A year of writing prompts: 28 November

How to use these prompts

What is the significance of this carving?
What's the setting?
Who made it?

Prompts

1. It's National Salesperson's Day. Write a story in which the protagonist is a salesman, or woman. What they are trying to sell, and to whom, is up to you.
2. It's Red Planet Day. Write a story featuring the planet Mars. Have humans landed there? Colonised it? Have Martians contacted Earth? If science fiction is really not your bag, it could simply feature as something an amateur astronomer is looking at through a telescope; or even with the naked eye and trying to impress people with his knowledge of the night sky.
3. "When a sinister person means to be your enemy, they always start by trying to become your friend." William Blake
4. Dead and Loving It.
5. On this date in 1922, Captain Cyril Turner demonstrated sky-writing for the first time. Write a story in which your character either hires a pilot to write something in the sky for them, or is a pilot who can do it themselves. What do they write, and why? Does the writing have the desired effect or does something go wrong, such as the misspelling of a word which changes the whole meaning of the message?

Character Names

Rene, Stefania, Lucretia, Rita, Vita, Rufus, Scott, Penny, Gregory, Henrietta, Malcolm

Character Traits

• Flexible with a talent for mimicry. If they turn to crime, it's likely to involve forgery or counterfeiting.
• Likely to be wealthy, if not by birth, through their chosen career.
• Highly intelligent but not particularly creative or original.
• Careful and thrifty.
• Usually charming, unassuming and peaceful, but can be quarrelsome, aggressive and stubborn if the situation demands it.
• Disciplined and self-controlled.
• Skilled at dealing with people. Service oriented.
• Good organisers able to juggle and control many things.
• Can take the failed or flawed work of others and whip it into shape and make it saleable.
• Not romantic.
• Driven by an acute intellectual curiosity.
• If they are spiritual, they will reject religious oppression and embrace unusual or occult ideas.
• May experience unexpected changes and upsets in life.
• May become victims of fraud.
  
• May suffer from diseases of the eyes.

Possible Themes

Raw materials.

Opportunity.

Art, music.

Auditions.

Objects

A full moon; coins scattered on the ground; a magician levitating his assistant with a wire; crossed swords; lead.