WRITING PROMPT: HIDDEN THEME
A PROMPT FOR SHORT FICTION OR POETRY:
Writing prompts can do more than get our juices flowing. Using the impetus of the prompt, the author wiggles through a tiny crack in reality, to a place of inspired imagination.
Not all prompts are a giant turn-on. Not all prompts interest everyone. Some seem ho-hum. but neither am I excited to use all of the exercise equipment at the gym. The more exercises I do, however, the more I work a range of muscles.
The same is true with doing writing exercises, following prompts. When we work our imagination muscle, we improve our skills — description, construction, development. And we expand our repertoire—breadth, depth, and the magical ability to connect with the reader.
The following prompt can help you develop mystery in your writing, create suspense, and keep a reader turning pages.
PROMPT
Write a story or poem that conceals your theme.
PROCESS:
Pick a Theme:
The Power of Community
Identity and Acceptance
Growth Through Loss
The Test Of Beliefs
The Beauty In The Overlooked
Coming Of Age or Gaining Self Awareness
Something else
Select a Setting:
The city after dark…
The country side with impending bad weather…
A foreign country…
Another planet…
A room with a crackling fire in the fireplace…
An overgrown garden…
Somewhere else…
Imagine at least two characters:
A main character or narrator
One or more subject characters
What will your story or poem be about? Pick a theme! It doesn’t have to be profound, it just has to be something you can string through the background of a story or within the lines of a poem.
Let’s say you’ve selected, “The power of community.”
Now, you get to select a setting and characters that do not have to be connected to your theme in any direct way. For example, the setting selected is an overgrown garden. The characters, rabbits. (Watership Down, anyone?)
Your goal is to conceals your theme. All descriptions, plot developments, and dialogue must hide it like it is the biggest and most desired secret in the universe!
Example — story: Alive
Theme: The Power of Community
Setting: Another Planet
Characters: a child, a spider and an electronic voice
ALIVE
Marissa awoke to the sound of tinkling bells. The alarm went off several more times before she slid out from under the warmth of her sheets and padded barefoot across the cool floor. Her eyes searched high above and below, at her feet, looking for movement.
“It’s time to get dressed now,” the female electronic voice was melodic and friendly.
Marissa ignored the prompt and ran in her nightgown to a dark corner in the food dispensary where she’d seen the small creature yesterday, before the lights went out casting the white room in grey shadows.
She crawled around on her hands and knees, her nose close to the floor, and then lay on her back on the cold, white surface, staring up at the rounded ceiling high above. The little black Darter was nowhere to be seen.
She’d named him Darter because he would dart away just before she could catch him. Darter was new. She had befriended him for the first time just a few days before.
She skipped now to the education center, the lights turning on automatically. The electronic voice asked, “Would you like to watch a nature video?”
“Yes, please!” Marissa climbed onto the white plastic chair and pulled a blanket over her knees. “I want to learn about spiders.”
A large area of the wall came crawling to life in a dark green forest. A deep-voiced narrator explained how the forest spiders found their supper and where they lay their eggs. The video was interrupted by the melodic female electronic voice directing, “It’s time for breakfast now.”
Marissa ignored the prompt and demanded, “Another spider video, please. Small spiders who live inside.”
The screen glitched and the announcer’s voice became high and cartoon-like. Soon, the swirling colors and scratchy sounds turned into shapes and the understandable voice of a cartoon spider telling an adventure story.
“No!” Marissa balled her hands into tiny fists. “I want to learn about real spiders.”
The screen glitched again and the forest scene reappeared. Marissa switched off the video and padded into the food dispensary, her stomach growling.
She grabbed an upside-down bowl from the floor and wiped it out with her hand. Placing it under the cerial dispenser, she pushed the button marked, “dispense” and listened to the whir and crunch of the electronics for several seconds before three small, round, beige oat-discs plopped into her plastic bowl. The floor was covered with the little beige discs, her feet crushed them as she padded across the white tile.
Next, she placed the bowl under the milk dispenser and pushed the button. The machine made a whirring sound, but nothing came out, as usual.
She put one of the discs in her mouth and bit down, making an unpleasant face. She filled the bowl with water from the water dispenser. After slurping it down, she ate the two, mushy oat discs and skipped to the corner calling, “Darter! Where are you?”
Keep Scratchin’
