Picture Prompt

Hi there! Hope you’re spending this extra, enforced, free time on your writing projects. Since I haven’t received any stories or poems to post just lately, I thought I’d give you a nudge with a picture prompt this time.

What does it suggest to you? Where is she, who/what is she running from? She seems to have had time to pick up an umbrella but not put on her shoes – what’s that about? I’m sure there are lots of scenarios that you can create. Have a think, have a write (short story/flash fiction/poem, whatever you like!), then send them to me to share. I look forward to reading them.

Keep safe x

Prompt of the Week

Happy New Year everyone! Hope you all had a good Christmas break and are looking forward to even more writing output in 2020!

Well, its a New Year, a new decade, I’m sure you must have had a few new things for Christmas, and lets face it, there is plenty of news going on at the moment, so can you guess what the next prompt is? Yup, its:

New

Approach it any way you like – poetry, prose, flash fiction, creative non-fiction, or what about a script? Why don’t you step outside of your comfort zone for this one (start as you mean to go on eh?) and try something different. A different tense/perspective/style can give a real boost to your writing. Go on, have a go! I look forward to reading the results.

Prompt for the Week

Some of us were privileged enough to attend our leaders, Kevin Murphy’s, recent birthday bash, and what a lovely do it was too! (Excuse me if I just take a moment to thank Kevin’s wife, Diane, for providing us with such a scrumptious spread, it was amazing!) The event inspired this week’s prompt of

Party

Of course, your piece doesn’t have to be about a birthday party, it can be about any ol’ sort, and I have to say I amazed myself with the number of options I came up with when I started thinking about it: Hen/stag parties; Christmas parties (office or otherwise!); party lines (I’m very old – I remember these!); partition walls; political parties (ooh very topical); oh and of course, shooting parties (just sayin’)! There are loads more too – who knew that ‘party’ was such a versatile word, and think of all the different settings you can give them.

As always it can be prose, poetry, flash fiction – anything you like.

Well, I’m off now to start writing, hope you do the same…. we’ll look forward to reading your work.

Prompt for the Week

Here in Retford the rain this week has been pretty biblical with lots of flooding creating havoc locally. So this week, it seems appropriate to go with the prompt of

Flood

Use it any way you like – the obvious; flooded roads and fields, floods of tears, or the not so obvious; outpouring of words; flooded with relief… that sort of thing. I’m sure you can think up a few original and fun ways to use it! We look forward to reading your ideas.

Prompt for the week

Not sure who came up with this one, but I wonder if they had Halloween in mind when they chose:

SCAR

As always, it’s up to you how you use it. Poetry, prose, creative non-fiction, maybe even a bit of flash fiction (flash fiction is usually defined as a complete story of no more than 1000 words, though often it can be considerably less, sometimes 500, and if you’re really talented, sometimes just 10!)

Have a go, see what you come up with, and please do share it with us!

Prompt of the Week

Our prompt this week is:

Local

You can use this any way you like – Location; Locality; Localise, or even Lo-cal! It would be lovely to hear a bit about where you live, but just use the word to inspire you. Why not try a bit of freewriting, just 15 minutes of pen to paper – no stopping, or punctuation, just a free flow of words, a bit like word association if you like. See where it takes you. After that, you can either edit it into a fully formed piece, or just search it for gems. The finished piece can, of course, be prose, poetry, fiction or biography, or anything else you can think of! We look forward to reading your work.

This week’s prompt

We always try to choose a trigger/prompt that has several meanings or connotations and which will spark the imagination. This week’s is no exception, and I’m sure there are many stories to be found in the masses. Parties, sports spectators, the crush on the bus must all be breeding grounds for good pieces of creative writing, be it fictional or your own experience.  Give it a go, and share your poems and stories with us!

CROWD

 

This week’s prompt

At our last meeting we, as usual, set a prompt/trigger for those of us who need a little inspiration to start writing. This week it is:

TEST

Of course you can use it in any of it’s forms… tested, tester, testing, in any context, and in any discipline you like: prose/poetry/flash fiction/biography… you name it!

So start writing ‘write now’ and do share your work with us, we’d love to read it.

Prompt of the week

As you should know by now, at the end of each meeting of the Retford Writers we decide on a prompt just in case any of us need a nudge to write for the next session.  This weeks prompt is

ROSE

It can be used any old way you like…i.e. ‘a rose by any other name…’; ‘he rose from his coffin…’; ‘there was a snail in the rose on the watering can…’ – in prose, poetry, biog, in fact wherever your imagination and creative juices take you!

Of course, you don’t have to be a Retford Writer to give it a whirl. We’d love to see your efforts too.

SNAPPED by Pete Brammer

Trigger – Fair – Flash fiction from Pete

SNAPPED by Pete Brammer

At the end of a ‘Caterpillar Ride’ at the fair, the canvas roof peeled over to reveal a dead body slumped in the seat. The police were duly alerted by the fair owner, who was visibly shocked, at the discovery.

On their arrival, the police closed

down everything and stopped anyone from leaving.

CID Inspector Calvin Jones had been placed in charge of the case.

Unbelievably, it took him only a couple of hours to solve the murder, thanks to a torn photograph of the killer leaving the ride, taken by a young lady who had been too frightened to go on herself.

The friends of the girl, on joining her, had snatched the Polaroid picture out of her hands and tore it up, because they considered it unflattering.

Arthur Duncan Clark was found guilty at Leeds Assizes and ended his life swinging from a set of gallows within the prison.

Story fictional.

Picture © Copyright Ian S and licensed for reuse under this Creative Commons Licence.