Tell Me Something Good

The Big List of Story Prompts by Liz Warren

Over the years I've created dozens of lists of story prompts.  Here is a compilation of my favorites, and the ones that have proved most productive in sparking memory. Enjoy!

The Big List of Story Prompts!

• You and your friends got in trouble in school or college
• A date or an appointment or a meeting went wrong
• The moment you knew you were on the right path – what happened, how did it change you?
• A moment of inspiration or understanding that made a difference for you
• Someone who believed in you and your path – what happened
• A mentor who has guided you, opened doors for you, changed your life
• Someone you admire and how they inspired you
• A key obstacle to you becoming who you are today and how you overcame it
• Something you worked very hard on turned out great – or didn’t – and why.
• A story of a tragedy that didn’t have to happen
• You embarrassed your mother (or father, siblings, spouse, children)
• Your mother (or father, siblings, spouse, or children) embarrassed you!
• A super dramatic, life-changing experience
• That time you beat the odds!
• You were embarrassed by your mother (or father siblings, spouse, children)
• You needed to be rescued or you rescued someone
• You had to make a mid-course correction – what led up to it and what did you do?
• Your most interesting relative – what they taught you?
• You didn’t get blamed when it was your fault – or you did get blamed when it wasn’t!
• A time you faced your fears – what happened?
• You broke or damaged yourself in some way
• You learned a family secret
• You got in big, serious trouble
• You lost your temper, or you caused someone to lose his/her temper – what happened?
• You misjudged someone, or you were misjudged – what happened?
• You needed help and you got it
• You got lost
• You took on a physical challenge
• You advocated for a cause
• You took on a difficult journey
• A journey that was supposed to be easy became difficult
• You were stranded
• You travelled to someplace that was frightening, or made you uneasy
• You went on a hero’s journey of personal growth
• A normal journey turned into a hero’s journey
• You survived something difficult
• You found yourself in a dangerous situation
• You put yourself in harm’s way to help someone else
• Your life or character was enhanced by troubles you survived
• You explored the dark and dangerous corners of . . .
• You forged a path into the wilderness – actual or metaphorical!
• You took a big risk
• You followed through on a bold and crazy idea
• You took a bold step into the unknown against the advice of others
• You found yourself in dangerous weather
• You pulled yourself out of a bad spot
• An environment you thought you knew turned difficult or dangerous
• You made an adventurous beauty or fashion choice
• You made an adventurous relationship choice
• You had a culinary adventure
• You lived to tell the tale!
• Your best friend moved away
• You had your first kiss
• Your first serious relationship came to an end
• Your friend or friends, or significant other came to your rescue
• You came to the rescue of your friend or significant other
• You were caught in the middle between two friends
• A rough beginning to a good friendship
• You survived, or didn’t survive a rough patch with a loved one
• A misunderstanding led to deeper understanding and more love
• You had to let a loved one go
• You received a special gift from a friend or loved one
• A date went wrong
• You said yes to the wrong person
• Love caught you by surprise
• You experimented with on-line dating
• You introduced a new boyfriend or girlfriend to the family
• You got in big, serious trouble
• You played matchmaker, or someone made a match for you
• You had to apologize, or received an apology
• You experienced a wedding disaster
• You experienced a wedding miracle
• You understood the saying, “Friends are God’s apology for relations!”
• You attended disastrous family dinner
• You took part in a family holiday disaster
• You needed to be rescued or you rescued someone
• You experienced the benefits (or the downside) of being the oldest (or the youngest, or the middle) child
• Someone in your family made a bad situation better
• You were sick and someone in your family knew just what to do
• Your most interesting relative – and why!
• You learned the truth (or delivered the truth) about Santa Claus
• You broke something valuable in your or a relative’s house
• You broke or damaged yourself in some way
• You learned a family secret
• You lost a family member
• You got a new member in the family
• You introduced a new boyfriend or girlfriend to the family
• You took a road trip, or vacation, with the family
• An incident that brought your family closer – or pushed them apart
• The joke was on you
• You went to summer camp when you didn’t want to – or you did want to
• You took an endless family vacation, in a car, with your siblings/children
• You got in trouble in the water, or on a hike, or with a campfire
• You had an encounter with a snake, or a bear, or . . .
• Your trip to Disneyland didn’t turn out like you thought – or it did
• You had a problem with a tent, or a camper, or a sleeping bag
• You had the longest airport delay ever
• Your traveling companion surprised you by . . .
• Your hotel was supposed to have something it didn’t have
• You got stranded and you didn’t speak the language
• You were sent to your relatives for the summer
• You had to go to summer school while your friends had fun
• You saved for a big vacation, but . . .
• You thought you knew what you were ordering, but
• Your car broke down in the middle of . . .
• You thought you knew how to work the barbecue, or the fireworks, or whatever
• You attended or threw a memorable party
• You attended or organized a summer picnic
• Your GPS stopped working
• Your reservations were lost
• You got bumped from the airplane

The image at the top of the post can be found here.

 

Story Telling and Story Reading by Diana Dinshaw

I am going to start right off the bat and assert that storytelling and story reading are different. I am not saying one is better than the other especially when it comes to young children who are early readers. I am just saying they are different.

Storytelling is the art of orally telling a story handed down from the oral tradition to one or more listeners. 

One could argue and say that a folktale read aloud to a group of second graders fits the definition of storytelling. And this is where I would explain that for me the key phrase in the definition above is, “the art of”. What makes storytelling an art is the creative freedom the storyteller has to infuse their own personal element into the story without the binding limitations set by having to read a story.

Personal Element

When telling a story, the storyteller is free to create and craft the story. That is why you may hear a well-established story and it will sound different when a different storyteller tells that story. This is because the teller has incorporated their own personality into the story. 

Chesin states, “The storyteller is free to present the tale as he knows and loves it” ¹

At a recent Summer Solstice event I told the very well-known myth, “The Abduction of Persephone.” While I had told this story a couple of times before, for this event I decided to craft it a little differently and told the story through Demeter, Persephone’s mother’s point of view. Though this is quite a serious and some may say a tragic story, I did add some humor to it because that is my style. Later I was told by a guest that she really enjoyed the story and while she knew the story well and had read it to her grandchildren many times, she had never heard it being told this way.

While the story elements; place, characters, plot, were the same, as a storyteller I had the freedom to create a piece of art through which the audience got a glimpse of my personality. 

Binding Limitations

With storytelling the storyteller is not bound by the words printed on paper (or in this time of technology on a device). The storyteller can take a well-established story and make it their own. 

A couple of months ago, I heard a book on CD read aloud by Tom Hanks. He did a fantastic job of bringing the book alive by using different voices for the different characters and changing his pace and tone to express emotion. Nevertheless, he was bound by the words of the author, and he was expressing the emotions of the author.

Because the storyteller is not bound by printed words you may hear a storyteller tell a story again and it will sound different. The storyteller has the freedom to lighten the mood by adding humour if they see the listeners getting too stressed or get the listener’s waning attention by adding a sound effect to the story.

Words are not the only limitation readers encounter. They are also faced with the barrier that a book presents, coming between the reader and the listener.

As a teacher I want to reinforce the importance of reading stories aloud, especially to young students who are emerging readers. And even as an adult I like having a story read to me and often listen to a book on CD on my commute from work. While story reading is important, it is not storytelling.

Storytelling	Story Reading
Storyteller and the listener	Story reader, listener, and the book
Creative and improvised	Bound by the words of the book
Takes effort and work to create	Is easier to do

Watch this short video of Debra Weller demonstrating the difference between storytelling and story reading.

The image at the top of the post can be found here. Is she telling or reading?

Wear A Story Like an Interchangeable Necklace by Anna Blocher-Rubin

In the past, I have heard of a story as a string of pearls. While I was creating a story that was to be about 20 minutes long, I was finding that I was getting caught on the length of the string of pearls. I was questioning what parts of the story were really needed to meet the objective of my story. I realized the story I was trying to create was more of an interchangeable necklace.  Unlike the string of pearls, I realized I could make the story longer, or shorter; change out the events in the story, like a pendant and decide which parts I want to share or hold back depending on my audience. 

 

A story naturally changes as the storyteller matures and changes in life. I found that as a storyteller, I needed to expand on my idea of a string of pearls and maybe my pearls were turning into interchangeable pendants. The symbolism of an interchangeable necklace allowed me to stop worrying about the length, and including every detail detail of the story, but rather focus on the structure and which parts I wanted to highlight in my story; just as I would decide on a pendant or two, to wear with an outfit.

 

I hope this metaphor may encourage storytellers to reflect on their story repertoire and see how many pendants they can find in their stories, to be changed out, to make an old story new again. 

Transformation Comes from Within By Mindy Tarquini

Every story has a hero. We call that hero the protagonist. Every story has a nemesis. We call that nemesis the antagonist. The hero wants something. So does the nemesis. And in a twist often not clear for much of the story, the hero and the nemesis want the same thing. And in a further twist, the true nemesis is not the antagonist.

During the war of 1812, after the Battle of Lake Erie, Commodore Oliver Perry famously reported, “We have met the enemy and he is ours.” In an equally famous paraphrase, over a hundred and fifty years later, Pogo, a stumpy, somewhat pithy character created by cartoonist Walt Kelly, declares, “We have met the enemy and he is us.”

That moment becomes the reason for just about every story, the moment the hero realizes it’s not a matter of having more spells, or more bullets, more bombs, more allies, or better arguments. The moment the hero realizes the outcome is out of her hands, that the only event over which the hero has any control is her attitude, her thoughts, her response. The moment the hero accepts that truth is transformational. The hero may achieve her story’s goal, she may not. At that transformational moment, whatever the story’s outcome, whether the hero lives or dies, the hero has already succeeded.

Mindy Tarquini is the author of three critically-acclaimed novels featuring fables, foibles, fairytales, pandemics, past lives & lost loves. Find her and her social media links at www.mindytarquini.com