Following on from last week’s Specimens writing prompt, imagine if familiar 21st century means of travel no longer or had never existed, perhaps because of a lack of fossil fuels. No more trains, planes or automobiles!
How might your characters reach a crucial location? What challenges and perils might they face?
If you write or create something prompted by this, please send an email to judydarley(at)iCloud.com to let me know. With your permission, I’ll publish it on SkyLightRain.com.
Chronology by Duncan Cameron
I spotted this curious array of specimens at the RWA’s Sculpture Open Exhibition.
It’s part of Chronology by Duncan Cameron, a multimedia exhibit of cases and cages and glorious curiosities.
To me they look like specimens and luggage collected by some fabulously eccentric 17th century naturalist.
Imagine encountering this lost luggage in an airport arrivals hall.
Now match it to the owner. What adventures might they be heading home from?
If you write or create something prompted by this, please send an email to judydarley(at)iCloud.com to let me know. With your permission, I’ll publish it on SkyLightRain.com.
I spied this daisy chain on the footpath near my office, curling over the grey flagstones. The petals are already closing up as though nightfall in on its way.
I love that it’s a reminder of nature in the midst of the city, and of childhood in a drearily grown up setting.
Who might have linked these flowers stem by stem? What moment of hurry caused them to drop it? Where might they be now?
And who might find the chain? What thought and action might it prompt in them?
If you write or create something prompted by this, please send an email to judydarley(at)iCloud.com to let me know. With your permission, I’ll publish it on SkyLightRain.com.
Imagine waking to find an expected delivery in your living room – an egg so beautiful and speckled it seems to glow with light and colour.
Could something have crept into your home to lay it? What might hatch from that exquisite shell?
Now hype up the intrigue by expanding the egg to at least the size of your sofa.
By the way, this particular eggs-ample (sorry, couldn’t resist!) is a white chocolate confection apparently resembling an albatross egg.
If you write or create something prompted by this, please send an email to judydarley(at)iCloud.com to let me know. With your permission, I’ll publish it on SkyLightRain.com.
Do you ever find it hard to believe that a tomato is a fruit and not a vegetable? By this logic, how can we know that a dog is a dog, a pigeon is a pigeon or that a rock is a rock (and not a tortoise)?
Take this idea further and question all of your surroundings, piece by piece. Or consider this rather beautiful tomato and imagine it being extremely large, or yourself extremely small, and see where your mind carries you. If you want to go the other way and picture yourself being extremely large instead, go ahead. I won’t judge, promise.
If you write or create something prompted by this, please send an email to judydarley(at)iCloud.com to let me know. With your permission, I’ll publish it on SkyLightRain.com.
Inspired in part by Michael T. Miyoshi’s fantastic response to last week’s #WritingPrompt – Oddity, this week’s prompt features an inquisitive turtle.
What could a kind-natured, mischievous boy and a wise, curious turtle learn from one another? Given the opportunity, what adventures might they have together?
If you write or create something prompted by this, please send an email to judydarley(at)iCloud.com to let me know. With your permission, I’ll publish it on SkyLightRain.com.
I met this wheeled rock in Kaunas, Lithuania. I’m sure there’s a perfectly sensible reason why a rock should be fitted with a wheel, but what could that reason be? What springs to my mind is Terry Pratchett’s sentient suitcase with feet, The Luggage.
Could this rock be in the midst of some mind-boggling mission? Might it not be a rock at all? What unseen powers might it possess? How could the wheel aspect contribute to your plot line?
My favourite response so far, received from Michael T Miyoshi via Twitter: “I’m not a rock! I’m a tortoise without rear legs. A good Samaritan fitted me with the wheel.” #WritingPrompt #RockWithWheel
Well, of course, that makes perfect sense!
If you write or create something prompted by this, please send an email to judydarley(at)iCloud.com to let me know. With your permission, I’ll publish it on SkyLightRain.com.
The other day I re-watched Big, in which Tom Hanks plays a child transformed by a wish into an adult, and was struck by the skilful storytelling within that movie.
The placement of a milk carton with the hero’s childhood face on it added poignancy to a scene whilst serving to remind viewers of his true self.
Imagine a ‘missing’ poster in your neighbourhood and think of the unexpected revelation or subtle depth it could layer into a story. Then have a play.
If you write or create something prompted by this, please send an email to judydarley(at)iCloud.com to let me know. With your permission, I’ll publish it on SkyLightRain.com.
The accordion is a devil’s instrument. No, seriously. When visiting Kaunas, Lithuania, recently, I spent some time meandering the three storeys of the Devils’ Museum (highly recommended, btw), and saw numerous statues of gurning devils clutching elaborate squeeze-boxes.
Somehow, it was no surprise. Unless played with uncommon skill, these tricky instruments sound somewhat like outraged felines. Far from accord, all you get is discord.
What instrument or implement could you give the villain of a story to provide an insight into their depths of depravity? Go brash, or go subtle – you could set the whole tone of your piece.
If you write or create something prompted by this, please send an email to judydarley(at)iCloud.com to let me know. With your permission, I’ll publish it on SkyLightRain.com.
There’s been a lot in the news recently about the world losing its first mammal species to climate change. The creature in crisis was a little rodent called a melomy, which used to live on an island near the Great Barrier Reef, but died out due to cataclysmic weather that destroyed their habitat.
It’s a scary harbinger of the losses to come. This week, I suggest you write a tale on this theme, but give it a twist by a) writing about the extinction of human beings from the point of view of another species, or b) by detailing the extinction of an inanimate object, along the lines of: “Scientists today confirmed the death of the last jam spoon. This selfless and useful species is now declared extinct.”
If you write or create something prompted by this, please send an email to judydarley(at)iCloud.com to let me know. With your permission, I’ll publish it on SkyLightRain.com.