←
→

Writing Prompts – Creative Copy Challenge #191

Posted: November 7, 2011 | Author: | Filed under: Copy Challenges |80 Comments

James Chartrand chose today’s words. I think this will be a good one.

BET YOU CAN’T do this writing prompt. Take the 10 random words below and, in the comments, crush writer’s block by creating a cohesive, creative short story tying all of them together! And remember: after (if) you finish, highlight your words and click the bold button to make them stand out and help you determine if you forgot any words. (If you’ve missed previous writing prompts, we BET YOU CAN’T do those, either.)

  1. Chocolate
  2. Frost
  3. Icicles
  4. Sparkles
  5. Bitter
  6. Cutting 
  7. Pike – weapon, fish, parkway
  8. Toque – a brimless and close-fitting hat for women; chef’s hat.
  9. Crampons – a spiked iron plate worn on boots or shoes for aid in climbing or to prevent slipping on ice; a device for grasping and lifting heavy loads, usually consisting of a pair of hooks suspended from a chain or cable
  10. Seductive

NOTE: Don’t copy and paste from MS Word. Use a program like notepad that removes formatting or just type in the comment field itself. Also, finish your submission, THEN bold the words. Thanks. (And don’t forget to tweet this and share it with your friends.)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Resources you should check out:
Thesis: Best Damn Theme on the Web
Collective Ink Well: Personalize Your Thesis Theme
Third Tribe Marketing: Marketing done the right way
Story Structure Demystified: Best damn writing book out there

80 Comments on “Writing Prompts – Creative Copy Challenge #191”

  1. Justin Germino says:
    November 7, 2011 at 7:28 am

    Testing to see if I can get the formatting right for this one.
     

    Icicle Falls
     
    bitter crampons aiming for toque
    seductive icicles gleaming
    the frost then destabilizing
    sparkles falling; cutting
    chocolate coat struck
    now powdered white
    dodging the
    pike

    Reply
  2. Anne Wayman says:
    November 7, 2011 at 7:38 am

    She loved bitter dark chocolate and frosted all her cupcakes with it, adding sparkles that scattered during munching. They and she were positively seductive. People lined the pike to watch her cutting them in tiny pieces, and watched in wonder, when in winter she occasionally scaled icicles with nary even crampons, wearing, of course, her multi-colored toque. It was said she did it to draw a crowd to sell her cupcakes, but I knew better.

    Reply
  3. Dee says:
    November 7, 2011 at 7:39 am

    oooh will try later – busted 10000 last night on nanowrimo 🙂

    Reply
  4. Shane Arthur says:
    November 7, 2011 at 7:40 am

    programming note: slammed today! See you all later tonight. Write on.

    Reply
  5. Rebecca says:
    November 7, 2011 at 8:19 am

    The dark chocolate fudge was a seductive treat. The bitter the better was Alexis’s motto. Sparkles Fudge was the best! Alexis was looking forward to visiting her best friend in Seattle. Molly took a job with a start-up company and couldn’t wait to leave the Midwestern suburbs. Alexis admired her but was envious at the same time. Why I can’t be bold and brave like that? Alexis couldn’t wait to see Molly and the famous Pike Place Market. Alexis couldn’t stand fish, but she loved markets.

    Alexis noticed the ‘fake’ frost on Sparkles Fudge’s store front window. That’s a nice touch. The holiday season was around the corner. Luckily, the sun came out and melted the icicles that formed on gutters lining the store fronts. Mr. and Mrs. Dubois owned Sparkles Fudge. He was a trained French pastry chef and his wife was trained in deserts, chocolate being the number one choice, of course. Mr. Dubois usually wore a toque, while Mrs. Dubois did not. They were a jolly couple, full of love and joy. And you felt it when you were in their presence.

    A man dressed all in black caught Alexis’s eye. He had crampons on his boots which Alexis thought was odd. He turned to look at her; he probably felt her eyes burning a hole in the back of his head. He nodded. Shivers ran through Alexis’s entire body like they were cutting her in half.

    Reply
  6. Frank Ruiz says:
    November 7, 2011 at 8:58 am

    Her hot chocolate was worth getting through the bitter, cutting cold for.  When she added her frosted sugar cookies, I barely minded the howling wind on the turnpike I had to take to get to her coffee shop.

    Her place was a haven for the body and soul; and the icicles lining her roof made her store look just like a gingerbread house.  Inside, she was an angel is a toque serving seductive, molten cocoa.

    As I make my way to the counter, she sees the tears welled up in my eyes; twinkling sparkles betraying my bursting joy at reuniting with her.  I lied and told her my tears were from the wind whipping against my eyes, but the truth is I’d wear crampons and climb mountains to be with her again.

    Reply
  7. Rebecca says:
    November 7, 2011 at 9:30 am

    @ Frank … Thank you! I channeled my appreciation for dark chocolate for today’s story. Lol!

    BTW: Nicely done … I loved the imagery.

    Reply
  8. margaret says:
    November 7, 2011 at 9:53 am

    Girls are the most seductive when mentally productive…
    and their demeanors sweet, not bitter, and don’t offend with verbal litter.
    They want a ring that sparkles and glitters, but won’t give a guy the jitters…
    Don’t want him cutting corners, like cheap, financial mourners.

    Like chocolate frosting on a cake, a girl should better her guy make….
    Like miraculous tampons curing crampons, those girls should really get their vamp-ons!
    Be not like icicles that melt, or pike begun to smellt,
    Be comforting and baroque, like a fragrant, friendly toke! (oh, wait…that was toque)!

    Note:  this whole thing made absolutely no sense, but that’s the mood I’m in! ;).

    Reply
  9. Jeanette R. says:
    November 7, 2011 at 10:38 am

    She stared at the side of the building.  Multiple posters from movie premiers to lipstick ads plastered the bricks forming a collage of years past. Her tripod swayed a bit against the wind.

    “This used to be a chocolate factory? I pass by here everyday and never noticed.”

    Her companion stared at the baron landscape. Maria noticed the faded image of a toque, most likely leftover from the iconic company logo. The advertisements were deemed too risqué for television due to their seductive images of chocolate usage.   By today’s standards, those same ads could run during Sesame Street.

    “Pablo, what do you think about using a frost filter to make it appear dreamy, like it was once a beautiful place to be.”

    Shrugging his shoulders, he zipped up his jacket. The wind was cutting through the parking lot bringing in a bitter cold morning.

    “You’re the photographer, right?  If we wait here long enough we’ll have icicles on our noses and then you can get some sparkles of light from that too.”

    Maria rolled her eyes.  Pablo’s specialty was reviving old buildings with graffiti, so she thought he would be the perfect partner for the project. He had once created a larger than life school of pike fish on the side of an aquarium that got her attention.  His modern 3D styles against the dilapidated structures became her photography obsession.

    “Maybe you can attach some crampons to your boots and scale the building like Batman.”  

    Pablo grabbed a couple of bottles of spray paint and shook them feverishly.   “I’m not your monkey, Maria.”

    Reply
    • Mitchell Allen says:
      November 7, 2011 at 11:28 am

      Another week, another peek. These vignettes are sooo much fun, Jeanette.
      I like the homage to the muralists. See? we give em a title, and suddenly, they’re respectable artistes. LOL
       
      Have you seen some of the city-wide projects on the web? (My home town, Philly, has a nice one.)
       
      Cheers,
       
      Mitch
       

      Reply
    • Shane Arthur says:
      November 8, 2011 at 10:36 am

      @Jeanette: AWESOME EXAMPLE OF SHOWING AND NOT TELLING! Her tripod swayed a bit against the wind.(So glad you didn’t come out and say, “She’s a photographer!”

      Reply
      • Frank Ruiz says:
        November 8, 2011 at 11:43 am

        Jeanette, you’re a master at grabbing the reader!  I love Pablo’s attitude, and your scene was so visual I felt like I was right there watching them bickering!

        Reply
  10. Mitchell Allen says:
    November 7, 2011 at 11:12 am

    The frost from my girlfriend’s eyes was enough to put icicles in my stomach. She didn’t believe, not for one minute, that the panties were a free sample from the Pike & Toque catalogue. Not even after I showed her the equally useless pair of climbing crampons. Thank the gods I had scanned in my customer satisfaction survey and emailed it. Now, as I warily handed her the original, I gave her my most pathetic big-eyed stare possible.

    She snatched the page from me, examining both sides, before focusing on the chicken scratch of my survey answers. She squinted for several seconds before bursting out laughing. Holding the dainty underthings with two fingers, she began doing a grotesquely seductive dance. Then she began to taunt me:

    “So, you want your ‘girl‘ to sashay around a chalet in a hot pink thong, lip-synching to Beyonce while serving you hot chocolate? This fantasy is so boring, I’m falling asleep, already!”

    “C’mon, Aimee,” I pleaded. “I had to use chalet and chocolate in the same sentence for the contest. If you don’t want the panties, just throw them away.”

    “Look at me!” Aimee’s bitter screech curdled my blood.  “Do I look like a size two? You might fit these; I sure can’t! Ha! Maybe that’s it. You want these for yourself, don’t you? You little punk, I ought to …”

    I snapped. So did my girlfriend’s nose, after I swung the crampons at her hateful face. I don’t remember cutting her, just the lovely red sparkles on the crampons’ blades.

    Reply
  11. Rebecca says:
    November 7, 2011 at 11:51 am

    @ Mitch … Lol! I may continue on with this short story. Raw sexuality or primal fear? Maybe the man is both. This could be a fun story.
     
    BTW: Your story was fantastic! I was blushing at the beginning and was thrown for a loop by the ending. I can’t believe he did that — it took me by surprise.

    Reply
  12. Rebecca says:
    November 7, 2011 at 1:07 pm

    @ Justin … Me too … I’d like to try fudge from European countries such as Belgium or France.

    Reply
  13. Rebecca says:
    November 7, 2011 at 1:10 pm

    @ Justin … I forgot about Italy and Sicily. Thanks for the tip.

    Reply
  14. Rebecca says:
    November 8, 2011 at 4:29 am

    @ Jeanette … Thanks … I’ll have to think about the mystery man. I’m not sure if he’s human or possibly a hybrid. Lol!

    Reply
  15. Shane Arthur says:
    November 8, 2011 at 10:19 am

    I blame James for this submission. All outrage should be directed her way. 😉
     
    “Hey Billy! I’m bitter! My gal is always tellin’ me she either got da seductive crampons, or she got da pike-like tampons, so I might as well frost my sparkler, cut off my icicles, and put them on a plate and eat ‘um. I ain’t got my thinkin toque on, but I believes she don’t want none of my lovin’ no more.”

    “Bobby, I’ll tells you what works for me quite nicely-like. Next time she mouths off like dat, unzip your snickers bar, shove it in, and yell ‘A chocolate in da mouth is worth two on da plate!’”

    Reply
  16. Rebecca says:
    November 8, 2011 at 11:16 am

    @ Shane … Thanks … I couldn’t resist the ‘shivers.’ 🙂

    Reply
  17. Punkster says:
    November 9, 2011 at 5:44 pm

    [MISTAKES CORRECTED]

    She loved chocolate ice cream. After every meal a walk to the ice cream man was a must for her. So even that day, she finished up her dinner, put her jacket on and headed out to get some ice cream. She had a fetish for frosted delicacies, and when she couldn’t get an ice cream. She used to console herself by a cold coffee with some extra icicles added to it.
    She spotted the ice cream man on the empty road which was unusually dark today. She looked at his dark figure from a distance and it seemed like he was cutting something on his ice cream stand. Perhaps she was just imagining it happening as it was quite dark. She approached closer to the ice cream man and noticed that he was very weirdly dressed. He sported a toque and a long black jacket. He was also wearing bulky crampons.
    “One chocolate ice cream please” she managed to blurt out. The ice ceram man slowly opened up the slab of his ice cream freezer. She looked down into it with a horrified expression. The deep freezer was full of pikes and human hands and feet. The naked and bitter truth was right in front of her.
    The ice cream man looked at her with his eyes sparkling in the darkness. He gave her a seductive stare, as he wanted her in a very dangerous way…

    Reply
  18. Holly Jahangiri says:
    November 11, 2011 at 6:14 am

    Today’s flash fiction was inspired by Writing Prompts – Creative Copy Challenge #191 and pays homage to the creative potential to be found in a “splog” – namely, the one located at http[colon]//jemjrcd.virtue.nu/fishmongers-are- spalpeens.html
     
     

    “Fishmongers are spalpeens!” spat my mother, looking spiffy in her red velvet toque, purple velour jog togs, and crampons as we painstakingly made our way across the ice. “Spalpeens, all of them.”
     

    The man at the dock shook his head and gave me a knowing look as he went on cutting fish to sell at the market. “I’ve been called a filthy piker, but that’s a first.”
     
    “My mother likes her fish scales full of sparkles,” I yelled back, over my shoulder, as if that explained everything. The bitter truth: “Spalpeens” was perhaps the nicest thing my mother ever called the fishmongers. “Murderers, brutes, thugs” was more in line with the dark brew of thoughts swirling the drain in her pickled brain. I thought we were on thin ice – both literally and metaphorically. My mother liked her fish fresh from the middle of the lake – specifically, still living – and nothing would do, this morning, but to make our way to the tiny hut where the ice fishers huddled, reeling in their catch. She wouldn’t take it once the life had faded from its eyes.
     
    My brother John, who went by the nickname “Thunderstruck,” was fourteen when he started fishing with the men, against my mother’s vehement and vocal wishes, out in the middle of Lake Knotweed. An early thaw tragically shortened his career and his life. Now, my mother was convinced the boy had been taken by the fairies and turned into pike. She liked to read Grimm’s Fairy Tales when she was in her cups, and the notion that she might one day catch my poor brother and convince the enchanted fish to change him back was a seductive one. Each year, on the morning of my brother’s birthday, my mother would drink herself into a stupor, steel her nerves, and make her way across the thick, ropy, deeply crackled ice of Knotweed to the tiny fishing shed where the men who knew my brother said waiting in a state of mingled fascination and dread.
     
    “You catch him yet, Big Red?” asked my mother, stomping and scraping her way to the hut. The overhang above the little door was festooned with icicles – heavy, vicious daggers of ice that looked as if they might break loose and stab a hapless passerby in the head. Of course, we were the only hapless passersby this place was likely to see…
     
    Big Red held the door open. The hut was always warm and smelled of sweat, fish, and smoke. Red walked over to the depthless hole, looking frankly sorry. The other men looked a bit clonk minded as my mother peered down at the large fish Red offered my mother. She squinted down at the hapless fish. The fish stared unflinchingly at her. My mother shook her head, sadly. “Still not ready to admit I was right and change yerself back, I see.” She reached into her coat pocket and pulled out a handful of frost and chocolate cake. She force-fed it to the barely struggling fish. “Happy birthday, son,” she said, punctuating the tragicomic moment with an expansive hiccup.
     

    Please subscribe to my newsletter mailing list at http://eepurl.com/gUl45 and help me win Weblogbetter’s Surviving the Blog Contest!

    Reply
  19. Fishmongers are Spalpeens! - It's All a Matter of Perspective | It's All a Matter of Perspective says:
    November 11, 2011 at 6:35 am

    […] 11 Nov Fishmongers are Spalpeens! Holly Jahangiri Today’s flash fiction was inspired by Writing Prompts – Creative Copy Challenge #191 and pays homage to the creative potential to be found in a “splog” – namely, the one located […]

    Reply
  20. Kelly says:
    November 28, 2011 at 5:31 am

    TUMMYACHE

    Bitter chocolate drapes seductively over raspberry torte
    Drips of caramelized sugar like icicles at its edge
    Chef in high white toque comes out just for us, to do the cutting
    Frosted glasses serve champagne that sparkles in the candlelight
    And I feel nausea coming down the pike
    Why must I get a cramp on such a day?

    Reply
    • Shane Arthur says:
      November 29, 2011 at 1:23 pm

      @Kelly: Holy bleep! I was right next to this action, rooting for the escalation, then BAM, you hit me with a speed bump. Haha. Loved it.

      Reply
  21. sh13151223 says:
    December 11, 2011 at 9:41 pm

    Frosted thoughts piked by the crampons of nostalgia tasted bitter.The cutting was hard, all the chocolate layered over seemed superficial. Images fell down like icicles and wounded. The toque of the ultimate cook sparkled seductively as the calculated ingredients finally showed out to mark the destiny.

    Reply
  22. Pam says:
    January 16, 2012 at 5:21 am

    The restaurant was the perfect place to get out of the bitter cold. Miss Emmeline Maldonado – the product of a rich Spanish landowner and the daughter of an English lord – pushed open the door, carefully avoided the icicles attached to the frame, stepped inside, took off her red woollen toque and ran a hand through her sleek black hair.

    The room was old fashioned, with a medieval feel. One wall displayed a row of heraldic shields while a pike and a halberd were on show on the opposite wall. A log fire roared in the grate at the far end of the room and Emmeline unwound her scarf from her neck and took off her coat.

    As she did, the maitre d’ came forward to show her to a table, recognising good breeding when he saw it, and brought her a menu. She waved it away, ordering a hot chocolate with cream on top and a slice of hot apple pie.

    While she waited for her order to come, she looked around at the other patrons in the restaurant. It was in a village which at most times of the year was quiet and peaceful, but in the winter it became more busy with skiiers, mountain climbers and other winter sports aficionados.

    A man at the next table saw her looking around and smiled seductively at her. She smiled back coolly, taking in the sight of frost on his bag, which he had shoved under the table, and the crampons dangling from one of the bag’s pockets.

    The man looked as if he was about to say something but the arrival of the waiter cut him short.

    Emmeline turned her attention to cutting her pie. It was decorated with sugary sparkles which seemed appropriate for the wintery setting of the restaurant.

    Reply

Leave a comment

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

←
→