This week’s prompt is a little more involved than most, but I hope it will provide a fun experience and result in something interesting. Go to a populated place – a mall, a restaurant, a park, whatever. Just make sure it’s a place where there are going to be plenty of people, and bring a pen and something to write on. Choose three people. Go for variety. For each person, sketch out a personality and back story. Just guess based on what you see.
Now, imagine something wild happens at that location, something fantastical, impossible. For instance:
- An alien spacecraft descends on the area, and armed creatures pour out
- A giant hole in reality opens and something crosses over
- Everyone but a few select individuals suddenly collapse, unconscious
- A dragon suddenly flies overhead
- The world begins to break apart under your very feet
Feel free to use any of those ideas, or brainstorm a more unique idea and run with it. Once you have your characters sketched out and your ideas, write about what happens from the perspective of each of those three people. Don’t get too wrapped up in telling the back story you created – if it’s pertinent information to the way the person reacts, tell it, but otherwise just let what you know about them direct their actions, and don’t worry about telling us.
Here’s the final piece: Bring these three people together somehow. Make them, and their cooperation in the situation, the final focus in however the situation resolves (or doesn’t resolve, if that’s how you’d like to play it). Have fun and let your imagination go to work! Happy writing!
Seeking the New Earth 