This is year six of Short Story Month over at Dan Wickett's Emerging Writers Network. I got the cool logo from him, which was designed for his site by Steven Seighman . I've decided to follow Dan's lead and refresh this foundering blog by celebrating the short story during the month of May as well. It's a bit of a commitment, so I've been wavering, but I'm plunging in at the last minute.
My running idea is to post something story-related here every day. I don't lack for links to interesting things--stories, blogs, websites, etc. It's just a matter of finding the time and energy to post them.
The other purpose, though, is to get people writing stories. Or at least sidling up to the idea of writing a story sometime. I think we get too hung up sometimes on the idea of publication and forget that this is both a challenging and pleasurable activity. To this end, I'm going to post a writing prompt every day as well. This isn't going to be the hard part, because I am going to mostly use one of several random story generators. Seventh Sanctum is a very enjoyable one, though it leans heavily toward sci fi and fantasy, so it won't be the only one I'll use. Here's today's:
The story is about a philanthropist who hates children. It takes place in a hardware store. The story begins with an accident and ends with a surgery. International crime plays a major role in this story.
Feel free to alter that in any way you want, or go to Seventh Sanctum and generate your own prompt!
(And you can certainly post links in the comments to anything you'd like to share...)
Ha! The only thing I don't like about that entertaining prompt, and about the whole idea of Short Story Month is the use of surgery to denote a discrete act of surgery -- unless the author intends surgery in the British sense, which I think is something like what we mean by "doctor's office."
ReplyDeleteYou see the lengths I'll go to to avoid work? I could have been writing a story in the time it took me to post this comment.
Thanks for at least stopping by, Peter. Yes, I think the random plot generator will be guilty of a few of these faux paus, and I will be guilty of not catching them. It is basically a machine program, and plugs things in sometimes odd ways.
ReplyDeleteAbuse it all you want, though. It doesn't have a soul.
That use of "surgery" has become so widespread the past few years that I'm sure it can be called a faux-pas. I'll never use it, though.
ReplyDeleteI worry less about the machine's feelings than I do about wasting time abusing it when I could be writing my quarterly or semiannual bit of flash ficiton.
Well, you really should give it a go, Peter, if the spirit moves you, as that last one you did for Patti Abbott's blog was really quite enjoyable.
ReplyDeleteWell, your post did send me back for a look at my two flash-stories, so you at least have me thinking about writing another.
ReplyDeleteThinking about it is a very desired result here this month.
ReplyDelete