Writing Prompt #149: Fine

I have been spending all day saying, "I'm fine."

My mom: Are you okay?
Me: I'm fine.
My mom: Are you okay?
Me: I'm fine.
My mom: Are you okay?
Me: I'm fine.

Your prompt: A character says they're fine and they are completely, terrifyingly wrong.

Writing Prompt #148: Small Victories

Write a scene where a character pushes past fear to do the right thing in something small.

Writing Prompt #147: Requests

Isn't it interesting that some people can ask us for help, and we feel manipulated and put upon, but someone else can ask us for help, and our hearts leap forward in delight at being needed?

Why do some people make us so happy when they ask us for things? And why are other people different?

Write a scene (or scenes) where someone is asked for help by two different people, one experience negative and one positive, and show us the difference.

Writing Prompt #146: Spilled

A character has to inform another character about something traumatic or odd or uncomfortable from their own life. How do they get it into conversation, and how do they keep the other person from worrying or thinking they're a freak?

Writing Prompt #145: Bad Parable

Someone is trying to use a story to teach something, but it goes wrong.

Ways stories typically go wrong:

- Unintended moral.
- Moral that sounds really terrible said out loud.
- Incredibly morbid subject matter (like the removal of organs)
- Making the consequences of the story so insane that you will terrify the child forever (like the removal of organs)
- Trying to fix the terrible ending but negating your moral. ("And that's why it's okay to remove organs!")

Things that make these stories a lot more entertaining:

- Poetic details that make it very clear exactly who your dad is talking about.
- Heavy use of fantasy and lots of "Once upon a Time."
- Organs. Actually, pretty much all of the horrible stuff from before. It only makes the story better.

Writing Prompt #144: Conflicting Advice

Have you ever had a conversation with a respected adult or authority figure where they start giving one kind of advice and then they transition to another track and by the end you have multiple commands that contradict each other and a fairy tale that went nowhere and you're right where you were when you started?

Someone is giving advice but they're contradicting their own advice.

Writing Prompt #143: Saying No

Your character says no to something he/she really wanted to say yes to. Why?