PROMPTS TO INSPIRE YOU, PART FOUR, by Max Jason Peterson

Greetings, fellow creatives! I’m here with another installment of prompts to inspire you! I often provide prompt sessions in person at local conventions, for local writing groups, and online for Max’s Writers Café, which are free, library-sponsored live Zoom workshops for short prose and poetry. Hampton Public Library hosts these each spring and fall, open to ages 18+ (each session requires free Eventbrite registration; see the collection here for the upcoming workshops). But as readers of this blog, you can participate on your own schedule!

My wish for you is that you would come away from these prompts with the seeds for new short works of prose or poetry (or both). The combination of the prompt + a new work you haven’t thought about previously + a time limitation really seems to help kickstart creativity. These should be thought of as creative nuggets that you may wish to polish or continue with later. They won’t be perfect! And that’s fine.

How to do this: You’ll need some form of timer. Try to be strict with yourself about this—when you are, it really seems to boost your ability to dive into the prompt and come up with something unexpected.

Set your timer for ten minutes. Read through the prompt first, then start the timer. Write for ten minutes. Then stop! See what you came up with. It might indeed be something you want to continue working on right now before you lose your train of thought. If so, I suggest treating it as a new prompt session and giving yourself ten more minutes to finish getting your thoughts down.

Today’s prompts are all mystery-oriented.

1. Write a short scene from the point of view of a household pet who is witnessing or has witnessed a crime. The pet might belong to the victim, the sleuth, or the murderer. Does the pet try to help the victim or sleuth? Or act like an accomplice to the villain?

2. What if your murderer had superpowers? What if your sleuth could use magic? From any aspect of the paranormal, supernatural, or fantasy and science fiction spectrum, pick one power for each and write a short confrontational scene in which the sleuth saves someone, but the murderer gets away—for now. The characters don't necessarily have to wield their powers—there could be a standoff here. Or what if they did wield their powers, to humorous effect?

3. If you are writing a cozy mystery, plant your sleuth in the middle of a hardboiled detective story or noir novel. If you are writing hardboiled or noir, have your detective suddenly appear in the middle of a cozy world. You can play it straight by rewriting a scene you have in mind from this opposite perspective, as if that had been the tale all along. Or it could be quite funny, in a fish-out-of-water way.

4. Think about the characters in a mystery series you enjoy. There may be some special quirk or motif that recurs in a way that delights the reader, such as when Spenser recites poetry, Holmes deduces amazing things about a stranger, or Archie Goodwin drinks a glass of milk in preference to alcohol. Now think about your work in progress. Brainstorm some interesting quirks or motifs that might help to make it unique or cause the reader delight when they recognize them.

5. Inspired by Ray Bradbury’s Zen in the Art of Writing: This is a two-part exercise.

Part 1: 3 minutes. Make a list of things that scare you or that you find eerie, mysterious, or fascinating. Keep writing for three minutes—don't let your pen leave the page until the timer goes off.

Part 2: 10 minutes. Select one of the words on the list and just start writing about it. See what comes out!

If you’d like more prompts, here are some earlier installments in this series:

Part One

Part Two

Part Three

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Max Gardner (he/they) is a fiction writer & award-winning poet published under a variety of bylines, including Max Jason Peterson and Adele Gardner. A poetry collection, Halloween Hearts, is available from Jackanapes Press, while over 500 stories, poems, art, and articles appear in Analog, Clarkesworld, Strange Horizons, PodCastle, Daily Science Fiction, and more. Gardner serves as literary executor for father and mentor Delbert R. Gardner; Muse Mansion, a collection of poems by both father and firstborn, will be released soon by San Francisco Bay Press. 

Nervous About Your Year Ahead? by Judy Fowler

 

 

 

I was paying rent on a place no one would want to live in an area of the country with long, winding roads.

I’d found low-paid temp work with an entertainment agency.

I was training in a small group when the owner got a phone call.

 “What? She tap-danced over a dog and killed it? Okay, I’ll send somebody else right away.” He hung up the phone and looked at me. “Come over here,” he said.

I walked toward him.

“Do you tap dance?”

I couldn’t remember whether I had put it on my skill list when I applied for work.

He explained that a tap dancer had tripped and killed a small dog, and that he needed to replace the performer.

“I can tap dance, but not exactly like a dancer,” I said. “I practiced in my dorm room. I tapped out the routines to Bonnie Raitt singing ‘I Ain’t Blue.’”

“That’ll do, “the owner said.

 He said the gig had already started. I left, with scant time to digest his driving directions. I was wearing a red jumpsuit from the year I weighed my perfect weight.

He had said the gig was for Wounded Warriors.

In my red Volkswagen bug, I made my way “over hill and dale.” I arrived sweaty and distressingly late.

The venue was a rundown library. “Wounded Warriors” was posted on the door to one room, and I went inside.

One man waited in the room. He was the only person attending. Or who had stayed.  

Someone had written “Tap Dancing for Bulimia” on a blackboard. The tall man sat in his chair, and I began tap dancing. To make more of a performance out of it, I sang letters along to my taps: “B, U, L…”. I sweated, worried that when I got to “A,” I would not know what to do next, since I had no idea why I or anyone would be tap dancing for bulimia.

My audience of one waited for me to connect it all up, so I transitioned from dancing to conversation.   

I assumed he was a wounded warrior seeking information. I did what bad lecturers do: I fished for him to tell me about my subject.

“Are you bulimic?” I asked.

           “No.”

“Do you know what bulimia is?”

“No.”

“Okay, well, it’s throwing up after you eat. To avoid digesting calories.” Beneath the thin red fabric, my underarms were manufacturing a visible stain.

“Oh,” he said.

          Why on earth had this assignment fallen to an entertainment temp agency rather than a mental health professional?

“Obviously, I don’t have bulimia,” I said, and indicated my girth. How insensitive! To him, and to sufferers of bulimia. What did he care about my problems? Several times, I looked past him to the corner of the room where the walls joined as I hunted for a word to connect tap dancing and bulimia, with no luck.

After a minute or two, he left.

Back in my car, I realized the word I wanted was “control.”

“For control,” the man might have pondered. “Ah-ha.”   

And maybe he wouldn’t have left as wounded as when he arrived. He might have looked for a book on the subject before he left the library.

I got back to the agency before it closed. My employer, who was also my landlord, asked how it went. “No more animals were hurt?”

“No. There were no animals. You neglected to tell me why I was tap dancing for bulimia.”

He chomped on a cigar and closed his cash register.

“And for Wounded Warriors, yet,” I prompted.  

But he said nothing.

My jumpsuit was soaked with performance sweat. I sighed. “It would have been good if you had told me what outcome we were going for.”

He was writing in a ledger. Everything was about money for him.

But I was an entertainer. “And just one man in the audience. Maybe if I hadn’t been worried about arriving late—if I hadn’t had to tap dance—I might have thought of a way to link an eating disorder with PTSD,” I said.

 “Only one person?” he asked.

“Yeah.”

“Awkward.” 

That’s how much he cared. I walked out of his office and returned to the basement apartment with its cracked walls and its peeling paint.

Then I woke up.

It was 4:26 a.m. I’d been dreaming. I was in my townhouse in Virginia Beach, and it was the day of the annual Hampton Roads Writers’ Conference.

I made coffee. By the second cup, I saw how the dream covered every anxiety I had about attending the conference. I’d signed up to pitch a book to a real agent, my first pitch. I’d opened myself up with a contest entry about my Dad’s military service in WWII and its impact on the family. I had given up control of what people knew about my life. Was it too personal?

I felt unprepared. I feared the agent would stare me down during my two-minute pitch and leave before I could provide helpful information about my book. My only attempt at preparation was a diet I’d started after Labor Day. I’d gained fifteen pounds.  

The genius of the dream? It used my worst performance experience as its backdrop. Years ago, I drove a children’s theatre troupe to a school. We got there too late to perform because I’d gotten lost on a winding road in Vermont, in the days before cell phones. My cousin had recommended us to all his friends. 

As I drove to the conference, I recalled Dad telling me years ago to “tap dance”—i.e., make something up —when I didn’t know what to do next. 

The conference turned out better than the dream. “Dad’s” essay won first prize, and I “tap-danced” through the pitch for an agent who asked me to submit some pages.

On the awards video, I definitely looked fat. But happy.  

CHRISTMAS/HOLIDAY TRADITIONS: THEN AND NOW By Sheryl Jordan

Each year, as the Christmas season approaches, I find myself reflecting on the traditions of my childhood and how my family celebrates today. While some customs have changed, many cherished traditions continue to bring us together year after year.

Then

As a child, I would feel the excitement for Christmas begin the weekend after Thanksgiving, when our family would assemble and decorate the tree. For many years, we had a beautiful silver tree adorned with blue ornaments. The house—and our neighborhood—sparkled with festive lights and decorations. I loved visiting stores to admire the dazzling ornaments and twinkling lights on the most stunning trees I had ever seen.

The anticipation grew as I participated in school concerts and plays, which helped the days pass more quickly. I was always eager to see what Santa would bring for my family. Of course, my siblings and I received plenty of gifts from Mom and Dad—perhaps too many, some might say!

A few days before Christmas, the house filled with the delicious aromas of holiday cooking. Mom and Dad prepared greens, thawed the turkey, and diced vegetables for the dressing. The Christmas ham waited in the refrigerator, and sweet potato and egg custard pies baked in the oven, making my mouth water.

On Christmas morning, my siblings and I would wake up around four a.m., anxious to see if “Santa” had delivered our wishes. We waited for our parents to join us before opening any presents, savoring the moment together.

Later in the day, friends and family gathered for a festive meal. Our table overflowed with turkey, dressing, ham, macaroni and cheese, mustard greens, cornbread, chitterlings, green bean casserole, and pies. When Aunt Lottie visited, she brought her homemade apple-peach cobbler—a special treat. The day was always filled with laughter, delicious food, and memories that have lasted a lifetime.

As we grew older and started our own families, our children would open their gifts at midnight. Later, we’d visit my parents’ home to celebrate with extended family, followed by visits to cousins and in-laws.

When my husband joined the U.S. Navy, and we moved away from our families, we adapted our traditions. We decorated two weeks before Christmas, and our shopping usually happened the weekend before Christmas Day—sometimes last-minute, but we always found what we needed. On Christmas Eve, we attended church services, and the kids opened presents early Christmas morning. Our holiday meals remained much the same, though I began making Strawberry Pretzel Dessert instead of egg custard pies, and collard greens replaced mustard greens. Turkey eventually disappeared from our menu.

Now

Today, we put up our trees the day after Thanksgiving. The grandchildren take charge of decorating, while I offer guidance (or, as they say, supervise). The main floor tree is adorned with a gold-and-ivory garland and a delicate angel in an ivory dress trimmed with gold. I love gazing at the tree as its twinkling lights fill our living room. In the basement, the grandchildren have full creative freedom, decorating a tree with multicolored lights and a collection of ornaments made or gathered over the years.

We shop throughout the season, mostly online and at local small businesses. Gifts are wrapped as they’re purchased, so we’re not up all night on Christmas Eve—a welcome change from years past.

Throughout the season, I enjoy watching Christmas movies, especially “A Christmas Story” on Christmas Day, as well as all the NFL football games.

Our holiday dinner features the same beloved dishes each year, but now I have wonderful help in the kitchen. One granddaughter makes Strawberry Pretzel Dessert and Banana Pudding, with assistance from her younger sisters. My daughter prepares sweet potato casserole, collard greens, and dinner rolls. I’m in charge of macaroni and cheese and ham. We buy apple and sweet potato pies, since I’ve been told my sweet potato pies are delicious, but not quite like my dad’s!

A new tradition we’ve added is sharing a scripture related to the meaning of Christmas during dinner, with each person explaining why it’s meaningful to them.

Whether you celebrate Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, or another special holiday, I encourage you to reflect: How have your traditions changed or stayed the same over the years? The heart of the season is found in the memories we create and the love we share.

The Lonely Hearts Killer by Teresa Inge

As the saying goes, “if it’s too good to be true,” it probably is. The story of Harry F. Powers, the “Lonely Hearts Killer,” is a stark reminder of this caution.

During the 1930s—long before online dating apps—America was gripped by the chilling crimes of Powers, who used “lonely hearts” newspaper ads to lure victims, weaving false promises of wealth and affection to win their trust.

Born in the Netherlands, Powers immigrated to the U.S. and settled in Quiet Dell, West Virginia. Using charm and persuasive letters, he convinced women to travel long distances, believing they’d found love and security during the Great Depression—only for their hopes to end in tragedy.

Among his victims were Asta Eicher, a widowed mother from Illinois, and her three children. Powers corresponded with Eicher, convincing her of his affection and financial stability. Trusting his promises, Eicher traveled with her children to meet him, hoping for a new beginning. Tragically, their journey ended in a soundproof chamber beneath his garage, where he robbed and murdered them.  
Another victim, Dorothy Lemke from Massachusetts, responded to Powers’ ad seeking marriage. After exchanging letters, she traveled to West Virginia, believing she was meeting her future husband. Like Eicher, Lemke was imprisoned and killed, her fate sealed by Powers’ calculated cruelty.

The disappearances of these women and children sparked an investigation in 1932. Police traced their last known contacts to Powers, eventually discovering his property and the soundproof chamber where the crimes occurred. The case shocked the nation, exposing the dangers of personal ads and the vulnerability of those seeking love in desperate times.

Powers’ trial became a media sensation, drawing crowds and headlines suggesting he’d killed over fifty women across the country. He was convicted and executed in 1932. The tragedy of his victims led to greater scrutiny of personal ads and in popular culture of how trust can be manipulated for sinister purposes.  

THE WRITER'S TWELVE DAYS OF CHRISTMAS By: Kimberly R. Thorn

 

The Writer’s Twelve Days of Christmas

By: Kimberly R. Thorn

On the first day of Christmas my novel manuscript gave to me one sore neck.

On the second day of Christmas my novel manuscript gave to me two cramped hands.

On the third day of Christmas my novel manuscript gave to me three hours sleep.

On the fourth day of Christmas my novel manuscript gave to me four migraines.

On the fifth day of Christmas my novel manuscript gave to me five panic attacks.

On the sixth day of Christmas my novel manuscript gave to me six hours ‘researching.’

On the seventh day of Christmas my novel manuscript gave to me seven hours of dreaming.

On the eighth day of Christmas my novel manuscript gave to me eight characters not cooperating.

On the ninth day of Christmas my novel manuscript gave to me nine possible plots.

On the tenth day of Christmas my novel manuscript gave to me ten grammar errors.

On the eleventh day of Christmas my novel manuscript gave to me eleven scenes to re-write.

On the twelfth day of Christmas my novel manuscript gave to me twelve rejection letters.

We here at Sand in Our Shorts wish you and yours a very Merry Christmas, a Happy Hanukkah and a Happy Kwanzaa!

WHICH CHRISTMAS VILLAIN DO YOU LOVE TO HATE? by Yvonne Saxon

The holiday season has officially started. Are you in your ugly sweater or your snowman pj’s yet? Have you donned your “Merry Everything” tank top and beach shorts? Why not? Depending on your hemisphere, go put them on and grab a hot cuppa or icy smoothie and plop down on the couch to pick your favorite Christmas villain.

Writers of Christmas stories and films have been creating bad guys to ruin the holidays for their characters (and us) for a long, long time now. Which “naughty list” character bothers you the most?

GOLDEN ERA OF THE AMERICAN CAR by Ellen Butler

In keeping with the 1950s, for my Ariadne Winter mysteries, today I’m talking about my favorite car era. As a car enthusiast, I did my due diligence when it came to researching vehicles of the decade. While a fan of automobiles from the 20s and 30s, my favorite era has become the 50s. 

The 1950s were a golden era of American automobiles—a decade when chrome gleamed, tailfins soared, and cars weren’t just transportation but rolling expressions of art. Postwar prosperity collided with a culture hungry for style, convenience, and futuristic fantasy, and the result was one of the most iconic periods in automotive history.

Styling That Turned Heads

Design in the 1950s leaned hard into spectacle. Automakers wanted cars that inspired awe the moment they hit the street. Sweeping tailfins—made famous by Cadillac—became the decade’s signature flair. They were bold, aerodynamic-looking (whether or not they truly were), and symbolized progress, speed, and the Jet Age. Two-tone paint schemes, wraparound windshields, chrome bumpers, and interiors that mixed comfort with drama all defined the decade.

Cars like the Chevrolet Bel Air, Ford Fairlane, and Chrysler 300 didn’t just transport families—they made a statement. The look said: America is moving forward, and we’re going in style.

Why all the flash? Because the 1950s were a time of soaring national confidence. The war was over, suburbs were growing, and technology—from jet engines to home appliances—felt miraculous. Designers took cues from rockets, airplanes, and science-fiction dreams.

Automobiles became tied to identity and aspiration. Owning a stylish car wasn’t just owning a machine—it was owning a piece of the American Dream. The country believed in bigger, better, and newer. Automotive design mirrored that optimism with sweeping curves and sparkling chrome.

Price Tags and Accessibility

While some of the most visually dazzling models carried premium price tags, the 1950s also saw a push to make cars widely accessible. A new Chevrolet or Ford might run between $1,500 and $2,500 depending on the model and options—numbers that sound small today but represented an attainable goal for the growing middle class. Luxury brands like Cadillac, Packard, and Lincoln landed in the $3,000–$5,000 range, offering prestige to those who could afford it.

Automakers cleverly marketed optional add-ons—whitewall tires, power steering, radios, and automatic transmissions—turning cars into customizable personal statements. Buyers could start modestly and add flair as their wallet allowed.

The Major American Motor Companies

The “Big Three”—General Motors, Ford, and Chrysler—dominated the 1950s automotive landscape.

• General Motors was the powerhouse, with brands like Chevrolet, Pontiac, Oldsmobile, Buick, and Cadillac. GM’s design chief Harley Earl practically invented the look of the decade, championing tailfins, chrome, and concept cars.
• Ford Motor Company kept pace with vehicles like the Thunderbird and the ever-popular Ford sedan lines. Ford’s focus on affordability and reliability made it a family favorite.
• Chrysler emphasized engineering excellence, featuring powerful engines and sleek “Forward Look” styling from designer Virgil Exner.

Smaller companies—Studebaker, Packard, Nash, and Hudson—added personality and creativity but struggled to survive against the giants.

The cars of the 1950s remain timeless icons. They weren’t just machines; they were symbols of optimism, style, and ambitious imagination. Even today, a glimpse of a finned beauty cruising down the road feels like a trip back to an era when America believed the future had no limits—and designed its cars accordingly.