Category: Writing Prompts

Better late than never! Here’s a Friday Fun-Day writing prompt to help get your weekend rolling. It’s a variation on an oldie but a good: taking a line from the nearest book.

Here’s how this version goes:

Grab the closest book you can find. Open to a random page in the middle of the book. Take the first line of the first full paragraph on that page and the first line of the last full paragraph. These will be your opening and closing lines, in that order. Now, write a story in 700 words or less using these lines to start and end your story.

The nearest book can be anything: an encyclopedia, a biography, 1984, whatever. There are no restrictions except that the page must be random, you must use those particular lines for your first and last lines, and it must be 700 words or less. Otherwise, have fun with it.

Feel free to share the lines you got, an excerpt from the story, etc. in the comments. And if you want to suggest a writing prompt, please mention it in the comments or email me at thewritersscrapbin@gmail.com.

Have a great weekend, wonderful writers!

 

As you may have seen on my Twitter or Facebook feed, I recently learned that I have been longlisted for the Crime Writers’ Association’s (CWA) Margery Allingham Short Story Competition. In honor of this news, I’ve created a writing prompt inspired by the quote which is the criteria for this contest:

The Mystery remains box-shaped, at once a prison and a refuge. Its four walls are, roughly, a Crime, a Mystery, an Enquiry and a Conclusion with an Element of Satisfaction in it.

Margery Allingham

 Here’s the prompt:

You come home from a typical day of work, running errands, chauffeuring the kids, hanging out with friends or your significant other, whatever. When you get inside you find a mysterious box set in the middle of the living room. You open the box and discover that it’s no ordinary box–it contains your worst fear.

Take five minutes to write notes on the box. How big is it? What does it look like? Is there any writing on it? What’s inside? Is it a physical object that you fear or something more existential? Why are you afraid of it? What’s your reaction when you see it? How does it make you feel and what do you do with it?

Using these notes for reference, write a short story or scene about the discovery of this box. It doesn’t have to be a mystery or a crime story, although it certainly can be if that’s what you want. It can be fantasy, horror, romance, whatever. Have fun with it.

When you’re done, feel free to post an excerpt in the comments below. I’d love to see what you come up with.

If you’re interested in learning more about the Margery Allingham Short Story Competition, the CWA, or the quote I provided above, check out this website: https://thecwa.co.uk/debuts/short-story-competition/.

Have a fun and productive weekend of writing!

Welcome to another regular feature on The Writer’s Scrap Bin: Friday Fun-Day. Every Friday I’m going to dedicate at least one post to something fun, like interesting facts about a famous writer, literary crosswords, etc.

Today’s Friday Fun-Day post is a writing prompt. Three or so weeks ago my mother brought to my attention a particularly entertaining trend on Twitter. Marc Laidlaw tweeted “The first line of almost any story can be improved by making sure the second line is, ‘And then the murders began.'” As you can imagine, Twitter had a lot of fun with this concept, taking famous first lines and following them with “And then the murders began.” Thus #LaidlawsRule began.

In addition to getting a kick out of the tweets, I was inspired to create a new writing prompt.

Find a generic, horrible first line and add “And then the murders began” or some variation of it. Use this combination as the opening to a story and keep writing.

I haven’t had the time to fully pursue my idea yet, but I will put the opening as an example:

“Around here, strawberries don’t ripen until late spring. And then the murders begin.”

Make the first line as hilariously terrible as you can. Have fun, roll with it. When you’re done, post your opening in the comments. I’d love to see what everyone comes up with.