Writing a short story...

[Assassinscreed548]

the tale of bob the sausage

there was once a sausage named bob and he lived happily ever after

you got the inspiration, now stretch that out to 2-4 pages

 

[sjarri]

-snip-

 

[SlowShootinPete]

.

Snip and stuff

The thing is, I'm usually good at writing if somebody gives me a head-start (like when we get the assignment to make a story out of a sentence), but I'm bad at drawing my own inspiration.

How about writing a short story based entirely around Chandler's Law?

For those not in the know, Raymond Chandler was a pulp novelist, who once said, 'When I don't know where to take a story, I have a man walk through the door with a gun.'

The reasons for this are multiple. It raises several questions: who is he? why is he there? how is he there? is the gun loaded? is he going to shoot someone? is he just there to threaten?

Open a story with a man walking through a door with a gun in his hand, and expand it from there.

Hm, that's actually not a bad idea. Thanks for the tip, I'll think about it. The only problem is, do I dare be darey? It's a 9th grade assignment, so I don't know how mature I'm allowed to go.

Swap the gun for something else that would seem unusual at first glance. A steering wheel, for instance.

Another idea would be to write a list of different types of things, like People, Places, Things, etc., and then just write down whatever comes to mind on each category as fast as you can. It may not work for everyone, but you might as well try it.

 

[MelasZepheos_v1legacy]

the tale of bob the sausage

there was once a sausage named bob and he lived happily ever after

you got the inspiration, now stretch that out to 2-4 pages

But everyone knows the little sausage is called Baldrick!

 

[senorcromas]

Lunchtime. Write about your lunchtime. It sounds weird, but you'd be surprised how many stories can come out of a single lunch break.

Trust me.

 

[alwaysrockon]

Write about a person trapped in a nightmare. Literally, inside their own head. You can do whatever the hell you want, pretend you're using imagery and such. I've done it many times.

Spoiler: read this

I generally try not to be pressing but



?why are the walls trying to eat me?



There seems to be no logical explanation for which the walls should be attempting to consume me on this particular day. In fact there seems to be no logical explanation for me to be in this god-forsaken room. This room which seems to have a stage and nothing more, no walls or windows ever made by humane hands.


At first, once I noticed the carnivorous walls, I thought that perhaps this monstrosity was a creation of mine own mind. But as I felt those same walls with mine hand, the pain that flashed up my arm was most definantly of no imagination of mine.



I remember not ever being in this room before, which has a light, menacing as can be at that, and kindly nothing more. I remember not waking from any slumber in this box only to be threatened by those very walls. I remember not how long I have stood here waiting.
So I ask again, why are the walls trying to eat me? Have I truly done something so ungodly as to garner such a fate? For as far as I can see, these demonic walls inching close, each one leering at me with that predatory grin and bloodthirsty look. I know not why this room may be so barbaric but I ask again, and quite innocently I must add, why are those walls trying to eat me?



I have never spoken a word to those walls and I have never threatened them yet they continue to haunt me. How can a wall be attempting to eat me is beyond me, but I know that they will not stop. I have long peered into those shifting terrible walls and they hath showed me nothing. I only feel the hunger of those walls. The walls filled with hunger, pure and base, staring straight at me. Watching my every movement and thought, analyzing and creeping, thinking of the most delicious way to consume me.


I don?t really think I would be savory but then again I am not a wall. I do not think that I would be able to eat another person but then again I am not a wall. I don?t know why these walls want me. It seems that if they were to consume something I would be quite an unsatisfactory meal, but then again I am not a wall.



I know of no such man which hath ever suffered such a terrible affliction as mine. I hath never heard of the walls attempting to make a meal out of man, but I am only a mortal who is about to be eaten by walls.
For now, as I stand on the centre stage watching those walls shift, I am only assured of one thing.





? Cocaine is a hell of a drug.

 

[iLikeHippos]

It's funny, I made a short story as an interlude for a topic idea I had.

Unfortunately, someone ninja'd the topic subject and now I have to wait three months before posting in order to maintain my dignity...

OT: A good idea is to copy an idea with some modifications of your own.
That way, it's part your own writing and style.
If you got a Conan magazine under your porno magazine (This is just an assumption, I apologize) than look it up.

... The other way out would be copying my OWN Conan story. Which I won't be presenting. Hah!

 

[Azaradel]

Have someone make you angry!

Though maybe I'm the only one who finds inspiration in being angry or sad or scared. Having those furious thoughts spinning around inside your head really makes you think. What can I say? Extreme negative emotions just set my creativity off.

Alternatively, go to Wikipedia and press "random article" 'til you hit something interesting, then you just turn off your mind and write (I don't know why, but not thinking seems to help my writing...)

I wish I knew how to get my own muse back, really, whenever I do finish anything, it's usually out of a sudden burst of creativity.

<spoiler=Enter; Wall of text>Mirror... Mirror...

Despite my bleeding soul, I force my lips into a smile. The mirror just stares back at me, coldly, motionless.

Shocked, I take a hesitant step back. My reflection isn't moving. Just coldly staring at me with those empty eyes. Again, I attempt a smile. And again, my mirrored self does not move.

What is the world that exists beyond that glassy surface? The world where I have stopped lying to myself? The world where I stare so coldly into my reflection? How can a place so different exist so close...? Be so near, yet so untouchable?

I find myself putting my hand against the smooth, cold glass. My reflection does the same, as it is meant to; yet it seems so distant. So different from myself. A separate being. I can almost feel it through the glass... the pulse of my reflection, the slight twitch that courses through the fingers as it stares so coldly towards its hand.

As I remove my hand from the glass, it lingers, raising its gaze to meet mine. Those eyes... how they accuse me.

"Who are you?" I call out, desperately, but my reflection does not mimic me, nor does it reply.

Lips parting slightly, as if meaning to reply, but forgetting what it meant to say, my reflection tilts its head, just looking at me. Yes, yes... of course I know who it is. It can't be anyone but myself, but why? Why so different...?

It's hand is still pressed against the other side of the glass, where my own was just a second ago.

Reaching out, I touch its palm through the glass, my fingers wandering over the reflection of its hand. Hesitantly, I put my own hand against the glass again, certain that I can feel the warmth of my own reflection through it.

Almost desperately, I press myself against the mirror, feeling how I am sucked into that world so close, yet so far away. My reflection embraces me, pulls me into that mirrored universe where I'm not trying to escape my pain behind that fake smile.

Eyes closed, desperately clinging to my other self, I can feel how we become one, merging together to become the same being. And as one, the pain I was in disappears, only left as a vague sensation, seeming as unreal as the tears coursing down my face.

--------

Resting with her back against the mirror, I found her. Half-naked, her once fair skin stained with tears and blood... In her hand she's clutching a single shard of glass. A part of the mirror, no doubt; which she shattered in her attempts to flee reality. Cuts mar her face, her body, her soul.

Her mouth is cut from ear to ear, her jaw hanging open in an awful grin. To carve such a hollow smile into her face when she could no longer smile herself.

On the mirror, there's a single, bloody handprint. When you look upon it, the reflection almost makes it seem as if there are two; as if a person inside the mirror put its hand against the inside of the glass.

With a gentle touch, I stitch her wounded body together, clean the blood of her milky skin. I wonder how much she had to hate herself to do something like that?

I'm going to carry her with me for as long as I have to, until her soul can find peace. Resting like a ragdoll in my arms, her stiched-together figure fits the description almost ironically well. Walk with me, make me company... if not forever, then at least until you can find peace in the death you brought upon yourself.

I wonder if she's happy now? The girl in the mirror...?

I wonder... if she is able to smile now?

 

[Me55enger]

Write about people living in a dark, dense jungle. They work in Copper and Nickel mines to support themselves, and everyday they have to face giant, horrifying bugs. As it turns out, they all live in a carpet, mining pennies and nickels. The bugs are actual size, they are just small. Done.

"The Carpet People" - Terry Pratchett.

Nice try though...

Write about a seven-year-old girl who finds Excalibur (the sword) in her local charity shop.

 

[Ham_authority95]

Write a story about a time far into the future where another species of humans have evolved to live underground and have developed a type of all-organic technology. At this time, we have sent a diplomat to establish relations to them for the first time. Unfortunately, this diplomat will soon find out the horrors of this new race.

That's just a premise that I've had in my mind for a while, but I hope that it helps

 

[Doitpow]

Easy way to write story up to 2000 words No. 3,549

Take every day object and ascribe it with narrative voice.

E.g. The world according to a bottletop.

 

[[Kira Must Die]]

Watch movies, read more books, there are lots of things to copy off of be inspire by.

 

[Paksenarrion]

The thing is, I'm usually good at writing if somebody gives me a head-start (like when we get the assignment to make a story out of a sentence), but I'm bad at drawing my own inspiration.

"John Stalvern waited..."

...and...go! ^_^

 

[Mikkaddo]

Ok, so you have a truck backing into a wharehouse. When the back of it opens up, a large metal case is taken out by a pair of men in military looking garb, they move it into the wharehouse griping about how hard their job is.

Once inside they go down an elevator into a dark hallway, leading it down to a glass fronted cell. The back of the case opens when put flush against the cell's only door. A person being pulled out of it and tied to the back of the cell. Metal shackles and bars holding him in place. And then the Warden coming down and saying as smoke comes out of his mouth from the cigar he's smoking says something akin to "another of those damnedable demons . . . soon we'll have them all, and the world will be safe at last, untill their contract is up naturally"

Go with it where you will, and feel free to take the credit for it when/if you use it for your story for school. Always happy to help.

 

[aseelt]

Write a story where the protagonist asks for help from the internet and is then sucked in Tron style.

 

[Arkhangelsk]

The thing is, I'm usually good at writing if somebody gives me a head-start (like when we get the assignment to make a story out of a sentence), but I'm bad at drawing my own inspiration.

"John Stalvern waited..."

...and...go! ^_^

A little more substance in that sentence would have worked. And the way a short story is written, I essentially have to work backwards, since it usually begins with the event already happening.

 

[p3t3r]

write a story were the hot new drug is human flesh. when you take the drug you feel real good or whatever and it is very addictive but you need to kill/ mutilate people to get it.

 

[The Anhk24]

write the most random things in your head, they're funnier on paper

 

[Darkenwrath]

Okay, I know The Escapist generally doesn't like help threads, but I'm seriously drawing a blank here.

So as a huge assignment for school, I have to write a short story (around 2-4 pages long). I can write about whatever I want, although I got a paper with rules on how it should be constructed. Usually I can write pretty good stories, but I have zero inspiration here. I have no idea what to write, how to write it, anything. I can't think of anything for a plot. So in a feeble attempt, I come here, hoping you could fling some ideas. I'm getting desperate here.

In that case...

A short story about a boy who wakes up and finds everyone missing in his home. With only a note saying that he should go to the park to find them, there a strange man gives him an odd set of instructions...