Readers who write in response to one of the prompts listed each month in Splintered Glass, may see their work presented here on the last week of that month. Though poems are preferred, short prose work will also be considered for publication.

Guidelines for submission:

1. List Splintered Glass prompt which inspired the work in the text of your email.
2. Submit material to be published as Microsoft Word document. Submission should not be longer than one page. Editing will not be provided, please be careful.
3. Include two brief sentences about the author. Example: Michael Whozits is the author of A Book and The Curl, a blog. He is a retired pilot and avid surfer.
4. Submission must arrive no later than the 3^rd Wednesday of the month in which the Splintered Glass prompt appeared. Only one reader’s submission will be selected for any given month.
5. Send submission to karoxby@gmail.com.

Readers who write in response to one of the prompts listed each month in Splintered Glass, may see their work presented here on the last week of that month.

As there were no reader submissions for this month, I offer one of my “story dreams” for development. I did begin to write my version, but it seems destined to languish. Perhaps you will be inspired to complete it.

1. GENERAL PREMISE. It is a coming of age story and could be told from the point of view of either of two main characters.
2. TIME AND SETTING. The time is up to you, long ago on earth, on some other planet, et cetera, in an appropriate setting for hunter-gatherers.
3. MAIN CHARACTERS: twins, a boy and girl. They belong to the hunter-gatherer clan.
   • The boy is expected to be a hunter, but he has no talent for it.
   • The girl is expected to step into the role women fill in the group, but she wants to be a hunter and has the talent for it. Whereas, she does not have the interest or gift for the “womanly” tasks, especially cooking.
4. IMPORTANT BACKGROUND INFORMATION. In the folklore of these people is the story of a woman who was a fine hunter at a time when the males had been separated from the women and far from home.
5. THE PROBLEM:
   • The siblings meet in secret moments while the girl tries to teach her brother what comes naturally to her, especially the art of tracking. It is important that the older males do not find out.
   • The boy suspects his sister is planning to use the clan folklore to enable her to become a hunter. He is worried that if she does, the clan may thrust her out into the wilderness and abandon her there.

Good luck to you. I would love to know what you come up with.

 

 

Readers who write in response to one of the prompts listed each month in Splintered Glass, may see their work presented here on the last week of that month. Though poems are preferred, short prose work will also be considered for publication.

Guidelines for submission:

1. List Splintered Glass prompt which inspired the work in the text of your email.
2. Submit material to be published as Microsoft Word document. Submission should not be longer than one page. Editing will not be provided, please be careful.
3. Include two brief sentences about the author. Example: Michael Whozits is the author of A Book and The Curl, a blog. He is a retired pilot and avid surfer.
4. Submission must arrive no later than the 3^rd Wednesday of the month in which the Splintered Glass prompt appeared. Only one reader’s submission will be selected for any given month.
5. Send submission to karoxby@gmail.com.

The following is an idea searching for an author. It came to me as a dream, a “story dream.” When these occur to me, I recognize the possibilities for a novel, but it is a novel I do not want to write. I am thrilled to have this opportunity to offer the idea to any writer who wants to develop it.

THE BASICS

1. Setting. A countryside appealing to landscape artists.
2. Heroine: a young woman fairly content with her life who receives a surprise inheritance from a deceased (how?) painter: his studio and the paintings within it.
3. Possible Villain: a local art gallery owner with his eye on the “big sale” wants one painting for his gala show which he hangs, removing the work of another artist to move room.
4. The Catalyst: There is a fire in the gallery before the gala show. Arson is suspected.
5. Possible Suspects: the bumped artist, the heroine, the gallery owner, or someone else?

Note: in the dream, the heroine discovers that the dead artist’s painting was the source of the fire—it self-combusted.

Feel free to use/change any of the above if you decide to accept this challenge. If, by chance my subconscious gave me the story of an existing novel, I bow to that author. But no plot is unique, so there is still room for a new vision using these basics.

There will be more of these “story dream” ideas in the future, keep watching.

Meanwhile, happy writing—

K. Roxby