The Story-a-Day prompt was to write a prose sonnet. The instruction do say you don't have to rhyme, but I wanted to rhyme anyway. Iambic pentameter, however, was more than I wanted to tackle. So, I chose a Shakespearean sonnet. And while I didn't obviously mention the Shakespeare characters I had in mind, they're in …
Today's prompt was to write a story using only dialogue. So, I gave it a shot. I didn't even use any tags. The hardest thing was thinking about pauses. I wanted a moment for my two characters to stare at each other in silence and have the last person to talk be the first person …
Today's Story-a-Day prompt is to tell a story with a list. Story-a-Day links to a story by Jennifer Egan that is a list of things to do. I came up with a to-do list that is a bucket list and because I'm tired, I kept my list short. Maybe it tells a kind of story. …
Yesterday, I ended up just scribbling some lines down for a Ink & Mirabelle story. Ink & Mirabelle are rabbits, and a few years ago, I made a handbook telling a short story about them. In that story, Mirabelle is on the moon and Ink tried in vain to talk her into coming back to …
I didn't take much of a look at today's Story-a-Day prompt since I had an image already in my head. This is why I've never been good at plotting. I have to write to figure out what is going on the scene. In rewrites, a plot takes shape, but I have to explore the space …
I wrote yesterday but didn't come over to my blog to post about it. And I've written today. Neither story follows the Story-a-Day prompt. Even though I liked the prompts, no ideas came. So, I just wrote something else. First, here is a story about a moment in the childhood of a character in my …
Nine days in. Today's prompt was about a character's desire. No idea came to me, so I picked another character from my work-in-progress and explored his childhood. I can't help but wonder what I'm going to do with this manuscript when it is done. It won't be done for a while yet, but if I …
Today's Story-a-Day May prompt was conflict. While I think I put some conflict in my stories, I never start with a conflict in mind. I start all my stories with an image in my head, and then I ask myself questions about that image until I find the conflict. So, starting with a conflict didn't …
I'm not committed to following the Story-a-Day prompts, but so far each prompt has given me an idea. Todays' prompt is about stealing from yourself. The idea is to go back and revisit a story you've told before. So, I've gone back to my first published short story. This ins't strictly true. I had a …
Today's Story-a-Day May prompt asked us to steal something--a character, a world, a plot. Something from another fictional world and to have fun with it. Since this is fan fiction, I can't have it published elsewhere or anything like that, so I'll just post the entire piece here. Coincidentally, I finished reading Jonathan Strange & …
Marta Pelrine-Bacon 