The Darker side of a Writing Prompt

[DeAnna]

This morning I came across a great dark humor moment from dark fiction author Dea (D.H.) Poirier.

Her post:

And although I laughed, because well, dark humor can be very funny and stress relieving!

(My mentally unstable postal delivery person has met her just desserts in at least one humourous moment of fictitious creation and it is quite cathartic.)

That’s all we have sometimes is to imagine it different and laugh it off!

(Especially for a gentle, live and let live, peace, love, and go your own way kind of human that I am. )

It’s a relief valve!

It is a tiny piece of power over our take on things, in a world where we are often powerless against the unkind strangeness of other people.

Today, let’s exercise that mind muscle.

Let your mind go some place dark, mysterious and FUNNY, while using these sensory infused prompts.

• The chuffing sound of the shovel as it slid into the earth was rhythmic and calming metronome until…

• The cool air flowing through the open door was a welcome relief as the heavy shoes…

• The conversation had be going so smoothly it could have been set to sweet violin music, now spoiled…

• The weight of each key on the ring registered a tinkling chime, angry and spastic…

• The gentle song of the water flowing belied the rise in it’s depth…

Change these prompts up anyway you like!
Add just a few lines even!

Please do share here your dark humor moments, that we may all chuckle along with you!

Don’t forget to check out @deapoitierbooks

Books - Dea (D. H.) Poirier

For dark fiction, murder, mystery and suspense!

P.S. For those looking for established authors to review your writing…Dea has some limited availability on her About Me page. (Overkill on the links? Diabolical laughter ensues)

About Me - D.H. Poirier - Author

[Donna-mae]

Do you think Destiny exists?

Expecting it easy enough to have a draft ready to share for her next weekends visit, last nite I began brainstorming on what my grand daughter’s first short story would be and chose her third random suggestion from last weekend:

“A girl on a beach who finds finds a snow globe that’s not broken”.

I added in an opposite beach element - fire - for contrast and conflict, and created some magic for the snow globe. Also - as it needs to be in fairy tale fashion ( she is almost 5)- I began researching the genre as it’s one I have never really tried. I noted things happen in threes, and a forested area is used a lot.
… So maybe a girl on a beach -at the edge of a fiery forest finds a quest of three challenges that somehow involves a magical snow globe. It could work right? She’d need another character to play off of though. A dark force related to the fire? I wasn’t sure and left it all to percolate overnite.

This morning I saw that -at midnight - I’d received an email from a short story challenge telling me “it’s begun!”, with an included link to my randomly generated group and it’s genre, subject, and character assignment. Say whaaat?! Apparently I’d forgotten a previous contest sign up - my first ever- and even paid an entry fee! It now looked likely I would have to put off the fun of writing Remy’s story until after I tackled this self inflicted writing challenge.

I clicked the link and searched for my name and assignment: Fairy tale genre, Destiny subject, and a Smokejumper character. I have just one week to write & submit it.

How co-incidental are those two tasks? Same deadline, same genre, same element pair (water/fire), and even -sort of- a common character ( a fire fighter who drops into the forests from above)?! I played with the idea of melding Remy’s story and the contest story, and mentally out the whole thing aside for a few hours.

Popping in here just now, I see you have provided some prompts, the last one with water: “The gentle song of the water flowing belied the rise in it’s depth” …and it immediately feels not like a beginning sentence, but a perfect start of an ending. The possible scene springboards into my mind, and thus highlights another random connection for the third time.

And that is THAT. Five may be my personal lucky number, however three is the number calling me in the past 24 hours.

Somehow I MUST combine all three of these writerly tasks, for three is a fairy tale number, a quest number, and of course tied to many stories of destiny.

Don’t you love it when your world and writerly mind collide to create fireworks?

(Hmmm… Saying that makes me ponder if a birthday celebration of fireworks could be a good start to the story )

Wish me luck!