Walking past a thousand story ideas.

Everybody walks past a thousand story ideas every day. The good writers are the ones who see five or six of them. Most people don’t see any.

–Orson Scott Card

This quote made me think that I’m missing something. And because of that, I’ve decided to start Prompts of the First.  The basic idea is I’m just going to bounce out with a bunch of random ideas for writing. Anything that comes into my mind that oculd possible, with some delicate writing, be made into a story.

Understand I’m not asking you to write the story for me. I am merely recommending story ideas for you to write and make your own.

Why am I doing this?

Two reasons. First of all, when I started looking for writing prompts, they were all too specific. Examples:

• You have been captured by cannibals. How do you try to convince them not to eat you? If that fails how do you attempt to get away?
• In the middle of the night, you get an urgent call from a friend you haven’t talked to in years. Something terrible has happened. What is it and why is he/she calling you? (Okay, that one might be fun.)
• You’ve left town—ditching your old, miserable life—hoping to start a new life for yourself. You’ve given yourself a new name, fake background and style. Write about your first encounter in your new town.
• Storms have knocked out the power. You find the flashlight and make shadow bunnies on the wall, but you can tell the kids are not amused. So instead you decide to tell a scary story. Create a story that would scare even the toughest of teenagers.

I didn’t like that. I wanted something a little more vaguer, that doesn’t involve me.

The second reason why I’m wanting to do this is I want to notice more of the plots in every day life. I want to notice seven or eight of them a day. Right now, if I can come up with thirty prompts, I’ll be happy, but this’ll be an ongoing goal for me throughout the month.

At the first Monday of the month, I’ll share them with you. Feel free to post your own however.  The more the merrier.

That being said, here we go.

• What can you hide in a tooth?
• A death ray that feels like a gust of hot air. Once someone crosses it, they’ll die, but no one can see it.
• If you stop feeling a part of your body, it stops existing.
  One word– Shape shifters.
• By now, everyone has secrets–the kind of secrets that’ll cost a man his life.

So, there are my five ideas. Hopefully, I’ll get more next month. And maybe…. i’ll remember to write more down, because I know I had more.