- Your main character, Lou, can see the future. He (or she) never studies because he knows what the answers will be. Same with homework. He always does very well, but his tests and his homework are never perfect because he doesn’t want to raise suspicions. Today is his final exam in History. What could go wrong? Write what happens and make things not go his way.
- Your main character, Jan, is an activist against the tyrannical rule of dictator Mun the Fourth. Jan is imprisoned for protesting against the government. She’s (or he’s) wearing jeans, a tee shirt, and sneakers—but the guards have taken the laces. The furniture is welded to the floor. A guard stands outside her metal door. Tomorrow, she will be sentenced. All she has to work with are her belt, which they didn’t see under her tee shirt, her talent at whistling, and the fact that her elbows and knees bend painlessly both forward and back. What could go right? Write how she escapes.
- Make up how the wheel was invented by early humans. Write the story of what happened.
- Duchess Sylvia or Duke Silvio leads a rebellion against King Henry, ruler of Jenk, that eventually fails—but while it’s going on, she (or he) captures the king and holds power briefly. While she’s in charge, she accomplishes two things: she creates a democratically elected congress, and she causes the massacre of the kingdom’s shoemakers, who aren’t fighting against anyone. So, she is both a hero and a villain rolled into one person. After her defeat, she’s tried in the high court of Jenk. Write her trial and how she or her lawyers defend what she did and how the prosecutors argue to send her to prison.
- In Europe and the Middle East in the Middle Ages, there were slaves, but they weren’t black people from southern Africa. They were white people from Europe or slightly darker people from northern Africa. In those places, anyone could be a slave. People usually became slaves either by being captured in battle or by having parents who were slaves. Slavery could happen to anyone. Everyone was sure that being a slave was not a good life, but no one thought that slavery itself was bad or should be abolished. It never occurred to them. Slavery always had been and always would be. Imagine the first person who thinks slavery is wrong and how he or she comes to that conclusion. Newton discovered gravity when an apple fell on his head. What happens to lead your character to the idea: a conversation? An event (like the apple)? Life experience? Write the story of the realization. If you like, continue to what happens next.