Take Five Random Words and Create a Story!
During my years as a dance teacher, I found tremendous value in working on movement improvisation with my students. It stimulated our creative problem-solving skills and often led to interesting ideas for choreography. Not surprisingly, I’ve found that working on writing prompts with my students gets our creative juices going as well. Besides, it’s fun! I enjoy doing the prompts with my students.
For example, I recently gave the following prompt:
Let’s each write a scene or a story that includes the following words:
witch kite cat detective schoolyard
Here’s what I came up with:
Photo by Ksnenia Yakovleva on Unsplash
Gwenda, the newly appointed principal of the Guippodat School for Young Witches and Wizards, was very upset. It was the school’s 150th anniversary. To celebrate, she’d planned a fun day of activities for the students, including kite-flying. She’d brought a whole box of colorful kites out to the schoolyard, enough for every one of the school’s 43 witch and wizard initiates.
But when she’d returned to the schoolyard after dealing with some administrative matters in her office, the box of kites was missing.
What on earth? she thought. She looked all around, but the only person in sight wasn’t a person at all, but a stray black cat who’d appeared at the playground several times in the last week or so. She and the children had been feeding the cat and petting it.
The cat brushed against Gwenda’s leg and purred, the signal she wanted to be picked up. But Gwenda ignored her and pulled out her mobile to phone Guilford, the chief police detective for their coven.
“Guil, I’ve had a robbery. The children’s kites have been stolen, and they’ve been so excited about flying them for our anniversary celebration. Can you come?”
“On my way, Gwenda.”
Three minutes later, Guilford arrived on his motorized broomstick. He proceeded to do a thorough search of the schoolyard and the surrounding grounds but found nothing.
“Huh, this is a mystery,” he said.
Gwenda sighed. Guilford was such a nice wizard, but he was a terrible detective. He’d only gotten the job because he was related to the Guippodat family of master wizards.
But then Guilford surprised Gwyenda. “You know,” he said, “sometimes these are inside jobs. Is there anyone you can think of whom you’ve really annoyed lately and might be holding a grudge?”
The stray black cat meowed then, and Gwyenda took a closer look at the kitty.
“Mother!” she cried. “Is that you?”
The cat meowed again.
“It is, isn’t it? You change right back this minute and explain yourself!”
Poof—a cloud of pink and purple smoke that smelled like Chanel No. 5 engulfed the cat, and when the smoke cleared, Glenda, Gwyenda’ mother, stood there, a huge grin on her face.
“Fooled you, didn’t I? And I must say, becoming a black cat brought me far more attention than you’ve given me ever since you took this job as principal. You’ve ignored your own mother, and it’s inexcusable! Besides which, I’ll never be able to face a can of tuna again.”
Gwyenda stared at her mother. There was no point in being mad at her. She was just desperate for her attention. She drew her mom in for a hug. “I’m sorry I’ve ignored you. This new job has been overwhelming. But please stop taking your frustration out on the children. They’ll be so disappointed if there are no kites for them to fly.”
“Oh alright.” Glenda drew her wand out of the enormous pocket in her velvet robe and intoned, “Abra Cadabra, Tootsie-Too, I am done fooling with you!”
Poof—purple and pink smoke filled the schoolyard again and when it cleared, the box of kites had reappeared.
“Oh, thank you, Mom,” Gwenda said. “And I promise to be a better daughter.”
“Good. So, dinner tonight? I have some delicious Toad Soup in the slow cooker.”
Gwenda thought about the mounds of paperwork sitting on her desk that she’d counted on finishing that evening. But her mom needed her, and besides, she didn’t want to tempt her mother to cast more spells that would hurt the children.
“Of course, I’ll come, Mom. Just promise me one thing.”
“What?”
“That you’ll make more appearances as a stray cat at the school The children adore you.”
Gwyenda’s mother beamed. “Of course, darling. But let’s go easy on the tuna, okay?”
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I’ve found that simple writing prompts like this push me out of my comfort zone. I write mainly contemporary realistic fiction. I’m not in the habit of writing about witches or wizards, and this was fun to try something different!