1. I might not agree with his methods, but the results were certainly impressive.

2. Three dogs were two dogs too many –or three dogs too many depending on who you asked– because when things came to a vote the dogs always won.

3. If anyone could make yellow socks and fuchsia shoes look good, it was Edward… and apparently no one could.

4. You could see the lights of the city from miles away, tiny glimmers of civilization scattered among the weeds.

5. There are only so many ways to start a story that takes place in a near-hurricane strength storm, in the middle of the night, on a deserted island, that’s haunted. Did I mention that none of them are good ways?

These story prompts are released into the wild per Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 United States License, so sayth their author Martha McMahon Bechtel.

Technotari Tags: Writing Prompts

So here’s a thought, although a slightly overdone one: if vampires existed and everyone knew about them, what then? Assuming of course that these are vampires willing to ‘live in harmony’ and not the ones made from crazy-cake recipes.

1. People would put ‘vamp’ or ‘do not vamp’ in their living wills.
1a. Or medical bracelets.
1aa. Or tattoos.

2. Blood bank donations would be mandatory.
2a. I wonder if people have a ‘vintage’…
2aa. Or maybe the cheaper vamp foods are cut with animal blood. Sort of like whole milk and skim milk. Hmmm.
2aaa. In which case you could, theoretically, make a living donating blood to vampire wineries.
2aaaa. Which means the derogatory term ‘vineyard’ is up for grabs…

3. Making new vampires would be a tightly controlled process.
3a. Because other vampires are power-hording clichés.
3aa. Or they just are starting to run out of room in the nicer vampire neighborhoods.
3aaa. Because there’s not a lot of call for night shift work and ancient vampire fortunes will only support so many offspring.
3aaaa. Actually, vampire night shift might not be so bad, would be a lot less stressful in the high danger jobs.
3aaaaa. Vampire cabbies. Woo!
3aaaaaa. Bad Muses, no biscuit. *mutter*

4. There would have to be different legal punishments for vampires.
4a. ‘20 to life’ would turn into ‘20 to infinity’
4aa. For immortals incarceration is like a 5 minute timeout.
4aaa. Which means lots of ‘community service’.
4aaaa. Which could mean night-shift road work would be done primarily by law-breaking vamps.
4aaaaa. Under guard of more law-abiding vamps.
4aaaaaa. And lots of guns.

5. There would be a lot less picking up of random folks in night clubs.
5a. Because every conversation would start out with ‘Are you human?”
5aa. And probably end with ‘Oh.’
5aaa. Seriously, what else are immortal jobless vampires going to do with their lives?
5aaaa. Although sparkly vampires would rule the disco scene. *solemn nod*

6. … I’m still hung up on the vampire cab drivers, sorry. (Damned Muses)

These snippits are copyright Martha McMahon Bechtel and may not be reproduced or distributed without express permission. All rights reserved.

Technotari Tags: Fiction, Fantasy

1. She can’t remember when she stopped being scared, but it’s gone now. Instead she’s just tired and cold and ready to die.

2. “Mmm, smells like rain.”
“You can’t smell water, it’s probably just the ozone from the lightning.”
“No, it smells like rain. You know, a little bit cold, sort of crisp and wet– it’s just, well, rain-smelling.”
“And you wonder why your psych profile has all those little asterisks in it…”

3. It shouldn’t have been hard to invent a wheel, after all he knew what they looking like, but getting two round bits of wood to make the leap from ‘more-or-less round’ to ‘functional wheels’ was apparently a little more difficult than it looked.

4. Some people approached life with the idea that sanity was optional and if they managed to accumulate enough disadvantages the universe would reward them with fame and fortune just to balance the scales. Sadly, life was a lot less like a GURPS game than they imagined.

5. The problem with following deer paths were that deer were inherently fickle animals. He looked down the three foot drop that neatly bisected the trail and sighed.

These story prompts are released into the wild per Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 United States License, so sayth their author Martha McMahon Bechtel.

Technotari Tags: Writing Prompts

“So I’m some sort of mystical savior meant to prevent the world from certain doom.”

“Yes.”

“And I can’t tell my husband.”

“Right.”

“Because you’ll have to kill him.”

“Pretty much.”

“And you think I won’t stop you.”

“Well no, I think you’ll try–”

“Right.”

“–I just don’t think you’ll succeed. After all, there are hundreds of us and one of you.”

“I’ll kill all of you if you touch him–”

“But you’ll still save the world.”

“What?”

“Even if you kill all of us, because we’ve killed him, when the time comes you’ll still save the world.”

“No I won’t.”

“Really? You’d kill billions of innocent people because we did something we told you we would do?”

“You can’t kill my husband!”

“I’m hoping we don’t have to.”

“Well what if I tell everyone? You can’t kill everyone.”

“What?”

“If I go on TV, on the news and I tell everyone about this whole dammed mess–”

“Then saving the world stops being an option.”

“Why?”

“Look, let’s start with this. You agree not to tell anyone anything until we have a chance to explain it to you first. This is not a simple five minute explanation; we’re talking twenty hours of lectures, five hours of labs–”

“Labs?”

“Well I don’t expect you to believe it without proof.”

“Good point.”

“So do we have a deal?”

“Considering my apparent options are death, more death, or the end of the world: Yes.”

These snippits are copyright Martha McMahon Bechtel and may not be reproduced or distributed without express permission. All rights reserved.

Technotari Tags: Fiction, Fantasy

1. There’s something about the way the clouds are moving that sends shivers down his spine.

2. “Inconceivable!”
“I don’t think that quote means what you think it means.”
“What?”
“Normally you’d use it when the hero has just done something you previously thought impossible, and technically he hasn’t done anything yet.”
“I wasn’t quoting anything you idiot, I was pointing out the stupidity of the action itself.”
“Ah, right, a bit of unintentional irony there then.”
“This really is a perfect example of why minions should be seen and not heard.”

3. “Only the duck can save us now!”

4. Most people wouldn’t want to be spending their last moments alive trapped in a mall surrounded by zombies, but Alice had fought long and hard for this part and dammed if she was going to let some technicality like actual zombies on set ruin her big chance.

5. Building a robot girlfriend is rarely a good idea. Building a robot girlfriend and giving it advanced emotional capabilities is never a good idea. Building a robot girlfriend, giving it advanced emotional capabilities, and fighting skills the likes the world has never seen is an idea roughly on par with creating the Power Puff Girls: the resulting property damage is hell on your credit rating. However, building a robot friend who happens to be a girl apparently doesn’t end in quite as many hospital trips for yours truly. Thank God for reprogramming!

These story prompts are released into the wild per Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 United States License, so sayth their author Martha McMahon Bechtel.

Technotari Tags: Writing Prompts