I was bored a few days ago during a long car ride, and had just finished my book, so I went online on my phone to find a good writing prompt. What follows is the prompt itself as well as what I managed to get written before we arrived home. Feel free to continue it or provide other prompts of your own.
Prompt:
A beggar has just won a million dollars in the lottery; explore his thoughts and the thoughts of those around him.
Response:
Jim dug steadily, used to sorting out the good from the bad. Setting aside a half-eaten slice of pizza with some unidentified green fuzz growing on the cheese - he wasn't that desperate - his probing fingers wrap instead around a white cardboard take-out container with red Chinese lettering on the side. Cautiously pulling back the tabs on top, a grin suddenly splits his face as eager fingers pluck out one of the pieces of kung-pao chicken.
After another ten minutes, during which time he unearths a few bites of hotdog and part of a lettuce wrap, Jim sits back a bit from his search. His eyes run habitually around the remainder of the inside of the dumpster, alighting on a lottery ticket stuck to the far side. The scratch card had already been used, but Jim liked to double-check any tickets he happened to find, just in case the owner had actually won anything. He'd won prizes up to twenty dollars a few times in the past.
Reaching across the numerous garbage bags, Jim plucked the ticket from its perch, glancing at the already-scratched-off circles. Shame; no prize on this one. He went to throw it back in the dumpster, but abrubtly halted his movement as he felt the card shift against his fingers. Inspecting it again, he pulled a second card away from where it had been stuck to the back of the first. This one was brand-new, the surface still unmarred.
Jim set about scratching at the little circles with an overgrown and dirty thumbnail. About thirty seconds later, he leaned back against the dumpster, allowing himself to slide down it until he was sitting on the ground leaning against the bin. Jim stared in disbelief at the numbers he had just revealed. Had he seriously just won what he thought he had? Blinking several times and staring hard at the card in his hand, he concluded that it was no trick. "I just won a million dollars..." he breathed, still unable to believe his good fortune.
_____________________
At this point we pulled into our driveway at home, and I put my writing aside. Anyone want to continue it or have another prompt for me to try?
Thursday, July 29, 2010
Thursday, July 22, 2010
Narrative Challenge
The challenge: Write a narrative explaining why the characters listed below find themselves in a hall outside a courtroom. Spend no more than 25 minutes.
The Characters:
an attorney
a physician
a teacher
a police officer
a nurse
a professor
a judge
I spent about 20 minutes writing this, because I reached a certain point and decided it was a good spot to end. I took a few liberties with the challenge; not everyone is in the hall, though they are all visible from there. I also changed the nurse to an EMT because it fit better with the plot, limited as it is. Here is what I came up with; feel free to share your own responses to the challenge.
Time to Kill
Marshall McLann paced anxiously outside the doors to the courtroom. As the defense lawyer in the upcoming murder trial, he felt somewhat prepared, but he could never seem to get a jury to agree with his point of view, no matter what it was.
In this case, nearly all of the evidence implicating professor Scott Miller in the murder of Nancy Bordon, a fellow teacher, was circumstantial. Marshall had a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach that, due to his bad luck with juries, Miller was pretty much doomed from the start.
He snuck a peek into the witness room a a young Indian woman slipped in. She was one of the witnesses for the prosecution - one of the EMTs on scene when Bordon's body was discovered. The only other two witnesses in the room so far were a burly police officer who had also been one of the first responders and an elderly physician who had tried to save Bordon's life after she was rushed to the hospital.
Marshall opened his briefcase, pulling out a folder and staring at a picture of the grisly scene where Bordon was found. Her beaten and mutilated body was strewn across the crisp orange and brown leaves like so much garbage. He sighed under his breath, steeling himself for a long, uphill battle.
Finally the courtroom doors swung reluctantly open with an ominous creek, and Marshall looked up. His attention was only barely captured by the sight of the defendant being led in, handcuffed between two guards who dwarfed the man in the middle. Instead he focused on what lay directly ahead of him, as though daring him to enter the room and even try to get Miller acquitted - the judge's seat. Judge Huron, as per Marshall's luck, was known for being strict and unusually bad-tempered.
Steeling himself one final time, Marshall ignored the stares of the others in the room and marched solemnly to his place in the front. It was time.
The Characters:
an attorney
a physician
a teacher
a police officer
a nurse
a professor
a judge
I spent about 20 minutes writing this, because I reached a certain point and decided it was a good spot to end. I took a few liberties with the challenge; not everyone is in the hall, though they are all visible from there. I also changed the nurse to an EMT because it fit better with the plot, limited as it is. Here is what I came up with; feel free to share your own responses to the challenge.
Time to Kill
Marshall McLann paced anxiously outside the doors to the courtroom. As the defense lawyer in the upcoming murder trial, he felt somewhat prepared, but he could never seem to get a jury to agree with his point of view, no matter what it was.
In this case, nearly all of the evidence implicating professor Scott Miller in the murder of Nancy Bordon, a fellow teacher, was circumstantial. Marshall had a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach that, due to his bad luck with juries, Miller was pretty much doomed from the start.
He snuck a peek into the witness room a a young Indian woman slipped in. She was one of the witnesses for the prosecution - one of the EMTs on scene when Bordon's body was discovered. The only other two witnesses in the room so far were a burly police officer who had also been one of the first responders and an elderly physician who had tried to save Bordon's life after she was rushed to the hospital.
Marshall opened his briefcase, pulling out a folder and staring at a picture of the grisly scene where Bordon was found. Her beaten and mutilated body was strewn across the crisp orange and brown leaves like so much garbage. He sighed under his breath, steeling himself for a long, uphill battle.
Finally the courtroom doors swung reluctantly open with an ominous creek, and Marshall looked up. His attention was only barely captured by the sight of the defendant being led in, handcuffed between two guards who dwarfed the man in the middle. Instead he focused on what lay directly ahead of him, as though daring him to enter the room and even try to get Miller acquitted - the judge's seat. Judge Huron, as per Marshall's luck, was known for being strict and unusually bad-tempered.
Steeling himself one final time, Marshall ignored the stares of the others in the room and marched solemnly to his place in the front. It was time.
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