Vonnie Winslow Crist 

  There's nothing like a good story on a rainy day, or better yet, a dark night filled with the sounds of a crackling fire, a howling wind, and the tap-tap-tap of a tree branch on the window pane. These are some of the publications which include my short stories 2018-2020. Most are available from Amazon. Plus, I've included a couple of writing prompts that you might enjoy trying. -- Vonnie

  

 Fun Writing Prompts:

  These prompts should help writers take what they know and stretch it. Speculative writing asks, "What if?"  But speculative writing doesn't stop there -- it then asks: What next? And after that? And after that?

   I challenge writers to try their hand at a fantasy, dark fantasy (yes, that's one nice way to say "horror"), or science fiction story. Here are a few ideas to help you start:

1- Pick a mythical creature like a selkie (seal person), centaur, harpie, swan maiden, troll, goblin, or a creature even more obscure -- and put them in today's world. Could they fit in? How would they fit in? Now write a story about that character.

 -- This is the beginning place for "Shoreside," "Appleheads," "The Garden Shop," and several other stories which appear in "The Greener Forest." It's also the genesis of "By the Sea," "The Monk's Fosterling," "Gabeta," and other stories which appear in "Owl Light."

2- Pick a "normal" job like a bank teller, teacher, waitress, garbage collector, secretary, bus driver, or other job of your choosing. Now, place your main character in that job in a strange environment -- like on another planet.

  -- This is the beginning place for my novelette, "Murder on Marawa Prime"  Or leave them in a normal place and have something extraordinary happen to them. This is the idea I started with for "Bad Moon Rising" which appears in my book, "Owl Light."

3- Pick a holiday tradition (or traditions) and imagine how those traditions might be honored 1,000 years from now. Or how people would interpret those traditions if they rediscovered them in 5,000 years.

 -- I used The Day of the Dead celebration and re-interpreted it in the far future in my story, "Gifts in the Dark," available from Digital Fiction Publishing (and my book, "Owl Light").