I woke up with nary an idea in my poor little head until I went into my closet to get dressed.  I put on a Wicked T-Shirt, and thought:  OK.  Why not, Witches! 

What did you use for inspiration this round?  

1) I researched drama, and the wikipedia article mentioned radio dramas.

2) It put me in mind of the game Oxenfree.

3) I have an old character, Alistair Madigan, inspiring one of my characters. He was easy to blend with Francis Abernathy from The Secret History.

4) The main conflict and character were inspired by Billy from Stranger Things (even before I saw the ending of Season 3).

5) There was also a bit of Bender from Breakfast Club in both him and the plot.

6) My father-in-law told me some stories of archetypical behaviours in the military, which was a big catalyst for me.

My setting was a flower show,  which got me thinking about a poem by Christina Rosetti called Goblin Market. Here's hoping the judges enjoy references to pre-Raphaelite poetry :)

My inspiration came from the reception area. I had googled it, but it just talked about office space.

I thought, “wait a minute!” I thought Hotel Lobby. Then Hospital. Then Wedding Reception popped in my head. I was picturing the area where everyone is drinking and standing around. Cocktail Party!

The only crime I could think of at a wedding party was killing the bride or groom with an allergy to peanuts. 

So I went back to a cocktail party. At a museum, thinking theft of a treasure. A cocktail reception at the museum. Made logical sense to me. A beta reader said that would be a reception hall, not a reception area. So how did I throw that down the judges’ throats? “Champagne flowed freely throughout the reception area.”

When I got divorced I moved to a spectacular little cabin in the middle of the woods. Unfortunately, there were no laundry hookups, so to the laundromat I went. Little did I know that laundromats were "hookup central" where cougars could smell the divorce on me...

Also, the thing at the end is super true, but I don't want to give it away.   

You all have been warned!

The Laundromat is definitely fodder for divorced people who need aluminum foil hats, so they can clean their clothes in peace!

So ... my main character is at least a little bit inspired by my Uncle's ... synopses ...

I got "child's bedroom" and "a tropical fish", which also hits close to home because my daughter had a betta fish in her room and hilarity insued.  Like, one time, my wife and I went in there to find she had taken off the lid, scooped out most of the gravel, and put a beanie baby in the tank.  The betta was swimming around frantically like, "What the f------------???"  I made sure to include little snippets of that in my story.

Lots of swearing Friday night as I drew a blank.

"OK mind, come up with SOMETHING."

Saturday a.m. I had a great idea for a first line! It does not seem promising for a story, but I have something. It does not involve my location or my object at all, but maybe if I sneak in queens and elves and magic and potions something will happen. Let me think about it for a few moments...

Saturday (all day) I am too busy to think about anything. Maybe the Queen will need to be rescued by the Bard. OK--how does that happen?

Sunday (through 4 pm) I am too busy to think about anything.

Sunday 4 pm I HAVE to write SOMETHING. Let me just free associate and write.

Sunday 6 pm OK, I have 1200 words. NOW WHAT?

Sunday 8:30 pm OK, some last-minute beta readers made some good suggestions. I'm under 1000 words. THIS IS GOOD ENOUGH. Submit.

Sunday 8:30 pm-9pm OK, I found another typo. Resubmit. (Do this a dozen times.)

Sunday 9:01 pm Literally find a misspelling in the first paragraph. Die one, die all merrily. It's done.

I actually wrote down three possible ideas:

1) some caviar is delivered to a penthouse apartment and the occupants mistake it for drugs, which they decide to “take” and then begin acting out in outlandish ways as they believe the “drugs” are taking affect lol.

2) 2 sisters pet sit for a Rich relative and they find a container of caviar and think it’s a charcoal face mask and decide to give themselves facials with it �£.

I finally settled on idea number 3 (which may or may not be better than the above two) but I don’t want to divulge the story here - I want to everyone to come at it fresh when we post them 😊

2. Watching the pilot episode of NBC's AP Bio and reflecting on the wonderful Jack Black in School of Rock (A self-taught course on "How to Be a Bad Teacher")

I'll post it in the forum, when we get the email :) I hope you'll share yours as well - the idea of a Francis Abenthy-esque character has me intrigued!

Next morning, the name Narco Joe popped in my brain, and that was that.

Also, it seems I hate Jens (I don't, really).

As I am prone to do, I went to my stable of characters and pulled out Aleksandra and Mattias (he only appears via text message) and sent her on another quest for priceless art. The hardest part was the broccoli. The setting came from my deciding to go randomly traipsing down alleys in Sweden's second-largest city during an hour of free time on a cruise excursion (all I found was a chocolate shop that sold ice creams and the city's oldest building), and I picked Belorussian gangsters because it sounds funnier than Russian. 

I love Frasier!  My favorite episode of all time is the one where Niles keeps seeing blood and passing out, lol.

OR QUALITIES was all it took. What sort of "qualities" would be considered toxic? By whose standards? It still took me about 40 hours to come up with a first draft, but I knew where I wanted to go. 

And I didn't answer the questions... I've left it up to the reader to decide.

I started by thinking about all the different things you can do in and around an ice cream truck. Obviously, you can work inside one or buy ice cream from one, but I based my story around the idea that you can also steal an ice cream truck.

I felt like I didn't know ANYTHING about rom-com, and I'm definitely not a very humorous writer normally, but I did have a set of characters I was familiar with and already really liked from a short story I wrote a while back so I threw them into this new setting and situation and wrote until I figured out where they wanted to go with the story.

The required location being an ice cream truck helped me establish a broader setting as well. Ice cream trucks are most prevalent on the streets in summer, and I decided to set the story up in the desert to heat things up a little. The contrast of hot climate/environment and cold location made for some fun moments to write about as well. 

He became the inspiration for my antagonist after I got my prompt. 

I've read it. It's totally not crap

What inspired my story (I'm guessing besides the parameters)? I love the themes of dystopian sci-fi and westerns, much more than the typical execution of those two styles. So, for most of my stories, I will integrate western or dystopian themes behind whatever the script is.

In this case (sci-fi, casino, paper shredder), my first inclination was a sort of intergalactic casino where aliens could apply for "citizenship", by putting up their family members up as collateral. He goes on a losing streak, losing his family to the casino in the process. I didn't like the way it played out (if you want to steal this, be my guest. I'm not doing anything with it).

New idea was to come up with somebody who has no hope. Somebody with lots of tragedy and nobody to disappoint. Tricky part was giving him something to live for: replacing his bad memories with good ones. The obvious, being a casino, is that he risks losing the precious few good memories he already has.

As I wrote, I wanted to have more words to work with, though, because I wanted to really bring out the darkness in the story. Unfortunately, it had to be cut due to time constraints. I don't want to spoil what it was, but it was a story running parallel to the main one.

Still, fun times. Looking forward to round 2.

Haha I know that episode - each of the Crane men have a Valentine’s Day segment. It’s so hard for me to pick a favorite but some that come to mind are the one where Niles carries a flour sack around as a child, the one where Martin pretends he’s gay and that Niles is his boyfriend, the one where Daphne pretends she’s married to Niles and they say Frasier is married to Maris and Roz plays Maris...Omg there are just so many! I have the whole series on DVD and watch it alllllllllll the time. Glad to find a fellow Frasier enthusiast 😊😊😊

Forum totally does not want to link https://i1.wp.com/mymemorymatters.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/033-fantastic-voyage-theredlist.jpg?fit=2804%2C2025&ssl=1" rel="nofollow - the image ...

Well, now, *that* rings a bell 

That, and the radio show episode. I split a gut every time I watch it.

I based mine on personal experiences in the laundromat too! 

The first apartment I rented when I moved to NZ didn't come with a washing machine, so the first weeks until I bought one involved some laundromat time. As it was boring as hell I used to read a lot in there, so this part of the story came to me easily. And reading the description of the genre, I read about talking animals so I put that on the mix, and I got myself a fairy tale from there. 

Most of the time I just come up with something random. 

Then I brainstorm with my husband. He gives me great ideas which don't ring true for my narrative voice. I tell him what I'm thinking. He pokes holes in it and explains why it can't work, which makes me dig my heels in and clarify my idea - to him and myself. 

Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. 

The prompt specified a school principal, so I didn't try to think of any out-of-the-box interpretations of that. I knew I'd be working with a school.

Sci-fi needs some sort of a gimmick. What's the new tech, or how has society advanced beyond our norms? I was having trouble moving past the stereotypical images of a sort of dome-shaped birdcage (probably in the corner of some Victorian parlor), and that wasn't getting me anywhere.

So I stuck with the school, and asked myself "Why would a school need to keep birds?" And that got me down the path to find a sci-fi setting and a plot! 

It might have been fun to think of a birdcage that could only exist in sci-fi, but this was my first contest in a long time, and the shortest deadline I've ever had, so I focused with what I had. Might try to write that in the future!

Then again, might not; sci-fi was not a genre I was hoping for.

The one where they do the old murder mystery “Nightmare Inn”? Another great one for sure 😊

Saying too much about it will give away my reveal, but I'd written two outlines (I never write outlines), one was very long, and I just knew it was time wasting because I didn't want to write either story I was outlining. Then a thought popped into my head: OMG, that's a firehouse! I could set a whole story in my location and write about something kind of magical for historical fiction. I even went first person, present. I have no idea if it actually works, but it made me happy to think about and write. I hope people get it and like it, but even if not it was a fun ride and I hate this genre. :-)

Cheers to having religious experiences in Vegas!  

About 12 years ago I helped a friend load up a U-Haul and leave her abusive ex while he was out of town. She had waited awhile for the opportunity. She had some pretty deep thoughts on what we sacrifice for the time being... for the Time Being. 

I took a more light hearted approach, but I explored what kind of sacrifices a Time Being might require and how they might differ from what we think we need to sacrifice. 

Having never written a mystery story in my life, I remembered that a friend told me old episodes of The Twilight Zone (we're both fans) represented the mystery genre's story development pretty well. When I was without an idea by Sunday morning, that line of thinking served me well. 

Or not. 

This is my first entry ever, so we'll see!

(Just to be clear: I wasn't thinking of any specific episode of TZ. Just the type of predicament, and the way it moves along until its turn at the end.)

 Ghost Story / Gymnasium/ Motion sensor light

With the whole gymnasium/ ghost vibe, my first thought actually went to Teen Wolf ( I binged watched it a few months ago) - so I ended up setting it in a high school gymnasium. This seemed like maybe too obvious an interpretation, so I am interested to see what others have done with this prompt.

Wanted to have a subversion, but am not really acquainted with ghost stories (as I tend to avoid true horror at all costs). I googled 'subverted ghost stories' and a thesis on a Lewis Carroll poem came up - social class satire via a ghost story. Though I ended up not trying to subvert the genre too much (who knows how much the judges will tolerate). But the thesis did go into actual elements of the genre which helped give me ideas.

I also added a bit of a double meaning to the ending, but I won't go into that as not to give it away.

 

Aww, thanks, Nix.  From your fingers to the judges' eyes.

Ah, you sound like a fellow 113er! Great to see another one around here! Look forward to reading your story!

And of course now that you say it, it dawns on me that a Frasier-style story could have been perfect for our prompt. But instead, I chose to write about...a housefly in a super-villain's top floor lair. Hmmm.

Hello heat mate!!! Sounds like you took the prompts in a whole different and fun direction. I look forward to reading yours as well!

Thought progression:

Eewwwew, sewer

Who goes down there?

Dumb people looking for flushed alligators 

Ewwwww, sewers

Research sewers

NYC sewers aren’t creative enough 

Let me start with the dumb main character

No one would go into a sewer alone

Eewwwww, sewers

What crime can take place in a sewer other than robbery or kidnapping because they’re obvious.

Oh crap, I’ve never written crime caper

Research crime caper

Decide to go dumb crime route 

Something valuable has to be in the sewers 

Eewwwww, sewers

Research things in sewer

Inspiration = a second urban legend NY White

Got it: the reason for two not-so-smart people to go down into a sewer that’s illegal

Too late to not use NYC sewers so screw it

Good lord, how will I use a piggy bank?

Worst case, it’s laying in the ground in the sewer.

OK, stop this and write 

Eewwwww, sewers

This sounds amazing! Can't wait to read it

"She's twenty-six, mum of two. But, you know...fit. What else could you ask for?" [pause] "And did I mention, she's SOBER?" 

And I thought to myself, what position could this dude "selling" this woman for? It was just kind of weird and almost a little funny and it stuck in my brain. Are most of the candidates for this job, whatever it is, NOT sober?

So that was the original opening line of this story (dystopian sci fi in which women are "matched" away). It got changed a ton by the final, of course. My early beta readers were like, "what's the deal with the sober thing?" Obviously that got nixed in the end!

That show was golden.  I also love the murder mystery game one where the guy actually dies!  And the one where they try to get rid of the dead whale and someone thinks they murdered someone, lol.  

How clever! I'm intrigued to read this, I hope you'll share it!

Ugh!

I had to do some twisting but settled on a bully (who entices his mark with a milkshake) to the remains of a school bus accident in a game of truth or dare. I used an urban legend out of Salt Lake City about a bus that got stuck on railroad tracks. I think it was 27 out of 54 died. The milkshake was a “out in left field prompt for me.

My son is a chef who makes cheesecake that, if mass-produced, could bring world peace to the planet. He used to manage a local restaurant, and when he left, they tried to get him to divulge his cheesecake recipe. He refused, and since then the quality of food in the restaurant has deteriorated tremendously.

Also, after eating one of his cheesecakes, a student told me, "Pie is just pie. Cheesecake is heaven."

Oh good, another Gr 40 person, Eggcorn and I aren't alone! (Worst round of any of these contests was round 1 of the last SS--I was the only one in my group who posted. So depressing.) 

Action-adventure kind of has to be light-hearted, or it winds up being suspense or thriller. (Indiana Jones wouldn't be half as good if Indy was obviously taking things TOO seriously.)

So glad you asked!

I give all inspiration credit to Paul Shapera, a super cool underground composer. He has a three-album series called New Albion which is about a woman who discovers a way to bring back the dead and put them in voodoo-like dolls, and the repercussions it means for her world over the next 100 years. The albums themselves each tackle a new era through different musical styles; the first album is 1890s - 1930s steampunk, the second is 1940s dieselpunk, and the third is 1950s-90s atompunk. https://mochalab.bandcamp.com/album/the-dolls-of-new-albion-a-steampunk-opera" rel="nofollow - Here's his work, if you're interested.

Anyway, when I drew Crime Caper, I asked myself why someone would commit a crime besides "get rich quick". There's a song off his second album, "The Thief", which gave me the perfect answer: a woman who helps screwed-over divorced women take back what's theirs. Highly recommend listening https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QXg0hiaP0VU" rel="nofollow - here .

So immediately I had my MC (the thief), the motive (the divorcee), the bad guy (the ex-husband), and a jazzy noir-esque vibe. From there, everything fell into place. Can't wait to share it soon!

2187 words later...

The Sea Urchin was originally going to be served as food, but my wife convinced me I was over-thinking it and instead it went into an aquarium in the conference room (swanky office building...). She was right; of course, and it simplified the plot by a ton!

The rest of it (as cheesy as it sounds) was very much inspired by my feelings for my wife; who asked me the same question when she looked at my first draft. When I answered, she promptly replied, "What does a young and fit American business executive falling in love with a black-haired Japanese woman have to do with a middle-aged engineer and his blue-eyed, blonde-haired wife?!"

To which I responded, "ya gotta read the story to understand the allegory!"

...aaaaaand queue the rim-shot.

I wrote the last paragraph first because that's the key to the whole thing then tried to get to the end with words.

When I started researching actual names of fairy tale characters, I found the following quote, which gave my character a name and some of her backstory.

" According to Marelle, the girl's real name is Blanchette. She becomes known as ILittle Goldenhood because of the hooded cloak the color of gold and fire that her grandmother gave her. Blanchette's grandmother is so old that she does not know how old she is. She is also rumored to be a witch. She tells Blanchette that her golden cloak is made of a ray of sunshine. Blanchette's cloak is rumored to have magical powers."

The prompt made me think of Las Vegas. They had a story several years back talking about the homeless who lived in the sewers of LV. 

My piece kind of came together based on that.

Also, when will we be able to post our stories for other people to review?

Brilliant! I love reading historical fiction about jack the ripper.

Also, soon. Probably tomorrow.