Okay. I admit it. The first time I tried a short story prompt, it wasn’t as painful as I expected. (You can read that here.) And it’s probably healthy, exercising my short story skills. So I summoned my courage to try another one. Hello Storymatic, what’s on the menu today? Here’s what I drew:
Have you ever heard of The Storymatic? Sounds like a weird-looking tool, like something you throw ideas into and grind up to see what happens. That’s the basic concept, but in a game/writing prompt format. The box holds two sets of cards: gold and orange. The gold cards are ideas of characters, the orange cards are places or situations.
I decided to give it a shot today. I’ve never been great at short stories, but I’m always up for a fun challenge. Here’s what I drew:
I started writing fiction when I was a kid. To be honest, I couldn’t really give you an age, but my best guess is 7. No lie.
I was going to tell you about one of my first stories but why do that when I can let you read it? Well, mostly because it’s embarrassing but what the heck. I wrote this one when I was about 9. See if you can recognize the subtle influence of the fables I read as a child; my adult self comments are in teal:
Once upon a time, there lived in the forest a small elf. He had escaped from Santa’s workshop. (Because apparently Santa enslaved the elves.) He got into a lot of mischief. His name was Otto. (more…)