Writing Prompt #1
Jun. 16th, 2016 04:56 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
brigdhI recently started going to a nearby writers' group – more in the interest of making new local friends than because I really wanted feedback on my writing, honestly. And none of the other MeetUp groups looked that appealing, so my choices were limited. But despite my original disinterest in the actual topic, it has been a lot of fun. We recently decided to add a new game to our meetings: someone picks a prompt, everyone has 15 minutes to write, and then we share whatever we managed to come up with.
Fifteen minutes isn't a very long time, so they're not spectacular pieces of writing, but it is neat to see what you can come up with without preparation. I don't know if anyone has an interest in reading these, but since I don't have anything else to do with the pieces and don't really intend to continue them, I figured I'd go ahead and post them here. For posterity, if nothing else.
This is the first one we did. The prompt was "A detective who is running out of money".
***
There hadn’t been a client in a month, and the one before that was steadfastly ignoring the bills we sent. I refused to look at my bank account, as though the problem was a boogeyman I could hide from by pulling the covers over my head and squeezing my eyes shut. But I couldn’t hide the truth from myself. There wasn’t enough money to pay my salary, the secretary’s salary, or the rent on the office. There wasn’t even enough to refill the coffee tin.
We would have to do something drastic.
“Sarah!” I called to my secretary. “Bring out file X.”
File X was where we kept the crazy cases, the ones that had no chance of being solved, the ones that had been sent by people who had been passed on by all the better detectives, until they finally ended up here: the bottom drawer of a dusty second-hand file cabinet on a side-street in L.A.
Sarah gave a long-suffering sigh and dropped her feet from her desktop to the floor with a thunk. She trudged across the room, yanked open the drawer which squealed in protest, and flicked through a handful of manila file folders.
“This one wants us to hunt down Bigfoot.”
I considered it. A week spent out of the city, hiking through redwood forests? It didn’t sound too bad. Of course, Sarah had left out the most important question: “Do they have a payment method registered?”
Sarah popped her bubblegum as she skimmed through the folder. “Says here he’ll split the profits with us, fifty-fifty, once we find proof.”
That would never happen.
“Damnit. Who’s next?”
“An old lady who swears her house is haunted. Wants us to found out why the ghost is sticking around and fix it.”
“Who do these people think we are, psychics? Pass.”
Sarah thumbed through the folders, quickly assessing and discarding them. “Thinks his dad is the Zodiac Killer, wants help finding a pirate treasure, needs proof that the president is spying on him – Oh! Here’s a possibility.”
I sat up straight. “What is it?”
“Lost dog.”
I tilted my head, considering it. Normally finding pets was below my pay-grade, but today I was willing to take anything. “Go on.”
“Chihuahua named Pinky, last seen on Hollywood Boulevard wearing a rhinestone collar. That was...” Sarah paused as she did math in her head. “Two months ago.”
I cursed. A dog that had been gone for two months already was gone. Pinky was never going to be reunited with her owner. On the other hand, anyone who would give a dog that name might still be willing to pay, no matter how small the chance of results was.
***
Fifteen minutes isn't a very long time, so they're not spectacular pieces of writing, but it is neat to see what you can come up with without preparation. I don't know if anyone has an interest in reading these, but since I don't have anything else to do with the pieces and don't really intend to continue them, I figured I'd go ahead and post them here. For posterity, if nothing else.
This is the first one we did. The prompt was "A detective who is running out of money".
There hadn’t been a client in a month, and the one before that was steadfastly ignoring the bills we sent. I refused to look at my bank account, as though the problem was a boogeyman I could hide from by pulling the covers over my head and squeezing my eyes shut. But I couldn’t hide the truth from myself. There wasn’t enough money to pay my salary, the secretary’s salary, or the rent on the office. There wasn’t even enough to refill the coffee tin.
We would have to do something drastic.
“Sarah!” I called to my secretary. “Bring out file X.”
File X was where we kept the crazy cases, the ones that had no chance of being solved, the ones that had been sent by people who had been passed on by all the better detectives, until they finally ended up here: the bottom drawer of a dusty second-hand file cabinet on a side-street in L.A.
Sarah gave a long-suffering sigh and dropped her feet from her desktop to the floor with a thunk. She trudged across the room, yanked open the drawer which squealed in protest, and flicked through a handful of manila file folders.
“This one wants us to hunt down Bigfoot.”
I considered it. A week spent out of the city, hiking through redwood forests? It didn’t sound too bad. Of course, Sarah had left out the most important question: “Do they have a payment method registered?”
Sarah popped her bubblegum as she skimmed through the folder. “Says here he’ll split the profits with us, fifty-fifty, once we find proof.”
That would never happen.
“Damnit. Who’s next?”
“An old lady who swears her house is haunted. Wants us to found out why the ghost is sticking around and fix it.”
“Who do these people think we are, psychics? Pass.”
Sarah thumbed through the folders, quickly assessing and discarding them. “Thinks his dad is the Zodiac Killer, wants help finding a pirate treasure, needs proof that the president is spying on him – Oh! Here’s a possibility.”
I sat up straight. “What is it?”
“Lost dog.”
I tilted my head, considering it. Normally finding pets was below my pay-grade, but today I was willing to take anything. “Go on.”
“Chihuahua named Pinky, last seen on Hollywood Boulevard wearing a rhinestone collar. That was...” Sarah paused as she did math in her head. “Two months ago.”
I cursed. A dog that had been gone for two months already was gone. Pinky was never going to be reunited with her owner. On the other hand, anyone who would give a dog that name might still be willing to pay, no matter how small the chance of results was.
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