A Story Every Day - Prompts For April 2024 (and a challenge for my birthday)

Are you still with me?

April is almost here already, and I failed to post a list of prompts for March, so I thought I'd better get cracking and post these!

Read on for a mix of:

• calendar related prompts
• photo prompts
• a character prompt
• a word prompt
• a mythical beast prompt
• general prompts
• and a challenge

("Prompts" is a weird sounding word, isn't it?)

First, here's a reminder why I'm posting these!

My Unofficial Story Every Day in 2024 Challenge (mostly for myself)

The aim: to post EVERY DAY in 2024. Here's the post about it, and the follow-up.

My criteria:

• Microfiction, with a word count of 366
• The prompts are aids only, not challenges (unless you want to use them that way).
• It doesn't have to be perfect. Hopefully a decent standard, but not perfect. Perfection is the enemy of creativity, no? The idea is to get the juices flowing. Stories that are short and sweet, and plenty of them.
• There's a way to keep your streak going if you know in advance you won't be able to get online on certain dates

Let's start with prompts linked to a date:

• 2nd - World Autism Awareness Day:- a story with an autistic protagonist
• 12th - International Day of Human Space Flight:- you're on the first commercial passenger flight to Mars. What's it like? What happens?
• 22nd - Earth Day:- a micro to promote the protection and preservation of Mother Earth
• If your birthday is in April, write a micro that is autobiographical

April Showers

• a story that heavily features rain
• a story set on a grey planet where it rains all the time

Since I missed March...

• It was Women's History Month - write a story with no male characters at all.

• Here in the UK, Mothers' Day was on the 10th March - write a story about mothers' love

Lockdown

It's been 4 years since the start of lockdown in the UK. Can you believe that? Here's some suggestions around that:

• Write about your experience of lockdown as a microfiction. You can decide where the beginning, middle and end points are.
• Write about a plague that affects humanity
• Write about a lockdown for reasons other than a pandemic

Photo Prompts

Character Prompt

• an historical microfiction about a woman from history.

Word Prompt

• a story inspired by or including the word "bopmuggered". *To find oneself in a very bad situation.)

Mythical Beast Prompt

So far this year, I've done prompts about dragons and sea creatures. Since it's Spring, rebirth and reawakening seems like a fitting topic. Let's do the phoenix. Write me a phoenix story!

More prompts

• a micro in the style of The Animals of Farthing Wood
• a story that heavily features the colour green
• a micro from the perspective of an animal
• the story of an invention of a thing (any thing, real or imagined). Your MC is the inventor, probably.
• a prison break story set in a zoo
• a story about quarrelling neighbours
• a private investigator for fairy folk
• a superhero story told from the perspective of the sidekick
• a "witch's coven", which is actually a cult, and an actual witch who is trying to break free of it
• you're a student in a drug trial, which gives you some funky abilities. What are they and what happens next?
• aliens land and bring humanity a gift, but there's a catch. What's the gift? What's the catch?

A Prompt and an unofficial CHALLENGE - April

**F--ked Up Fairy Tales**

It's my birthday, and I wants it

If you know me, you know how I love a fucked up fairy tale.

• Take an old fairytale, fuck it up, and condense it to 300-366 words
• Link back to me!
• Link to your story in the comments 👇
• Closing date the 30th April
• $10 tip to the winner

Notes on the challenge:

I would love collaboration to choose a winner. If you'd like to volunteer as tribute, please use the comment section. Emphasis on the word "volunteer"; I'm afraid the role is entirely unpaid.

I'd also like to get some input from you lovely lot when it comes time to pick one, depending how many participate. I'll do a follow up and go into more detail about that in the next couple of days 😁

Thank you!

Thank you for reading!

If you use any of these, please let me know!

If you have a story prompt, please share it in the comments.