Shannon Abercrombie, a fellow writer issued a challenge to other writers to work on a series of given prompts for 100 days, one prompt per day. With each day's challenge, Shannon includes a tidbit of knowledge about some aspect of the writing process, i.e., time, setting, character development, etc.
I decided to sign up for the challenge. It sounded like fun. It sounded like a good thing. And it has been and it is.
A couple of days ago, she gave us a challenge just for fun. We were to write a sentence using a combinationof phrases from three different categories. We were supposed to choose the beginning of the sentence from Category 1, the middle from Category 2, and the end from Category 3. Here are the categories we had to choose from:
Category 1
On an ordinary day
On a dark and stormy night
One steamy afternoon in Grand Central Station
Category 2
two wild-eyed parakeets
a slimy slug and a caterpillar
curious twins
Category 3
jumped into a fireplace.
found a pickle jar of quarters.
uncovered a box of treasure.
So, there are several different sentence possibilities. Here are 3 of them: On an ordinary day (Category 1)
two wild-eyed parakeets (Category 2)
jumped into a fireplace (Category 3). OR
On a dark and stormy night (Category 1)
a slimy slug and a caterpillar (Category 2)
found a pickle jar of quarters (Category 3). OR
One steamy afternoon in Grand Central Station (Category 1)
curious twins (Category 2)
uncovered a box of treasure (Category 3).
My sentence was:
On a dark and stormy night a slimy slug and a caterpillar uncovered a box of treasure.
The whole idea for the exercise was to use our imagination to make a sentence and then hopefully keep going with it and write a story. Well, I didn't write a story, but I did write a first paragraph. Here's what I came up with:
On a dark and stormy night, a slimy slug and a caterpillar uncovered a box
of treasure. This might seem a bit unusual, but it was just another day, or in
this case night, for this pair of unlikely bounty hunters. Sometimes they went
in search of snails or spiders who had crossed the line and broken the law.
They got paid by bringing back wanted critters dead or alive. It was impossible
to predict where their next adventure would take them. This time, it took them
to a deserted beach in the middle of a storm. They were actually searching for
a crustacean by the name of “Slippery Sam” who had managed to avoid the law in
his long string of marine crimes. They found traces of
the bandit, but couldn’t quite catch up to him. Instead, they climbed right
over the box of treasure before they realized what it was.
Sounds like fun, doesn't it?!?
Now, here's where you come in. Help me continue this story, or at least tweak the first paragraph.
* What would you add?
* What would you change?
* What should happen next?
I'm leaving it up to you. Please share you thoughts and ideas in the "Comments" section.
Thanks!
If you're interested in joining in the fun, you can sign up on Shannon's website:
Shannon Abercrombie: Unlocking Imagination One Page At a Time.
