This week's writing prompt--results

The Phaserheads not only jointly blog, but also meet as a writer support group twice monthly. We talk about writing-related topics from the mechanics of good writing to marketing a book, we report on what we've been writing (sometimes sharing a short excerpt with the group) ... and we do short writing exercises using prompts: a concept, a phrase, or a sentence is announced and a time set, usually between 3 and 5 minutes. Our rule is that everyone has to write but you don't have to share what you wrote if you came up blank or just don't like what you did.

The need to go with the first thing that pops into your head and write like crazy for a couple of minutes leads to some very creative writing.The fun part of doing this in a group, though, is hearing what everyone else wrote. As this blog's name reflects, we have writers of mystery-suspense stories, others who do fantasy and one whose chosen genre is science fiction. We have poets, at least one writer who nearly always goes for the totally offbeat humor, and one who often ends up with a romantic (more or less) triangle in the story. It gets really fun when the group members write against style, choosing an approach more characteristic of one of the other writers.


So, on to one of this week's prompts: "The weregirl turned back into"

Image courtesy of cscarlett15 via deviantart.com

I came up with the following:


The weregirl turned back into the bar. “Y’all go on to the party,” she called to the group, “don’t wait for me. I’ll catch up with you when I can.”

To a chorus of ok's and see-ya's, she waved and took off down the street at a quick walk. She turned at the first cross street, then dashed into the park and toward the museum. This last-minute stuff was getting old—and she really liked this bunch of friends. She’d been teased about being a Cinderella tonight and had to have the reference explained –that she was always running away around midnight. But if she didn’t make it back to the portrait gallery before the moon set …

I'm not entirely sure where I was going with this. We all played with some aspect of what a weregirl was when she wasn't a girl. The idea of having her be something other than an animal, or a male human, intrigued me. The art museum seemed to hold such promise, but she would still need to be something at least quasi-living for the "were" characteristic to take hold. I'm not sure whether she would have turned out to be a plant in the portrait gallery, or maybe a wooden sculpture, with wood that somehow retained a quasi-life aspect.

OK, group--who's next?