For however long the lockdown continues (in the UK at least), I am throwing out weekly writing exercises/prompts for anyone and everyone to respond to.
Here’s how it works:
- I’ll post a prompt on Fridays and you just let your imagination take over from there.
- When you have a story you’re happy with, post it to your own website with a link back to whichever post on here prompted the story.
- OR – If you don’t have a website, feel free to send the story to me via my Contact page and I’ll happily host it on here with full writing credit and copyright to you.
So Let’s Get Started!
Week Six – Once Upon A Time
Write a short story inspired by a fairy tale (or that is a sequel to one).
Fairy tales are some of our oldest examples of storytelling. The reason they have endured is that the themes they cover are universal, even if the settings and gender roles have moved on a long way from when they were written down.
Anyone who has been following this blog for a while will know that I love playing around with fairy tales. I have a section in my menu for fairy tales that I have taken the liberty of continuing (see After Ever After in the Short Stories tab above).
This week, take your favourite fairy tale and play around with it. Imagine it from the perspective of one of its minor characters; flip the gender rolls so that the princess rescues the prince for once; or even picture the characters a few years down the line. What could they get up to after Happily Ever After has been uttered?
Rachael Farrimond 