Tag Archives: Carrot Ranch flash fiction prompt

A Place Where Children Once Played #99WordStories

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This week at the Carrot Ranch, Charli Mills challenged writers to In 99 words (no more, no less), write a story about a place where children once played. It can be a field, a playground, or any place that attracted children to play. But now it is empty. Abandoned. Go where the prompt leads!

This is my response. I hope you enjoy it.

Locked and Abandoned

Grow up.

Stop those childish games.

Remember your manners.

Cease with the stories.

Fairies aren’t real.

Santa’s for fools with more money than sense.

She was a dutiful daughter and diligent student. She submerged herself in lessons, wiped her mind of childhood nonsense and got on with the serious business of being grownup, though she was not yet nine years old.

She went on to be dux at school and won the university medal but had no friends to celebrate with.

Sometimes, in night’s solitude, she’d hear a jangle of keys and a tiny voice crying, ‘Let me out!’

Thank you blog post

Thank you for reading. I appreciate your feedback. Please share your thoughts.

Note: The collection of stories made in response to the previous prompt Gloria can be read at the Carrot Ranch.

Golden Onions #99WordStories

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This week at the Carrot Ranch, Charli Mills challenged writers to In 99 words (no more, no less), write a story about a golden onion. Any golden onion. One planted or harvested. An onion chopped for a meal. How can you use an onion as a prop in a character’s hand? Go where the prompt leads!

In her post, Charli used the analogy of a golden onion for writers as peeling back the layers to find the essence of who we really are as writers, what we write and who reads our work.

I write under a few different hats and I’m not sure any fits quite as well as I’d like. I’m a freelance educational writer, a blogger, an aspiring children’s author and a would-be dreamer of other things too. Too many possibilities. Not enough time.

I generally, but not always, use Charli’s prompts to write about children or to explore situations that may spark an idea for a story for children. I’m always pleased that Charli says, as she reiterated in the current post, that the ‘Carrot Ranch is a place to play, practice, and grow (or peel) your onion’. While Carrot Ranch readers may not be children, they once were (or maybe still are at heart, like me) and some are teachers and parents. I hope my stories speak the child that was or about a child that is.

Thank you for your patience in reading my stories. Here is my response to this week’s prompt ‘Golden Onions’.

No Trust

Jamie was an explorer. He had to find out for himself. ‘No’ was an answer he couldn’t trust. Did it mean, ‘You really shouldn’t” or ‘Of course, go ahead’?

Sometimes he discovered forbidden delights. Like the tiny brown squares Mum hid, saying, ‘No, Jamie. You won’t like it.’ He found he really did. A lot!

Sometimes he discovered the hard way. Like when Dad was cooking and said, ‘Don’t touch. It’s hot.” He found that hot hurts.

When Mum peeled a golden shell off a white ball, she said, ‘No. You won’t like it.’ Should he trust her?

No!

Thank you blog post

Thank you for reading. I appreciate your feedback. Please share your thoughts.

Note: The collection of stories made in response to the previous prompt A Smear of Jam, including mine, can be read at the Carrot Ranch.

Unleashed #Flashfiction

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Leashed flash fiction prompt

This week at the Carrot Ranch, Charli Mills challenged writers to In 99 words (no more, no less), write a story being leashed. Is it literal or metaphorical? Who or what is leashed. How does it set the tone? Go where the prompt leads!

I know the term leashed, and consequently unleased, refers specifically to dogs, and that is how Charli used it. However, I am not particularly familiar with dogs, either leashed or unleashed, so decided for the metaphorical interpretation of being held captive and, conversely, set free.

I usually try to conjure a story about children or education, or possibly an idea that I may be able to work into a publishable picture book manuscript one day. However, I didn’t realise I’d done that this time. Until I had.

I was thinking of slinky toys and the practical joke that uses a (fake) snake springing out of a can. I combined the two ideas, thinking how awesome it would be to release (unleash) a whole lot of slinky toys at the top of some stairs at the same time. When I finished writing, I realised that I’d repeated my thoughts about schooling and education once again. I even wondered if it had a theme similar to The Nightingale by Hans Christian Andersen. Let me know what you think.

Unleashed

It began harmlessly with a mini-slinky party favour in a birthday bag. The sparkles mesmerised Jamie as it tumbled end over end down the driveway or stairs. Soon it became an obsession. Swapping favours at birthday parties, pleading for them in supermarkets, Jamie hoarded them in a can carried everywhere. The obsession progressed from sparkles to numbers as the can filled. Eventually, no more slinkies would fit. As Jamie pressed and squeezed, the recalcitrant can tipped. Slinkies erupted, springing to life. As they danced away, sparkling in the sunlight, Jamie was captivated. Even slinkies need freedom to be themselves.

Thank you blog post

Thank you for reading. I appreciate your feedback. Please share your thoughts.