Hello!
Today I’m going to talk a little about how I go from having a prompt, to getting an idea for a short story.
I must first of all say that I have zero training in writing short stories. This is an area I have marked for growth, but as I have been muddling along I haven’t got to it yet. This interest in short stories is a new phenomenon that happened after I began writing prompt stories with my writing group.
So anyway, how do you go from a prompt to a story?
First of all, I think it’s important to know what your constraints are, apart from the prompt. Those things like time, the inclusion of specific themes, word count or medium, need to be factored into the idea from the beginning.
So what is my prompt?
The prompt for today is: The empty bottle.
Constraints:
Time -I only have an hour to write this.
Genre- I am writing stories with romantic elements this month.
So, now what to do?
What I do is go to my first impression. When I think “The empty bottle” what impressions do I get?
Do I immediately think of alcohol, perfume, poison, medicine, soft drink, water?
My thoughts were: beer, poison, perfume, milk.
So then I go through each.
Beer: It could fit with romance, like a first date, but when I think of an empty bottle for some reason I think of loneliness which was not the vibe I am after. Pass.
Poison: Now I love this idea, but I have written one about poison recently, and it’s hard to fit into the romance genre without getting dramatic, which is also hard for a shorter story.
Perfume: This would be a different take on a bottle, but when does anyone ever finish their perfume bottles? I clearly do not use perfume enough, so this one is a pass too.
Milk: Everyone runs out of milk, unless you don’t drink it. So the characters could be anyone. This makes it a lot easier on the romance, short story idea. We have a winner.
Ok so I have got my prompt a bit more defined. My story is going to revolve around an empty milk bottle. Now it’s time for some more brainstorming.
Empty Milk Bottle: It could be used for soccer ball, has fallen out of someone’s rubbish bin, might have meant someone is not planning to return or someone needs more milk for a recipe.
I pick someone needs more milk for a recipe, because it sounds like it will be a quick little interaction, and what I need is a short story.
So…what did I write?
Check out “The empty bottle” on Wattpad.
I hope you found this little walk through interesting.
How do you get ideas for your work?