- This prompt combines science and Greek mythology. Scientists have recently discovered that carpenter ants can perform successful leg amputations on injured ants in their own colonies. In Greek mythology, almost all the inhabitants of an island have been killed by a plague. To repopulate the island, Zeus turns the ants that live there into people. In your story, this transformation to human form happens during an amputation. Your main characters are the injured ant, the ant who’s doing the amputation, and however many as you like of the injured ant’s family and friends. Write the story. Be sure to include details about what it’s like to turn from an ant into a person.
- Your main character is off to meet a friend who is in danger—you decide what the peril is. On the way, by whatever means of transportation you choose, their sensations go haywire: intensify, fade, play tricks. One moment everything is too loud and the next they can hardly hear at all. Same with sight, smell, taste, and touch. Despite what’s happening to them, they need to reach their destination. Write the scene.
- While still awake, before being pricked by the spinning wheel, Sleeping Beauty or Sleeping Handsome is determined to throw off all the fairy gifts they got at birth and discover their true self. They don’t want to be magically goodlooking or angelically virtuous or graceful or a marvelous dancer or singer or musician—or have to sleep for a hundred years. Write the quest to discover their true self—and if you get to it, how they end up being.
- You, the main character, are taster for King Jebel, who has many enemies. You stand at the king’s side at meals and taste everything as soon as it’s served. If you live, the king eats. You do not want to die! Seven tasters have already died this year, and it’s only May. You’re just in your first week. The annual royal banquet is beginning. Attending are the king’s family, the nobility of the realm, the king’s ministers, and visiting ambassadors. You take your place next to the king. You have to examine each dish extremely carefully. You need to notice who passes a dish to you for the king. Every sense has to be alert but, to make matters worse, you’re sleepy because you couldn’t sleep last night. You’re also very hungry.