• The year is 1997. No one has cell phones, and there is no online banking. The Pimson Town Bank is crowded. A person enters the bank, intending to rob it. The teller whose station the robber chooses has been on the job for only four days. Among the bank’s customers are a deaf person, a teenager who shoplifts, and a journalist. Pick one of these people to be your main character and write a page of the story. Stop and pick a different person to be your main character and write a page. Stop and pick a different person to be your main character and write a page. Make the story change when you change the main character.

• A family arrived on the western frontier in 1840, and this is their first winter. They’re city people hoping for a better life. Lazy snowflakes are falling. Pa goes out to the barn because their cow is about to give birth. The teenager in the family goes out to chop wood. Grandfather is in the rocking chair, saying nothing about the sudden pain in his side. Ma is spinning wool and fails to see their ten-year old leave the cabin to look at the snow, which quickly turns into a blizzard. Pick one of these people to be your main character and write a page of the story. Stop and pick a different person to be your main character and write a page. Stop and pick a different person to be your main character and write a page. Make the story change when you change the main character.

• A dragon has a secret desire. It flies over Plimson Castle and sets the pennants on fire as a warning and lands on the tournament field. The royal family, their most powerful knight, and their most loyal advisor go out to meet the dragon, who tells them they have three days to satisfy its secret desire and they can ask it three questions to help them figure out what the desire is. If they fail, the royal family and all their subjects will fry. Pick one of these people to be your main character and write a page of the story. Stop and pick a different person to be your main character and write a page. Stop and pick a different person to be your main character and write a page. Make the story change when you change the main character.

• This comes from Greek mythology or history, because there really was a Troy. An enormous wooden horse, filled with Greek warriors, stands outside the walls of Troy. The Greeks will win the war against Troy if the Trojans bring the horse inside the city walls. Otherwise, they’ll lose. Sinon, a Greek soldier pretending to have defected from the Greek cause, says that the Greeks want the Trojans to leave the horse outside, which will anger the goddess Athena. Cassandra, the prophetess whom no one believes, warns King Priam and Queen Hecuba not to bring the horse inside. Present also is Helen of Troy, who doesn’t know the horse is full of soldiers but who isn’t sure which side she’s on, the Greek or Trojan. Pick one of these people to be your main character and write a page of the story. Stop and pick a different person to be your main character and write a page. Stop and pick a different person to be your main character and write a page. Make the story change when you change the main character.

Pick one. Write up to five double-spaced pages and email me, either the link to your Google document or your pages as a Word attachment. If you send me the link to your Google document, be sure to give me permission to edit it. You don’t need to finish the story. Just write as far as you get.

• The king of Sanobia has been assassinated, and the three suspects are imprisoned together in a single cell: the king’s younger brother, Duke Bunda; a dairy maid named Jorn; and a talking unicorn. The king’s son or daughter is disguised as a prison guard. By watching and listening to the prisoners, the son or daughter discovers who the murderer (or murderers) is. Write the story and solve the mystery—or as far as you get.

• A priceless portrait, The Man with the Purple Moustache, was stolen from the national museum during daytime hours while the museum was open. Museum security is tight, so employees are the main targets of Detective Bluenose’s investigation. Write what happens and recover the painting—or as far as you get.

• Mother’s wisdom cap is missing. No one in the family can think straight, and the mayor is coming for a visit. The cap must be found! Write what happens. Find the cap and the reason it went missing—or as far as you get.

• Tessie, the family’s sweet but excitable terrier, has been kidnapped. The ransom note demands more money than the family has. They have to get Tessie back without paying. You decide who’s in the family. Write what happens—or as far as you get.

Pick one. You can change anything.

• Your main character doesn’t know they can turn into a spider (any kind) if they want to, but they can. They believe they can turn into a wolf, but they can’t. They know that sometimes, whether they want to or not, they have to turn into a table for half an hour. A person or pet they love has been kidnapped—or some other disaster that you make up. Write what happens.

• In this world, any dreadful deed or event can be reversed within a week if something (you make up what—like a magic spell or a heroic deed or a contest win or anything else) is done or said. Make up the terrible deed or event and write what happens.

• Aliens land. They mean no harm to humans, but on their home planet dogs are evil geniuses. They don’t speak any human language. Write what happens.

• Your fantasy world includes one imaginary creature, one unknown weather condition, and one hidden place. Your main character has one super power and one super defect. Your main character’s home town is about to be destroyed. Write what happens.

• When the mirror tells the evil queen that Snow White is the fairest, the queen doesn’t decide immediately that Snow White has to die. The queen hasn’t killed anyone before. She loves her husband and knows he’s fond of his daughter. She invites Snow White to the throne room for a chat. During that meeting something happens that turns her into a villain and seals the future of each of them. Write the scene.

• Jack has a magic coin that will grant a single wish. Jackie wants him to use it to make her own wish come true, or to give her the coin entirely. (You make up the wish.) They’re walking home from school together when she begins to do the things she thinks will either persuade him or overcome him. Write the scene and make her clever and dangerous. Make Jack smart too.

• Evan wasn’t invited to the birthday party of the most popular kid in school, and his best friend Evie was. While she’s at the party, he sneaks into her bedroom and takes out his anger by planting a series of practical jokes in her bedroom. Write what happens.

• Sherlock Holmes (or his sister, Sherry Holmes) is called to the crime scene of Humpty Dumpty, where yolk, egg white, and eggshells make a puddle below the wall the beloved egg used to perch on. The police think he was pushed. They give Holmes the task of finding out if this really was murder and who did it. Write Holmes’s investigation.

• Here’s an old nursery rhyme, which you may know:

Little Miss Muffet

Sat on a tuffet,

Eating her curds and whey;

Along came a spider,

Who sat down beside her

And frightened Miss Muffet away.

Tell the story of the nursery rhyme from the spider’s point of view. Give it spidery thoughts, whatever they are. Make up the workings of a spider’s mind.

• Jay or Jae wants to do something that is almost certain to turn out badly. Two of his (or her) friends are trying to talk him out of it. Make up the foolhardy act. Decide whether or not the friends succeed–or whether he persuades them to help him do this crazy thing. Write the scene or the whole story.

• Elinor or Eli arrives for the second week of training as a scout for King Aldric in his war against the cruel dwarves of Akero. When she (or he) gets there, she’s told that she’s been dropped from the training. Show her character by writing what she does next and what happens.

• Four friends are hiking together. They run out of trail mix. One sprains an ankle. Rain starts to fall. Their camp is three miles off. Make them all deteriorate into annoying people. Create a crisis and bring them back to likable.

• Bill or Billie wants to reform himself (or herself), stop being bossy and become more caring. Write a scene in which he completely fails at this self-improvement.

• Take the humor road with a disaster deluge. Write a story that involves at least three of these: the end of civilization, dead siblings, drowned cats, a curse on green-eyed men, and the spontaneous combustion of umbrellas! Handicap your main character with double vision, an inability to pronounce the letter t, and a fear of metal. Or make up your own disasters. Write the story.
• In medieval England, the punishment for most crimes—really!—was execution. Henrietta or Henry has been falsely accused of theft and convicted, but she’s (or he’s) escaped from prison in the tower of the local lord’s castle. She’s following a narrow track through the woods on the outskirts of town when a large person drops down from a tree onto the path ahead of her. Write what happens. If you like, keep going and write the story.
• Marco and Juliette are working on a scene together for their school play. Marco is a perfectionist and Juliette is not. Write a rehearsal. If you feel like it, keep writing and end with what happens at the performance.
• Sam, a master at a particular game or sport (you decide which), is having a match against the sentient dragon who is holding her parents hostage. He (or she) knows that it will honor its promise to release them if it loses, and he knows three other things: It hates to lose so much that it is likely to burn him to a crisp if he wins; if it realizes he lost on purpose it is likely to burn him to a crisp; he hates to lose as much as the dragon does. Write the story.

Woe Is I by Patricia T. O’Conner

Woe Is I Jr. by Patricia T. O’Conner

• 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.

• The new Science and History Museum is holding a treasure hunt for its opening event. Clues will lead participants to the treasure, a certificate entitling the winner to the thing he or she needs most. (You decide what that is.) Naturally, the clues will be hidden, and participants will have to use all their senses (sight, smell, hearing, touch) to find them. Write what happens.

• Your main character Jules is on a European vacation with his (or her) parents. They’re on a walking tour of the historic section of a city. The tour group stops to allow people to use the bathrooms in the tourism center. When Jules returns to the group, he’s told that his parents left in a hurry and didn’t say where they were going. He sets off to find them. Be sure to include details about the city. Write what happens.

• Science teacher Mr. Michaels invites three of his students to his house for lunch as a reward for doing well on a test. The students like him but they’re aware that he’s a little odd. Describe their first impressions of his house and what he serves them for lunch. Write what happens.

• Your main character, Alex, is on a school trip to the local botanical garden. She’s (or he’s) on the outskirts of the clump of students while their teacher lectures to them in the carnivorous plant section (like Venus flytraps). She notices a roped-off area with a sign that says, “No entry,” where the plants are much bigger. She unhooks the rope and enters. Write what happens.

• Write a scene imagining how the future dictator of the world would behave if left alone in someone’s kitchen. Use the kitchen and things that are in it when you write what happens.

• Use at least four of the bits of dialogue below (in any order) in a scene or a whole story. Make up the two or three characters who are talking. You can add to the dialogue with anything you like. Follow the guidance in “Dialogue Helper” to format the speech and show who’s speaking.

“I wish I could have ice cream for dinner and nothing else every night.”

“Are you listening?”

“I like clouds better than a plain blue sky.”

“What are you up to?”

“What do you mean ‘up to’?”

“Doing. As in, making trouble.”

“The last time I remember reading my book was in the bathroom, but it isn’t there.”

“Yesterday, I found $10 on the sidewalk.”

“You never listen to me.”

“My foot fell asleep.”

“James told me you’re his least favorite person.”

“Why?”

“Why did he tell me, or why are you his least favorite?”

“Forget it.”

“Okay. Glad to.”

If you feel confident that you have dialogue format down, you can do one of the prompts below instead, which are beginnings from famous or recent novels or plays, not written by me. Pick one—or you can smoosh two together—and keep writing the story.

• “Who’s there?”
• “It’s all right. I came back.”
• There was no possibility of taking a walk that day. 
• The letters scratched on the clay are unevenly formed, suggesting that the writer was learning to write.
• In my younger and more vulnerable years my father gave me some advice that I’ve been turning over in my mind ever since.