doors

Fandango’s Story Starter #201

Fandango9 Comments

It’s time for my weekly Story Starter prompt. Here’s how it works. Every Tuesday morning (my time), I’m going to give you a “teaser” sentence or sentence fragment and your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to build a story (prose or poetry) around that sentence/fragment. It doesn’t have to be the first sentence in your story, and you don’t even have to use it in your post at all if you don’t want to. The purpose of the teaser is simply to spark your imagination and to get your storytelling juices flowing.

This week’s Story Starter teaser is:

The door and windows were locked from the inside, yet the body lay cold on the lawn below.

If you care to write and post a story built from this teaser, be sure to link back to this post and tag your post with #FSS. I would also encourage you to read and enjoy what your fellow bloggers do with their stories.

And most of all, have fun.

SoCS — Open and Shut Case

Fandango4 Comments

For this week’s Stream of Consciousness Saturday prompt, Linda G. Hill has given us the topic of “something that closes” and asked us to write about the first thing that pops into our head that closes.

The first thing that popped into my head was people’s minds. But you know what? The day before yesterday was Thanksgiving (in the U.S., anyway), and I don’t feel like going off on a rant about how close-minded so many people seem to be. So after dismissing close-minded, the next things that comes to mind are windows and doors.

My wife and I live in a relatively safe neighborhood and we have a 70-pound American Staffordshire Terrier who barks at anything she’s not expecting to hear or see and her bark is frightful.

Still, every night, before we can go to bed, my wife says, “Did you check to make sure that all of the doors and windows are closed and locked?”

And if she discovers the next morning that I forgot to lock a door or close a window, she lets me know that I have failed at the one thing that she expects me to do every night before we go to bed.

It’s times like that when I think it would be in my best interest to just close my mouth and keep it shut. 🤐🫢

MLMM Photo Challenge — A Story Behind Each Door

Fandango22 Comments

“I’m so excited,” Sally exclaimed. “I finally figured out how to move forward with my new novel.”

“Great news,” her agent Brenda said. “What’s your plan?”

“I saw this photo on the internet,” Sally said, showing the photo to Brenda. “The photo shows six doors to six different buildings. I thought I would start the book with six chapters, each one dedicated to people who live behind each of those doors. Then the rest of the book will be about how the lives of these people intersect, even though they each come from different backgrounds and have little in common.”

“So it’s going to be a story of kismet, of chance meetings between your six characters and what ensues,” Brenda said.

“Exactly,” Sally said. “I will paint a complex canvas of unlikely personal, societal, and political interactions and how each character’s life is impacted by their chance encounters with the others.”

“That sounds amazing,” Brenda said. “How long do you think it will take you?”

Sally thought for a moment and then said, “Maybe a year. A month for each of the first six foundational chapters and then another six months for the stories about how the six lives intertwine. And that’s pretty much working full time.”

“Let me see if I can get you a six month advance from the publisher,” Brenda said.

“That’s insufficient,” Sally said. “I need a full year. The publisher did okay on my first book, right?”

“That’s just it, Sally,” Brenda said. “They did okay, but it wasn’t exactly an international best seller.”

“I’m betting the farm on this book, Brenda. You’re my agent, so make it happen,” Sally said.

“You know how cutthroat these publishers can be,” Brenda said. “They’re not known to be very altruistic. That said, I’ll do my best, Sweetie. We’re both going to betting the farm on this new book of yours.”

Written for the Mindlovemisery’s Menagerie Photo Challenge prompt. Photo credit: Pobble365. Also for these daily prompts: Fandango’s One-Word Challenge (forward), My Vivid Blog (chapters), Ragtag Daily Prompt (canvas), Word of the Day Challenge (insufficient), The Daily Spur (farm), and Your Daily Word Prompt (altruistic).

One Minute Fiction — Floors and Doors

Fandango15 Comments

“That’s strange,” he said.

“What’s strange?” she asked.

“That brick building across the street,” he said.

“What about it?” she asked.

“There’s a big red door on the ground floor,” he said.

“Yeah, so?” she asked.

“There are two white doors on the second floor,” he said.

“Yes there are,” she agreed.

“And on the third floor there are no doors. Just a window where a door should be,” he said.

“So what?” she asked.

“That’s strange,” he said.

Written for Cyranny’s One Minute Fiction Challenge, where the idea is to manage to type our whole story in a minute or less.

Twittering Tales — Easy Money

Fandango14 Comments

39C608EF-9592-4E5D-9C31-6A506F1BF99DHarold looked across the highly polished wood floor and shook his head.

“I knew it was too good to be true,” he said to himself. “Easy money, great working conditions, steady work. That’s what they said.”

He glance at the newspaper ad in his hand. It read “Doorman Wanted.”

(275 characters)

Written for this week’s Twittering Tales prompt from Kat Myrman.