You have just been swimming in the Thames
during a violent storm.
The year is 1889;
The bored schoolgirls are clapping,
in a nearby house, a girl is waiting for something.
Hmmm.... intriguing. What can I build from that? Let's see...
The year is 1889 and the protagonist has just come out of the Thames after diving in and swimming in it during a storm. Why? The location must be somewhere near a school, because there is a group of bored schoolgirls clapping as the protagonist steps out of the Thames. And a girl in a nearby house, waiting for something, is significant to the story. Okay...
The protagonist dove into the Thames to retrieve something that was lost in the river. The item was thrown into it perhaps? As the protagonist exits the river they hold their prize high to show they retrieved it. A group of schoolgirls clap unenthusiastically, acknowledging that they see the victory, but really don't care much one way or the other. The protagonist has retrieved the item for the girl that is waiting in the nearby house. Perhaps it is something of hers that someone threw away into the river?
Who would have done that? A school bully perhaps? Her step-father? or Step-mother? Maybe it is her mother's locket, and her step-mother grew angry with her and threw the locket into the Thames as punishment for something that the girl had done. The boy who wants to be the girls' friend dove into the river and found the locket for her.
Will they run away together now? What is the significance of the locket, or is it merely his hope that retrieving the locket will get the girl he loves to notice him?
The Thames can, of course, be changed to any other body of water. The ocean, a pond, an old water-filled quarry, a deep well... simply taking random segments such as the story prompt offered by the Writer's Idea Bank can provide the basic foundation for a good short story, or even a novel. You just need to be creative in reading a story into the offered prompt.
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