Writing Prompt: The Ingredient

Language is a funny thing.  Cultures have a way to use perfectly normal nouns and phrases as off color slang.  For today's writing prompt, cook up a short piece of fiction that uses this ingredient:

Dill Weed

Feel free to be a proper or improper as you want to be!

Writing Prompt: The Pop Artist

For some strange reason, the bathroom at a local pizza place here in Atlanta has wallpaper that is composed entirely of Andy Warhol photographs.  I don't know why.  I suppose it provides some sort of hipster street cred.

Andy Warhol was one of the creators of the pop art scene and remains an icon of American popular culture.  In the 1970s, Warhol moved in celebrity circles and was a fixture at the famed nightclub Studio 54.  For today's writing prompt, make up a short fictional story that somehow involves -

Andy Warhol

Weather Related Writing Prompt: The Fog

Weather conditions can really contribute to the atmosphere of fiction writing.  Snow can turn a walk around the block into a fight for survival.  As a horror writer, I find one of the spookiest weather conditions to be fog.  It conceals everything.  When someone is walking through the fog, you can't identify them until they are very nearby.  All sorts of things emerge from the fog.  Thick pea soup fog changes the look and feel of everything.

For today's writing prompt, write a short piece of fiction that occurs in -

the fog

Musical Writing Prompt: The Cowboy Done Wrong

It's time to pull on our boots, mount up, and ride west riding pardners!  Western stories and novels are good reading and are a great genre to work on the essentials of a story.  In western's conflicts are stark and consequences are often final and sad.  For today's writing exercise, listen this classic Marty Robbins song:  "The Streets of Laredo."  It will provide a character to write about.

For today's writing prompt, write a short piece of western fiction and tell us what -

The cowboy did wrong.

Writing Prompt: Country Valentine's Day

Valentine's Day (February 14th) is right around the corner.  In an innocent world, it's a time for love. In a more realistic world, it's a day that blends love, passion, obligation, expectations, and measurement.  For today's writing prompt, let's journey out of the big city and write a short Valentine's Day story -

 for Rednecks!

Writing Prompt: The Time Machine

I saw this Atari Flashback 9 for sale at a Dollar General store the other day and thought back to simpler times when I was a kid and the Atari 2600 was the video game console.  The original Atari went on sale for Christmas in 1979.  It was a fixture of life in the early 1980s.  For today's writing prompt, take us back to another era and write us a story written way back in -

the 1980s!

Writing Prompt: Quote the Ravens

Ravens and crows are among the most intelligent of birds.  The recognize people and animals and they are amazingly vocal.  It's no wonder they inspired Edgar Allen Poe.  He did a good job of documenting a raven conversation.  For today's writing prompt, write a piece of short fiction that provides eavesdrops on these -

ravens' private conversation

Jubilee and Munin, Ravens of the Tower of London - © User:Colin / Wikimedia Commons // CC BY-SA 4.0

Setting Writing Prompt: The Exam Room

Stories are often set in fantasy worlds, in far away galaxies, or gritty urban neighborhoods, but one of the most dramatic settings in real life may in fact be the Doctor's Office.  The exam room is the place where patients often learn that they are healthy or that they are very not healthy.  The consequences of the news can reverberate by all who are touched by the news.

Whenever I go in for a physical, I often find that I can overhear bits of conversations from adjoining rooms and I wonder what's happening to other patients.  I'm often nervous about what the doctor may tell me.  It's always an experience.

For today's writing prompt, write a story that is set in -

The Doctor's Office