January 15, 2010: Freewriting with Heroes and Fruitcake

Everybody start your writing utensils for the first Friday Prompt of the New 1-2-Writing!
We’ll send these out every Friday to all Newsletter subscribers.  To post your work for feedback, please sign up for our Member’s Area.

Now then, Set your timer before reading further (10 minutes for this one), and have your paper or keyboard ready.  For this prompt, you’ll write down some “facts” for the story, and only after you’ve written down these facts should you go on and read the prompt itself...
Now, the “facts” of your story:

Imagine, for a moment, that you live in a mystical, magical land very different from our own.  It can be either a science fiction place with starships and a version of Microsoft Word that doesn't crash, or it could be a fantasy place out of Harry Potter where enchanted quills write stories of their own using lambskin parchment and black dye from Endless Ink, Inc.  Or, if you like, it could be a world very much like our own, except with one subtle change (think The Simpsons: there's a scene where the weather is terrible, it rains every day, but each raindrop is a sweet sugary donut).

Write down the name of this world, and the one key difference between this world and our own.

That done, imagine for yourself a kind of "hero" for this world. It can be an ordinary person with a special determination to "do right" by combating the scourge of donuts that have devoured the local weather, or it can be a superhero with some special power such as the ability to impose Linux stability on Microsoft systems with a wave of the hand.

Write the name of this character and the one "special power" or "special determination" which makes this individual a hero.

And now, The Prompt:

Your hero is getting married tomorrow.  It will be a very traditional wedding.  And the in-laws have brought a loaf of their famous fruitcake as a gift to the bride-and-groom-to-be.  But there's a catch: your hero is very, very, allergic to fruitcake.  And they've already set a healthy slice on our plucky hero's salad plate.  All eyes, now, are on the hero to pronounce this fruitcake delicious or...

(now write as fast as you can for ten minutes)

Happy Writing!

Ryan

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