Writing Prompt: A fire argues

Life had kicked me about a bit, but I am back now and will be getting back to writing and getting this blog back up and being posted to. To kick it off I am going to work on a bit of a writing challenge. What could one create with the writing prompt A fire argues?
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"You will burn."

The apprentice stood, eyes focused on the brazier and the flicker of low flame that burned within it. The fire seemed to laugh before it ducked down into the low coals and hid. Curses in several archaic languages followed as she apprentice cursed the elemental origins of the flame that refused to kindle. There was nothing that could be done about it, though. What could be done? Apprentices were simply helpless to do anything about it when a fire argues against being properly lit, even without the use of magic.

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Okay, not much, but the best I could come up with to work in the phrase 'a fire argues', and I'm tired to it sort of lost the tense there in favor of finishing the exercise.

Writing Prompt - What If...?

What if. It is a term that writers live by. It is the building block of stories and the prompt that makes the imagination soar.

Take those two simple words and look around you. Find a "What if..." and explore it.

What if you picked up someone else's cell phone by mistake while out running errands? What would happen if you got an important call meant for them? What if the phone had been intentionally switched? What would you do if you missed a call you had to get because the other person had your phone?

There are a multitude of What if's that can surround just a simple action such as the misplacement of a cell phone. What if it was a laptop? Or a PDA? Or....?

Writing Prompt - Strange Coincidences

Okay, here's a writing prompt taken from my own life for ya. My mom and I went to town yesterday, and started out in my little local town of Big Lake. There are to my knowledge only three ATM machined in that town.

The ATM at the service station was not working when I stopped to use it, had apparently got too low on money, so I went to Big Lake's little mall. The ATM in the grocery store was not working - something wrong with the phone lines. Down the mall to the Credit Union.... two guys was replacing the ATM machine.

Now it just seems like some kind of cosmic hint that out of three ATMs not a single one of them was working, so here's your challenge. Find a story in such an event.

What might prompt someone to need money and what would happen if every avenue they took to get some cash was met by some form of a road block?

Writing Prompt - Dreaming of love

What if your character fell in love with an image in a picture but no one believed them that the image was real and when they slept they could visit the world where the figure was and it was more real than their waking world... now -- what happens when they discover that that *IS* the waking world and the world they thought was reality is only a dream?

Writing Prompt - The Magic Pen

What if your character found a pen that could write on its own? What would the pen write about? Why would it be writing by itself and how might the character have come into possession of it? Is it enchanted? Held by a ghost? Being used by someone that is invisible? Maybe the pen is alive somehow? It is it a mechanical process that your medieval character can not comprehend?

Writing Prompt - Shrinking World

What would you think might happen if the world was shrinking? Maybe scientists discover that the core is collapsing in on itself or someone realizes that dust storms in the Sahara are suddenly lifting high into the skies and escaping Earth's atmosphere, followed by similar problems in other parts of the world and leading scientists to.... what?

Grab an idea and explain it, then run with it. What happens? Why? What can anyone do about it?

Writing Prompt: Dragonflight

Write about riding a dragon for the first time. What would it be like? Would it be by choice or something forced the character to end up riding on the dragon? What could force the accidental ride? Was it a dragon slayer than ended up on the dragon in the act of trying to slay it?

I'd love to see your responses, please leave a link in the comments or post your response there. Thanks!

Writing Prompt - The Loyal Pet

Write a short story that has a loyal pet in it. You know, like Lassie, or RinTinTin. It could be a dog, a cat, a hamster, a bird, a little dragon, whatever. Just show it being loyal.

Maybe a little prairie dog that is loyal to his companion that decides to set out from the prairie dog town and see what it is like up in the mountains?

I'd love to see your responses, please leave a link in the comments or post your response there. Thanks!

Writing Prompt - The Strangest of Pets

Writing Prompt: Write a short story that has a strange pet in it. A giant squid that a kid befriends off the end of a pier? Maybe a alien that has a human pet and the human is the strange pet of the story? Someone builds themselves a robotic pet that has some strange quality to it?

I'd love to see your responses, please leave a link in the comments or post your response there. Thanks!

Writing Prompt: Battle of the sexes

In celebration of Rush Limbaugh's show this morning and how annoyed his POV and the POV of his caller made me, I want to issue an interesting challenge for writing today.

Writing Prompt: Write a short story that has a woman doing something that is traditionally thought to be only something that a man is capable of being able to do. Whether you write about a tavern server that proves she can work a blacksmith's forge or a woman in the future that proves she can fly a space ship better in a dog fight than a man - whatever it is, it should start out making it clear that society has a view that women are not as capable of the task as men, and end with the woman proving that women are as capable as men are. Don't have to show the guy up, don't have to be better than the guy (can if you really want), just that the woman is as capable as the man is.

I'd love to see your responses, please leave a link in the comments or post your response there. Thanks!

Writing Prompt - Radio From the Future

I'm sitting here early in the morning listening to the radio and it has me thinking. What if your character turned on the radio and the station they were listening to was from the future? How long would it take for them to realize it was from the future? How would they figure that out? Would the radio report a fire or natural disaster before it happened? Maybe the results of a sports game before it was played? What would the character do with the information they get from the radio? Would they save lives or make money? Would they tell anyone about it?

Writing Prompt - Magical Wand

What if your character was to find a wand somewhere? Maybe an old stick laying in the forest that they did not realize was really a wizard's wand when they picked it up? A wand wrapped in cloth and tucked away in an old footlocker in the attic of their grandmother's house? Something they bought as part of a Halloween costume at a second hand store?

What might happen to make them realize that the wand is not just an ordinary stick? What kind of things can they do with the wand? What might happen as a result of their discovery of the wand and its powers?

If you decide to write something on this prompt, please include a link back to this post and leave a comment here letting us know where we can read your story. Thanks!

Writing Prompt - Blowout

In honor of my great adventure I want to have you imagine your lead has had a tire blowout (or landing gear breaking, or horse is lame, wagon lost a wheel, whatever), just something that is wrong with the wheel/feet of his transportation.

What do they do? Call for help? Fix it themselves? Toss a match inside the wagon of hay and walk away?

Writing Prompt - fog

It is a foggy morning, with a murky gray fog holding close to the trees, so how about a writing prompt pertaining to fog? Write something that has your character in a dense fog, maybe evading someone or looking for someone (something?). A traveler that got lost in the fog? Is the fog natural or caused by some artificial means? Can the character see through it reasonably well or is it the sort of fog that obscures even their own feet? If you're a horror, fantasy or sci-fi writer - is the fog itself somehow alive?

Writing Prompt - Wrong number, again

What kind of plots can you come up with from the simple premise of your character trying to call someone they know and getting told it is a wrong number? Are they dialing the right number and being lied to? Has something changed that the person is suddenly no longer at that number? Did they time travel and the person's no longer there? Has their best friend been sent into witness protection overnight? Is someone trying to make them think they're going insane?

Catch a muse and take off and see where it leads you.

Writing Prompt - The Cell Phone

Imagine your character heard a cell phone ringing and located the phone laying in the bushes. Where is the character, would they answer the phone? Who would it be that is calling the phone and what would happen as a result of the character answering the phone?

Could it be the phone of someone that was kidnapped? Did a police informant drop the phone? Had the phone belonged to someone that used it to call in a ransom demand? Is it just an ordinary lost phone and the caller suspects their spouse to be having an affair with someone - now suspecting the person that answered the phone?

Writing Prompt: The Diary

Imagine your character just found a diary hidden away somewhere. What do you think the diary would look like? Where might they have found it? What sort of condition is it in?

Perhaps the more important question: Whose diary was it? Did it belong to someone they knew? To someone that witnessed something important happen? Did it belong to their grandmother or another relative of theirs?

Could the diary have belonged to their own future self? What would they have wrote about that they would have felt a need to send the diary back in time? Did they intend for it to end up in their own hands, or someone else's'? Was it someone else that sent it back? Why the whole diary and not just a letter?

Writing Prompt - Just Desserts

Get a notebook and think of your favorite character. Write out what they would consider the perfect dessert to be. Forget about whatever else they might enjoy eating, just focus on dessert. Do they like cake or ice cream or Jell-o? Do they prefer a simple dessert or something complicated? Do they dislike dessert? If so, why?

Have some fun and expend to say what those that know your character think of their dessert preferences. Does their friends share their tastes or think they are weird? Did they develop a taste for the dessert of choice from their mother or a former lover? Is it something they made up themselves?

If you're feeling really inspired you could make up a few recipes for the desserts so you'll know for future reference what exactly the things have in them.

Writing Prompt: Watching the Sunset

Imagine that you are watching the sun set on another planet. Perhaps you are on Saturn? Mars? Are you on a planet in another system? Even another dimension?

Describe what the sunset looks like, if there are clouds and how they affect it, if there is one two or even three suns that are setting (maybe one or two are rising as another sets?)

Is it forested, desert, at sea? What color is the sky? Blue like Earth or red like Mars? Does your viewpoint character have to be inside something special? A building, or maybe a space suit? If so why?

Have fun and be creative in how you describe it, maybe toss in a few alien creatures that are grazing along the horizon or flying through the sky at sunset.

Writing Prompt - A New World

Write about the first space craft to reach 581c. What do they find? Is there liquid water on the planet? Perhaps even some kind of life? If there is life what kind of technology do they possess or are they primitives? What consequences does humans arriving have? Do they cause intergalactic war for invasion? Do they accidentally bring some kind of disease?