Tag Archives: story ideas

Writing prompt – superstition

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Wells Cathedral cr Judy DarleyI visited this impressive Gothic cathedral in Wells a while ago and was struck by a curious piece of information in the museum. Apparently back in the days when the cathedral was built (between the 12th and 15th century), it was traditional for a worn left shoe to be buried in the foundations of a new building to bring luck.

What a brilliant, random idea! Who might this shoe have belonged to? Why was it significant to the residents of that home?

I love the concept of weaving a piece of superstition like this into a story, making it the motivator for your protagonist’s deed – the more unsettling the better.

Find more superstitions-from-around-the-world here.

If you write or create something prompted by this, please send an email to Judy(at)socket creative.com to let me know. With your permission, I’ll publish it on SkyLightRain.com.

Writing prompt – mountain

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Arcos de la Frontera mountain cr Judy DarleyI love the fact that by cropping an image you can create a completely false scale of perspective. This photo, and the one below, show boulders photographed to resemble immense peaks.

Arcos de la Frontera cr Judy Darley

Sketch on a few ants masquerading as mountain goats and you create an impression of almost insurmountable difficulty when the truth is no more than a scramble.

To make that the theme of your tale, simply set your protagonist a seemingly impossible task that viewed from a different angle will be revealed as the easiest thing in the world. Their true challenge is to discover the point of view that will make this clear.

Hang on, isn’t that a guideline for surviving life?

If you write or create something prompted by this, please send an email to Judy(at)socket creative.com to let me know. With your permission, I’ll publish it on SkyLightRain.com.

Writing prompt – afloat

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Whatever Floats Your Boat by Jimmy Lawlor

Whatever Floats Your Boat by Jimmy Lawlor

This beautiful painting is by Jimmy Lawlor and captures a moment of magic. So many questions are raised by this scene.

What here is real, and what imagined? If dreamt, what does it represent? Has this boy been abandoned, or is he on his way somewhere? Why are all the other boats empty?

To me there is a reminder here of the refugees currently spilling from Syria across Europe, but that’s just my interpretation.

Weave together your own invented answers into a work of fiction, and see if you can create a reflection in words.

If you write or create something prompted by this, please send an email to Judy(at)socket creative.com to let me know. With your permission, I’ll publish it on SkyLightRain.com.

Writing prompt – reflections

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Girona reflections cr Judy DarleyThis photo shows the Catalan town of Gerona on a beautiful sunny March day. The coloured houses make the reflection particularly striking, don’t you think?

Imagine a river or a lake so still that the surrounding buildings are reflected almost perfectly. Imagine this upside down town is as populated as the one you live in, by people who live in a topsy turvy world where everything is back to front and they breathe water instead of air. Imagine they see your world as the reflections, and think you’re the one upside down.

This could be a children’s story, or a thought-provoking dystopian tale. You decide.

If you write or create something prompted by this, please send an email to Judy(at)socket creative.com to let me know. With your permission, I’ll publish it on SkyLightRain.com.

Writing prompt – Spyhole

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Spyhole by Judy DarleyI confess to being the kind of person who can never resist peeking though a hole in a fence, door or indeed historic wall. This particular spyhole is part of a stately home in Cornwall, and reveals a rather elegant room with no public access, though it seems some volunteer has chosen to stow their trusty steed there. Quite appropriate, really, as it adjoins the stables.

What secret might be uncovered through nosiness? What mystery could be solved by one detail easily overlooked?

If you write or create something prompted by this, please send an email to Judy(at)socket creative.com to let me know. With your permission, I’ll publish it on SkyLightRain.com.

Writing prompt – lakeside

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Vondelpark barbecues cr Judy DarleyI took this photo in Vodelpark, Amsterdam, during a heatwave some years ago. As the sun began to dip, dozens of people arrived and began to settle down for an evening of revelries.

The scene is so atmospheric with the smoke from barbecues and bonfires drifting skywards. What could happen here in this hinterland between day and dusk?

If you write or create something prompted by this, please send an email to Judy(at)socket creative.com to let me know. With your permission, I’ll publish it on SkyLightRain.com.

Writing prompt – memory

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Seascape for Pad by Judy DarleyToday is my dad’s 77th birthday. A pretty impressive age. Buying him gifts has always been a challenge, and now that he’s enduring the ever increasing losses of Alzheimer’s disease, the big thing is to find something he can connect with in the moment he opens it and gain some simple pleasure from.

I decided to paint him a seascape. It took me back to being a small child painting pictures for my dad, and already knowing the pride that would shine from his eyes when he saw it. There’s some irony in that given that my dad no longer knows I am his daughter, or that he ever had children, but that’s a story for another day.

The man who I will give this painting to is kind and caring, and loves art. My hope is that the sea in the scene will make him smile.

As today’s creative prompt I invite you to consider how you might attempt to connect with someone whose memory is failing them, and how that interaction might turn out.

If you write or create something prompted by this, please send an email to Judy(at)socket creative.com to let me know. With your permission, I’ll publish it on SkyLightRain.com.

Writing prompt – an extra day

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Askew cr Judy DarleyTwo significant dates occur this week – February 29th and March 3rd. The first is a relative rarity, returning just once every four years to mess up our calendars and fill people with the urge to make the most of a so-called extra day.

The second is World Book Day, encouraging reading, writing and creative thinking.

For this week’s writing prompt I invite you to imagine waking one day and discovering that for the next 24 hours every little thing will be slightly off-kilter, out of whack, askew from the world you normally live in.

What happens?

If you write something prompted by this idea, please send an email to Judy(at)socket creative.com to let me know. With your permission, I’ll publish it on SkyLightRain.com.

Writing prompt – Chagall and Fo

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La passeggiata by Marc ChagallIn November last year I attended the Marc Chagall: Russian years 1907-1924 exhibition at the Santa Giulia Museum in Brescia, Italy, where works by Chagall are currently displayed in conjunction to responsive pieces by Dario Fo.

Chagall’s romantic The Promenade inspired Fo’s creation, titled Un colpo di vento e Bella raggiunge il cielo, which translates as A gust of wind and Bella reaches the sky. Bella was Chagall’s beloved wife, and the subject of many of his paintings.

Un colpo di vento e Bella raggiunge il cielo cr Dario Fo

Un colpo di vento e Bella raggiunge il cielo © Dario Fo

While Chagall’s artwork shows the airborne woman anchored by her love for Chagall, in Fo’s interpretation, she seems to be buffeted – helplessly at the mercy of the wind. Her devoted lover races after her, his body language a panicked cry.

Either work on its own is ideal as a writing prompt, but I ask you to consider what happened between The Promenade and Fo’s responsive painting.

What has changed between this couple, and why?

If you write something prompted by this idea, please send an email to Judy(at)socket creative.com to let me know. With your permission, I’ll publish it on SkyLightRain.com. Find out more about Brescia at www.skylightrain.com/brescia-10-top-experiences

The Marc Chagall and Dario Fo Exhibition will be at the Santa Giulia Museum in Brescia, Italy until 15th February 2016.

The Flying Lovers of Vitebsk, inspired by the life of Marc Chagall, is on at Bristol Old Vic until 11th June 2016.

Discover Budapest.
Discover Bath.
Discover Barcelona.
Discover Laugharne.

Writing prompt – serene

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Iona Abbey carving cr Judy Darley

Yesterday I mentioned that my short story The Merrow Cave has been published in issue 34 of Canadian literary journal Querty Magazine.

The source of the original story began with me glimpsing this beautifully serene carving at the abbey on the Scottish isle of Iona. It’s an incredibly tranquil place, and this face encapsulates a sense of the atmosphere.

For the purpose of my story I relocated the carving from the column of an abbey into a cave on a shore, and made it a symbol of love. I invite you to do something similar. Place the carving, or a similar one, somewhere meaningful and insert it into a tale. Who is this person? What merited them being immortalised in this way? Who might stumble across it and how might they react?

If you write something prompted by this idea, please send an email to Judy(at)socket creative.com to let me know. With your permission, I’d love to publish it on SkyLightRain.com.