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Short Writing Prompt

6 years ago
Okay, so in my mind I can only write a certain number of words a day. If I write 1,000 words for a writing prompt, that's 1,000 words I can't write for anything else (don't argue, it's the way my damn mind works). I also don't like poetry. So, with the idea of getting creative juices flowing without a huge commitment, I present the short writing prompt. This is just something to get you writing if you're having trouble. Do not spend more than 10 minutes on this -- if you are finding yourself taking longer, incorporate the stuff you're writing into your own story (or don't, it doesn't really matter to me). Here's a prompt:

Starter: The smell of rain
Setting: In a cemetery
Words: Neon, Lava, Prune
Prompt: Create a story about a date.

Short Writing Prompt

6 years ago
July 8th, 1995.

We were co-workers and friends, and that day Fitzgerald and I were on vat duty. The factory primarily produces commerical cast iron goods but we were assigned to "walk" the aluminium today; they use it for smaller commerical goods like car parts or handles to sewing machines and stuff. Walking meant one operates the crane holding the industrial-sized steel crucible and one walks next to it checking for any wobble or warning lights going off. There used to be one red warning light but since the new system was installed there were warning lights everywhere - yellow, red, and blue. They all meant different things but to boil it down red was absolute stop emergency, yellow was caution about something depending on where you were in the factory, and blue usually meant good to go. You'd think with all the lights inside there would be some decent lighting outside but there wasn't anything but an old neon "open" sign near the front offices and some dingy street lamps for the parking lot.

You'd also be led to believe that with so much effort put towards worker saftey, the transfer of molten aluminium from one part of the factory to another would be the safest. If that were true Fitzgerald wouldn't have died and I wouldn't be at his grave right now, smelling the rain that recently fell signalling that the world moves on regardless of loss.

I was operating the crane, slowly moving the steel crucible from the furnaces to the pouring chamber where other workers could use the metal to pour moulds. Fitz was walking by it - keeping a sharp eye on the amount of wobble. If he thought the crucible was wobbling a bit too much he'd signal me to slow down an already slow process. I remember the hour before he died we were on the last vat of aluminium. The summer days were long and so the world would leave us a small amount of daylight when we clocked out. Fitz was walking the vat when a yellow warning light came on. Once he signalled me to stop the crane he put up his warning reader to the light. It said there was a problem with the crucible. After an inspection of the outside and a heat check on the rim we presumed the new system was simply not calibrated correctly. Molten aluminium doesn't even come close to melting a steel crucible. So we proceeded with caution.

Just as I brought it over the pour chamber I stopped the crucible movement. This created a wobble that released a trapped gas bubble left at the bottom of the crucible. The bubble of course surfaced with high pressure and popped at the rim. The pop flung molten slag out - a chunk the size of a brick landed right on Fitz's head. All he could do was manage a half-grunt half-scream before his skull melted inward. All I could do was watch in horror and instinctively hit the emergency red button next to me. Within minutes the factory was evacuated and the entire place filled with bubbly coolant pouring from the overhead dispensers.

I try to prune my grief by visiting his grave every few months, but the feelings always come back in nightmares. Now, as it is carved in the stone of his grave, so too is the date of his death carved into my mind. July 8th, 1995.

Short Writing Prompt

6 years ago

EDIT LOCK

Short Writing Prompt

6 years ago
nigga it was yesterday and ogre said spend 10 minutes on it there was literally no chance of the response being edited

Short Writing Prompt

6 years ago

Hey I'm not a nigga

Oh....really? btw the story's awesome 

Short Writing Prompt

6 years ago
Here's my attempt. I tried to make it short without making it awful, I don't think I did that well.

The sun had already left the sky when he found her in the cemetery. She was standing beside a gravestone he knew all to well, staring at the ground, as if she was waiting for someone to jump out at any moment. He stepped closer, smoothing the wrinkles on his shirt for the hundredth time.
"Talla?" he said, his voice so quiet he could barely hear himself. He called out her name again, this time louder, but she did not move or reply. "I just wanted to apologize," he added, after a moment of silence.
"Don't," she finally replied, still not looking at him.
"You know what alcohol does to a person. I didn't see him and ..."
"I don't want to hear it!" she shouted, now turning to look at him. "It's going to rain soon," she added. She was gone before he could reply, leaving him alone with his guilt.
He would have cried, but there were no tears left to cry with. So he just stood there, staring at the ground as she had done before. He thought about Talla, about the friendship they had. While seemingly unbreakable, it died because of just one small mistake. Could she ever forgive him? Could she ever love him back? He was sorry, the guilt on his face was so clear that even a neon sign couldn't make it more apparent.
As if they understood his problems, the clouds soon started crying, their cold tears made him shiver. He breathed in, enjoying the fresh smell of rain. He just stood there and let it wash everything away.

Short Writing Prompt

6 years ago

My name is Lisa, and this is my story.

A decade back, when I was still young, I had a friend named Robert. We met at the mall, under a neon sign for lava lamps, Spencers I think it was called. Anyway, he was the worst looking kid in school, but I still hung out with him all the time. Best buds and all, for three months at least! But that's not the story. This is:

It was a rainy Saturday night, and we were hanging out at the Alexander Pope Memorial Cematary, as usual. Robert must have gotten there ahead of me because he was chewing on something. Before I could ask him about it, he approached me with an odd look in his eyes.
"How about a date?"
I was taken aback. I mean, being friends was cool and all, but a date? "Uh, I don't think-".
That's when I noticed he was holding something out to me. It must've been dates he was eating!
Embarrassed, I simply stammered "Oh, yeah. I see. Okay. Ha ha, sure."
In the gloom of the night, I simply popped it in my mouth. It tasted strange... it was, familiar.
"This isn't a date!"
Matter of factly, he stated, "No. It's a prune. I've been irregular lately." .
Disgusted, I spit it out at him, pulpy juice covered his face. But he was undaunted.
"So how about it, Lisa? Will you go on a date with me?"
I was so flabbergasted I couldn't find the words...
...to tell him no.
He must have realized the rain could have washed my expulsion from his face. Turning his head up to the sky, he washed himself. When he finished, he just stood there gazing up, snorting through his nose.
"Robert?.."
"Don't mind me, I'm just smelling the rain. It's nice."
I watched him doing that for three hours, until he finally drowned.
They buried him near the spot we met just a few days later.
Why didn't I stop him?
Because I realized, he was an ugly, prune eating, constipated dork. And I'm beautiful. So fuck him.
What would you have done differently?
Not a fucking thing I bet!

Short Writing Prompt

6 years ago
The smell of rain was always different in the cemetery. Phil didn’t like to think about it because he suspected he was smelling rotting bodies under the ground. He knew that didn’t make sense, but he had to explain the difference in the smell some way. Before his mind wandered too far, he turned and looked over at Alyssa. She was the one who wanted to come to the cemetery on this date. She looked beautiful, even with her dark hair plastered to her head and the sides of her face from the rain. He blinked as the color of her pale face seemed to glow orange for a moment, but then he realized it was just the reflection of the light from the pizza place across from the cemetery with their giant neon sign. Who would put a pizza joint next to a cemetery, anyway?

Phil shook his head as he tried to contain his wandering mind once again. The two of them carefully stepped along the cemetery path and towards the far side of the cemetery. Phil still thought coming to the cemetery for a date was a silly idea, but as they reached the top of the rise, his jaw dropped as he took in the majestic view. Looking down the far side, they could see the ocean and the steam from the lava pouring into the dark ocean just made the view more fantastic. He sat on the bench and pulled Alyssa closer as she whispered into his ear, “See? I told you it was wonderful up here.” She reached out and took his hand and looked closely at his fingers, now looking like prunes in the moisture. She smiled and kissed them, one by one.

Short Writing Prompt

6 years ago

November twenty-second, 1962. 

This world was strange; a far cry from the lava-bursts and acid seas of Galaxor Prime. The atmosphere was strange, too; the normally smooth, blue skin of the Visitor's flesh had wrinkled like a prune. Still, the Outer Beings demand that they perform the assassination from this particular cemetery. 

"Is the one they call John Eff-Kennedy dead?" 

"I believe so." 

Short Writing Prompt

6 years ago

Jason sniffed the air. The rain had a strange smell tonight, a sort of tangy, almost rusty smell which sent a shiver down his spine. Cemeteries creeped him out at the best of times, and the looming storm clouds didn’t make things any better.

He wasn’t even really sure why he was in the cemetery. His tinder date hadn’t explained why she wanted to meet him there, but she was hot so he’d gone anyway. In all honesty he was surprised he’d even managed to get the date. His attempted pun about how he preferred a deaf prune over a blind date hadn’t gone down very well.

He looked around. She’d said he would be able to find her by the neon blue skirt, but he couldn’t see any skirts at all. The cemetery was empty.

But then he spotted a light shining out from between two trees, and headed towards it in the hope she might be there. He hurried over, and then stopped in surprise when he saw the source of the light. A small pool of lava sat in the middle of this small grove of trees, surrounded by a group of people dressed in dark cowls.

He backed away slightly, only to realise someone was standing behind him.

“Oh dark Lord!” The person yelled. “We have brought a sacrifice for the fire! Beelzebub come forth!”

Jason felt a hard shove in his back, and found himself falling into the pit.