.

Her fingers, already growing numb, fumbled with the lens cover on her camera. Impossibly, the camera felt warm; maybe it wasn’t the day that was cold after all. She gripped the thing firmly and turned in a slow circle,eyes squinting into the too bright sky.

A – creature – stared at her unblinking from twenty feet away. She thought it wasn’t blinking; she couldn’t seem to focus on it properly. As if it wasn’t quite, well, possible. And it was sort of sitting in mid air, which was really beginning to wig her out. She hastily raised the camera and pressed the button.

The creature squawked and vanished at the same time that the camera disintegrated in a loud black rumbling puff. The clock face cracked and the hands spun out of control. Ice crept up from the ground, locking her in place, and her scream was a silent crystal shooting from her nerveless mouth.