The Place For My Writers Notes

Original posting 8 April 2009

Writer's Digest, February 2008, page 77 offers this contest prompt:

"Start your story with 'When I first told my family about [fill in the blank], they didn't believe me.' End your story with 'And that's how I ended up [fill in the blank]." From The Pocket Muse by Monica Wood

Start by filling in the two blanks. What did you tell your family about? And what did you end up with? Remember that the two blanks don't have to be obviously related. In fact, a good way to do this is to start by making a list of five possibilities for each of the blanks, and make them somewhat unusual -- the elephant in the living room, the aliens who lived at the end of the street, whatever makes you feel interested and intrigued. Then pick one from each list, and start filling in the path from one to the other.

Just what happens between what you first told your family about and what you ended up with?

Write!

a rainbow around the moon?