A year of writing prompts: 25 April

How to use these prompts

What is this building?
A castle? A fortress? A sea wall?
Something else?
Who are the people you can see?

Prompts

1. "No-one rises so high as he who knows not whither he is going." Oliver Cromwell
2. In 1856, Lewis Carroll first met Alice Lidell for whom he wrote Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. Write a story about a modern day child finding their way to Wonderland.
3. DNA day is today. Write a story featuring DNA - whether used to solve a crime or establish whether people are related to one another.
4. It's also World Penguin Day. Write a story which features a penguin.
5. Sense of Smell Day is celebrated around this time. Write a story in which a person's sense of smell is especially important.

Character Names

Marek, Marko, Mark, Markus, Leslie, Lesley, Wilfred

Character Traits

• Comfortably at home anywhere, but prefer the countryside.
• Have a great love of nature.
• Generous and sociable.
• Quiet and not particularly ambitious, but if they have to exercise authority it comes naturally to them.
• Mediation and contemplation also comes easily to them.
• Satisfied as long as they have enough to get by.
• Enjoy travel and adventure.
• May have an interest in the arts or occult sciences.
• They make excellent writers as they are intelligent and original and have a talent for working out plots. Would do well writing detective stories or plays. Capable of using words to their advantage.
• Other career choices could include agriculture, animal husbandry, the military or lawkeepers, science or business.
• Likely to be prolific in some way - producing a lot in the course of their work, becoming rich, and/or having a large family.
• May get lost in their inner pictures and be subtly removed from what's going on around them.
• Make excellent spouses.
• May be frustrated by aspects of their life.
• Danger from fire, earthquakes and war.
  
• May bear grudges.

Possible Themes

Plotting, planning and scheming.

Separation.

Foreign travel and adventures.

Letting go of what no longer works.

Grief, loss, divorce, redundancy.

Objects

An orchard; a meadow; ewes; an ox; tiny porcelain figures of people; the walls of a forbidden city; a walkie-talkie.