A year of writing prompts: 16 August

How to use these prompts

What's happening here?
Is the woman an intruder or an invited guest?
What are they saying to each other?

Prompts

1. "If you want to know who your friends are, get yourself a jail sentence." Charles Bukowski
2. It's Wave at Surveillance Cameras Day. Your characters do something with the express purpose of it being captured on a security camera.
3. It's the anniversary of Cluedo. Write a murder mystery featuring the characters, locations and weapons featured in the game.
4. Madonna was born on this date in 1958. Use the title of a Madonna song as the title of your story.
5. Write a story set in a British seaside town in the height of summer. Think grand piers, sandcastles, donkey rides, Punch and Judy, bed and breakfasts which throw you out of the house all day, and so on.

Character Names

Abraham, Astrid, Astra, Leonard, Leonardo, Lenny, Phyllis, Joachim

Character Traits

• Fond of the countryside, especially woods and forests. They could make woods and forests their life's work, becoming lumberjacks, botanists or foresters or dealers in wooden furniture; or sculptors.
• Beneath a gruff demeanour, they are generous and willing to lend a helping hand and give to the needy.
• Make good friends.
• May devote many years to a cause and then retire into themselves for solace and peace.
• Endurance - will keep on working until they have achieved their goals. They will go after what they want in spite of what anyone thinks; but can end up paying a price for it.
• Good sense of humour.
• May reject capitalism and live a Bohemian lifestyle. They may become healers using unconventional methods.
• Get on well with children.
• They work well in jobs involving serving others and promoting their physical welfare.
• Can be obsessive.
• There is a possibility they will change their religion after careful thought.
• Best fortune comes from moving south west of their birthplace and trading exclusively in white things or animals.
• Tendency to concentrate on the physical at the expense of the spiritual, or vice versa.
• May suffer from an eating disorder.

Possible Themes

Idealism.

Fitness.

Meditation.

Theatre.

Objects

A saw; a farmhouse with a white gate; a rusty sword; Stonehenge; a writer working in a garret.