IntShoWriMo 2016 Prompts: Day 9

2016 is a Leap Year, meaning February gets an extra day on Monday, February 29. Push this one step further and invent—instead of an extra day—an extra month. Where would this thirteenth month fall in the calendar? In what season? Would it be named for an event or a person? Write a story that takes place within this month, using the invented details to enhance the story’s plot and tone. — PW.Org

Describe in concrete terms how “curiosity suffers.” — creativewritingprompts.com

Pulling the file from the cabinet, images rushed through her head. She opened the file and re-read the report she had hoped to forget. — Writing.Com

You were involved in a terrible car accident and have been in a coma for the past three months. What your family and the doctors don’t know is that you can hear everything that they say. Write the scene. — Writer’s Digest

IntShoWriMo 2016 Prompts: Day 8

This dialogue must appear somewhere in your story: “You know what else children don’t know?” — creativewritingprompts.com

One day as you were cleaning you noticed air being sucked towards the base of wall near the cupboard. Perplexed you went closer to investigate. The air was going in, slightly yet in. You hold your breath and gingerly peel away at the wallpaper until a huge wrought iron door stands before you. Where does it lead? Did you imagine this? What happens next? — Writer’s Digest

In his bestselling memoir, ‘On Writing’ Stephen King said, “I believe stories are found things like fossil in the ground. The writer’s job is to use the tools in his or her toolbox to get as much of each one out of the ground intact as possible.” Now write a story where a writer literally digs up inspiration for his story. Is it an ancient relic or bones of an unknown person or maybe just a simple object that arouses his curiosity? — Akpan

Write a short story in which your narrator’s voice is both informal and informed. How will you take advantage of a point of view that can travel through time and space? — PW.Org

IntShoWriMo 2016 Prompts: Day 7

The office building seemed normal enough. You shrug off the feeling of dread as you enter the doors. There’s no receptionist. Simply two doors. One is green, the other orange. Which do you take? Why are you there? What happens next? — Writer’s Digest

For this exercise, pick a character who appears in a story or novel currently in progress. Write a letter to yourself in the voice of that character in which he or she reveals something to you that you didn’t know before. — PW.Org

Write your eulogy. — Writing.Com

Every 50 years all the different coalitions of planets come together to pit their toughest predator against each other in a duel tournament. This year the Terran coalition is out to win for the first time in 54 tournaments since their entry to the intergalactic stage. — Reddit

IntShoWriMo 2016 Prompts: Day 6

Every morning at 9:00 a.m. sharp, you get a call on your cell phone. The speaker says “I know what you did” and then hangs up. This has been going on for two weeks straight. What did you do and how do you react to these calls? — Writer’s Digest

Virginia Woolf’s The Waves explores the inner lives of its six characters through a sequence of connected soliloquies. Try writing a story using only soliloquies. Choose a scene that involves multiple characters, like a Thanksgiving dinner or a holiday party, and move between their inner monologues, building the setting and plot through each character’s unique thoughts and observations. When layered together, the different streams of consciousness will create the world in which these characters live. — PW.Org

You are a child who used to be afraid of the monsters hiding in your room. Now, you're just an annoyed child who is tired of the monster under your bed arguing with the closet monster. — Reddit

Create a story, poem or any piece based on this metaphor: a plate of fear. — creativewritingprompts.com

IntShoWriMo 2016 Prompts: Day 5

Write a story that begins AND ends with this line: There’s no other way to tell the story. — Writing.Com

You receive an invitation in the mail one day requesting your presence at a “Cadaver concert.” You have no idea what this means or who sent the invitation. However, as a mortician, you are intrigued. You show up at the appointed place at the designated time. What do you find? — Writer’s Digest

Incorporate this sentence somewhere in your story: "The strange noises grew louder." Your story should also demonstrate the cliche "a bundle of nerves" (without mentioning the cliche). — creativewritingprompts.com

Write a story about zombie-hunting vampires. Color it up and feature some high-tech Sci-Fi stuff. Do the vampires win or do the flesh-eaters just keep showing up? — Akpan

IntShoWriMo 2016 Prompts: Day 4

Unexpectedly dying people start yelling, screaming and crying before they take their last breath. Your brother just died, he screamed "I see him! He's coming for me!" in a terrified voice as he died. — Reddit

Feathers flew from the chicken coop and squawks rang out across the farm yard. — Writing.Com

Try your hand by first writing about what comes to mind immediately: perhaps the changing colors and textures of autumn leaves outside, or everyday details about upcoming holidays and visiting family. Try not to pause or edit yourself. Gradually let your mind progress into an associative stream of consciousness. Take a look at what you’ve written and, using your favorite elements, write a short short story with a seasonal theme, allowing it to be nonsensical, absurd, or surreal. — PW.Org

At first it's like any other day. You wake up, shower, start to brew your morning cup of coffee, and that's when you notice—outside the window, there's nothing there. Just an endless black void. What happened? Where are you? How do you get back to reality? — Writer’s Digest

IntShoWriMo 2016 Prompts: Day 3

Choose an emotional event from your past and transmute it into a fictional scene. Create new, imagined consequences that nonetheless reflect the true anguish of the moment. How can turning fact into fiction construct a distance between the life and the work that offers a new take on an intense situation? — PW.Org

Write a story about a father looking for his son. The child was one of the passengers in a plane that crashed earlier that day. — creativewritingprompts.com

Every time you step out the door of your house, you hear a 'tick' in the recesses of your mind, like a countdown. Its been 10 years since the first 'tick'. Now it's ticking faster than it ever has... — Reddit

You meet a character who cannot keep his private thoughts private. — Writing.Com

IntShoWriMo 2016 Prompts: Day 2

Write a scene in which a character—human or animal—finds himself in a situation where he is a fish out of water. Does he explore the new and foreign environment surrounding him, or is he in need of rescue? — PW.Org

Your first experience at a concert. — Writing.Com

You are a professional assassin for the CIA. But you are also a double agent. One day, you are assigned with killing a foreign agent. This foreign agent is your other alias. — Reddit

After a grueling day at work you go home. The sweet allure of your couch and captain crunch is over powering! You arrive at the door, stick in the key, yank it open and … see a writhing horde of Minotaur chanting in the night and then one notices you and charges. You slam the door, wait a minute and try again. This time it’s a mountain with climbers clambering up the towering heights. One waves at you. What do you do? What’s going on with this door of yours? Do you go in? — Writer’s Digest

IntShoWriMo 2016 Prompts: Day 1

You are renting a room in someone’s house as you transition to living in a new city. The owner tells you that basement is absolutely, 100% off limits. You don’t bat an eye at this request, until you start hearing noises from the basement at night. After several week of this, you sneak downstairs to see what’s going on. Finish the scene. — Writer’s Digest

Sorry, but swimmers are not allowed to ... — Writing.Com

You see a light at the end of the tunnel but it’s everything but inviting. It seems to possess a personality with an evil aura who is more likely to eat you up than convey you to safety. How did you get in the tunnel in the first place? Who is in the light? Do you yield to the glow and its evil presence? Write your story. — Akpan

In a world of crime, you alone have the ability to shoot things from your hands. Fireballs, ice, you name it. Only, what comes out is completely random. — Reddit

IntShoWriMo 2016 Badge

IntShoWriMo 2016 Badge

Welcome to IntShoWriMo 2016!

The badge is all yours for the taking.

This is my 5th year of taking a shot at writing 30 stories in 30 days. I hope to make the best of it and I believe you'll put your back to make it work out fine on your end.

Once again, welcome to IntShoWriMo 2016.

Thank you.

Akpan