[NSP] The Format & Story Prompt 1

[NSP] vs. [Story Name]
For sorting/tagging purposes and reader clarity, each post will receive a prefix tag stating clearly whether it is a Non-Story Post, [NSP], or part of a story we have in progress, [Story Name]. The reason I will make the story name a tag and not the post title with an appended number is so that I may title different sections of the story if I so choose.

Note: I may use abbreviations for a story with a particularly long name. (e.g.: “The Terrific Tale of Sully the Porpoise and His Magical Sword of Fire, Which is Quite Useless Underwater, Sadly” – a story I hope not to write – is most certainly going to become [TTTSPHMSFWQUUS], which is itself still quite long, but it’s a bit more palatable in a blogging sense.)

Story Posts
I will try to give credit at the beginning of story updates to those comments that gave me the most inspiration. After that short aside, I will recap (if necessary) and continue on with the suggested narrative path. At the end of posts, I will try to keep my prompts very clear. The reason I say this is that sometimes I will be looking for a very general direction, while other times I might want to know exactly which box our intrepid hero is going to pry open and why.

Possibilities
I’m not sure at this point what I’m capable of in terms of production quantity. Part of me wants to allow the option of the story branching off like a regular CYOA, but that would immediately slow the pace of all branches of the plot should I keep to my regular update schedule. For now, I’m going to stick to one plotline that is determined largely by my readers, but I will let everyone know if I want to split things up. I might only branch at the very end to allow different conclusions while minimizing the extra workload. We shall see!

Story Prompt 1
WHAT: an event (a birthday, a car accident, the unveiling of a new space station, a space station accident, the birth of a new car, the unveiling of a new day…)
WHO: a character/entity (main or otherwise)
WHEN: this can be a number of things (i.e., is it the dark of night, the day after a king’s assassination, or 12:34 PM on a rainy Friday? Remember to be creative. If you think the time is as significant as the event, be clear.)
…THING: I want you to give me something to focus on at the very beginning of the story, like in the first sentence or paragraph. This can be a sound, a character noticing some minor detail of some furniture, or the description of a foreboding calm that has settled over a large group of people despite recent belligerent actions against them that would have set any other collective mindset on fire.

I will do what I can to find something intriguing in all of your suggestions that fits with my other choices. Feel free to suggest a WHAT and a WHO or a THING and a WHAT without bothering to come up with an idea for the other two parts. If four readers can come up with one brilliant suggestion for each scene criterion, we have a good story on our hands. And on that note, please don’t feel like you are limited by the listed criteria. If you want to suggest something that seems beyond the scope of the prompt, you can be sure that I’ll take it into consideration if it comes in before I’m knee-deep in causality.

Now have at it, and be clever!

Cranks (they’re turning),
M. Charles