Use one of the following as a 10-15 minute writing prompt:The protagonist is a musician. The antagonist is vampire chickens. The setting is an old theater. The goal is to find a lost relative. An important event will be finding an unexpected helper. An important object will be a compass.
The protagonist is a ghost hunter. The antagonist is gremlins. The setting is a large hotel. The goal is to travel in time. An important event will be a fire. An important object will be an invisibility device.
The protagonist is a zoo keeper. The antagonist is the Black Knight. The setting is a library. The goal is to sell a new invention. An important event will be a visit to a new store. An important object will be a deck of cards.
The protagonist is a painter. The antagonist is an angry mob. The setting is an amusement park. The goal is to be famous. An important event will be a trip to a hospital. An important object will be a magic ring.
The protagonist is a vampire. The antagonist is stuck up princess. The setting is a desert. The goal is to find peace. An important event will be getting a new pet. An important object will be a mandolin.
These were generated at Glen and Karen Bledsoe's Random Writing Prompts page.
Feel free to mix and match or go to the website and generate new pieces for parts that don't grab you.
Well, this one’s *very* old but I liked the “princess” and wanted to finish it so I’ve been picking at it occasionally until I finally got to an end :-)– Joyce
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Princess Azure Rose stomped out of the disabled private tourbus into the desert heat. A blast of scorching air whooshed from the bottom of the hover bus as it settled, tossing her skirt layers dangerously high. Azure Rose screeched and turned to glare at the woman behind the controls. The woman shrugged and the door whooshed shut just as Azure Rose was about to reprimand her.
The princess looked around. She was trapped by incompetent transport techs and crappy hardware in the middle of a desert in a nowhere town of five buildings that wouldn’t be worth the match to set fire to it.
She turned from the crumbling garage and its cluster of techs shuffling out to gawk at the hoverbus. The town also had a peeling church, a dusty store, a sagging tavern and a less sagging tavern. She needed to get out of the sun before it pinkened her renowned white skin and made her sweat on her blue silk shirt. The less sagging tavern was looking more inviting.
She crossed the tarmac, heat streaming down and back up at her. Damn it was hot. It was worse than that time she had stood on the hot flagstones waiting and waiting and waiting for the pool boy to finish vacuuming.
The wood and glass door stood propped open. Which meant no air conditioning. Crap. Hanging on the door was a wooden cross with the letters “NEKODA” burned into it. Being a Buddhist American Princess she had no idea what either meant and didn’t care as long as they’d give her something to drink.
“Hello!” she called into the dimness of the less sagging tavern. “Hello! I’d like something to drink!”
“Hello,” came a slow voice from a dim corner as though its bearer had all the time in the world.
Azure Rose glared into the shadows. Her sun stunned eyes couldn’t make out who was there but she could see he wasn’t moving. They had nothing to do here. You’d think something new coming into their lives would make them come to life.
“Are you the owner? I’m hot and I want something to drink. If you aren’t open, you shouldn’t leave your doors open. It just wastes people’s time.”
“Oh, I’m open. I’m always open.”
He seemed to mean something by that and Azure Rose felt like stamping her foot at a joke that only he understood but her deportment Nazi wouldn’t let her anymore.
“Well? What’s wrong with you? Why are you staying in the dark back there? Are you ugly or deformed or something? I won’t look if that’s the problem.”
Laughter that would have been delicious had it not been at her expense rolled out of the darkness. “No, not ugly. Quite beautiful in fact.” He rose slowly and strolled toward the bar, keeping to the shadows at the edge of the room.
“I just need something to drink. All the systems have shut down on the bus. I can’t even get water.” As he reached the end of the bar Azure Rose gulped drily. He *was* beautiful. Skin whiter even than hers. Blue eyes that rivaled the Caribbean sea (that she caught in flash of reflected light that made him turn away). A full head of midnight hair that any princess would kill for.
=== 15 minutes ran out ===
He set a glass of tomato juice down and reached beneath the bar. “I have some bottled water from Transylvania.”
“Transylvania?”
“I have friends who swear it reminds them of home … regardless of where they were born.”
Azure Rose twitched her nose without wrinkling it. “If I wanted home, I wouldn’t be out touring now would I?”
“Ah, then a drink for the restless and the dissatisfied –”
“Whatever.”
“– and the impatient.” He set a plastic bottle of water on the bar. With long fingers he unscrewed the cap.
For a moment she thought it wasn’t cold for it didn’t condense but it was this damn dry air. She was going to whither up like last week’s corsage. Azure Rose grabbed the chilly bottle, and, with a prick of modesty inspired by her deportment Nazi she turned her back to him and gulped the water down in four vulgar swallows. She turned back, gasping.
“Another.” As he bent down she wiped her lips with the back of her hand.
He placed the bottle on the bar and cocked his head at her. Now that her eyes had adjusted, she could see his blue eyes better. They must be contacts or dye.
“I love the color of your eyes,” she said. “I’d love to get some. Are they a custom color or off the rack?”
He laughed, a deep throaty sound. She really was going to have to stamp her foot at him if he did that again.
“No, they are my natural eyes. But you could have them too, or …” he studied her eyes “something much like them. There is a different kind of drink that can give you that.”
“Oh?”
“It will not only give you mesmerizing eyes but enhance and preserve your beauty for longer than you would believe possible.”
She narrowed her eyes at him. “Did you take this drink?”
“Yes.”
“If it also means being stuck in a deserted dry hole like this then it doesn’t seem worth it.”
“No, not at all. I will share the secret with you if you will do me a favor.”
Azure Rose rolled her eyes. It figured. Here it comes. “What?”
“In the church across the parking lot is a wooden box. It rests in a niche near the altar, wrapped in crosses and rosaries.”
“Weird.”
“All you need do is retrieve it for me.”
“That’s it?”
“That’s it. Though perhaps … ” His gaze fell to the necklace she wore, a silver eight spoked wheel. “You are not a Christian?”
“Pfff! Not hardly!”
“Then perhaps there is another favor you could do me.”
“That’s a lot of favors.”
“It is a great gift. You will not be disappointed.”
“So what’s the favor?”
“Remove the cross from the door.”
She looked over at the cross. It was heavy and looked like a nail chip waiting to happen. “Why don’t you? And for that matter why don’t you get the box from the church if it’s so simple?” She narrowed her eyes at him, careful to avoid wrinkling her skin.
“It’s forbidden to me. You will understand when I give you the gift.”
She was being suckered into something. But damn his eyes were beautiful. And that skin. She wanted that skin. Azure Rose let out a sigh. “Oh, very well.”
He handed her a black umbrella. “For your lovely skin. The sun will not be kind to it.”
Azure Rose snatched the umbrella and went back out into the sun. He was right. She put up the umbrella and trudged across the tarmac of parking lot the tavern shared with the church. The peeling wooden door was unlocked. She entered, standing for a moment as her eyes adjusted. It was small inside. An altar, a few benches. Shelves lined the walls on either side of the altar where there were books, odds and ends and a wooden box wrapped as he had described.
She strode down the aisle and picked up the box.
“So, he found someone.”
Azure Rose gasped and turned. She was proud of herself. She had felt like screeching and dropping the box but she had managed a dignified gasp and elegant turn under pressure.
A minister or something — a priest? she wasn’t sure what the proper term was — stood in an open side door dressed in black with a small white collar.
“He told me to get it!”
“It is his. You may take it to him. It was part of the deal that he could have it back if he could get someone to retrieve it for him. We get so few visitors it’s taken him 47 years.”
“Why? What deal?”
“Unfortunately that is part of the deal too.” The black clad man sighed. “Ah, well, he’s still trapped in those four walls. I wish him a peaceful rest within them anyway.” The man turned, then said over his shoulder, “You may leave the bindings. He won’t be needing them.” Then he left.
Was everyone here nuts? Azure Rose shook her head. The beads and chains slithered off easily. She left them in a heap where the box had been.
She carried the box back to the tavern and set it on the bar. Why couldn’t she just give him her credit card for whatever it was?
His eyes widened He rose and opened the lid reverently. It must contain something quite valuable. Azure Rose peered around.
“Dirt?” she cried. “You made me get you a box of dirt?”
“The soil of my homeland. I cannot rest without it. I have not slept in 47 years.”
He was definitely a whacko. The priest or whatever too. Too bad. But being stuck in the wastelands under this sun probably fried people’s brains.
He closed the casket with a small click then strolled around the bar to stand behind her.
“Stand there,” he said. Fingers icy from the refrigerated drinks brushed her neck sweeping her hair back. “It is a small prick.”
“Is this drugs? I won’t touch drugs. They wreck one’s youth and beauty.”
“I swear on the graves of my ancestors it is not drugs.”
“Will it scar?”
“It will heal cleanly and quickly.”
Then with a swift motion he drove his teeth into her neck and pulled her back against his chest. Azure Rose gasped. Small prick?! What the — Then she felt dizzy. Damn him it was drugs. Then slowly she started to feel powerful. Strong enough to hurl the smug bus driver across the tarmac. Strong enough to hurl the whole bus across this stinking desert. Then she felt faint and everything went black.
Azure Rose found herself on the filthy floor.
“How do you feel?” he asked.
Azure Rose rose in a smooth motion. She didn’t care a whit for deportment now. She was going to hit him and hit him good. What had he done? Then she caught sight of her image in the mirror over the bar. Or, actually didn’t catch sight of it. She had no reflection. Azure Rose lost it completely and screamed.
The man waited patiently.
“Why can’t I see myself! What good is eternal beauty if I can’t see it!”
He smiled slightly, a small flash of sharp teeth. “You will find the reflection of your beauty in others vision of you. It will be enough.”
“What kind of crap is that!?” Then she understood. Not merely long lasting beauty but eternal beauty. And she realized how lucky she was. Her sister had done her flee from home at 25. When she had a line between her brows. Had Azure Rose waited that long to take the trip, she might have broken down here and done the favor for him to end up stuck with a face with lines for eternity. Azure Rose smiled broadly not caring if she lined her face because nothing she could do to it would be permanent now. She ran her tongue across her teeth feeling the lengthening incisors.
“So, you can’t leave here, can you?” she said.
“No.”
“And I can walk out and leave you behind, can’t I?”
“You could.”
He seemed to have the patience of a rock. Well, he was probably better company than the deportment Nazi. And certainly easier on the eyes.
“Oh, very well.” Azure Rose crossed to the door to stand before the cross. “Is this your name? Nekoda?”
“Yes.”
Azure Rose grasped the cross with both hands she ripped it off the door like a flier. She tossed it out into the sun. “All right, Nekoda, get your dirt. Come on, let’s go.”