Sunday, April 3, 2011

Imagination Prompt: High School Memory

I found this thing with StumbleUpon. It's a writing prompt generator. You click and it brings up something to write about. Well, I suppose you could just ponder the question or use it as a discussion topic. I use it as a writing prompt. I might do these at least once a week!

Today's Prompt: What was a good High School memory?

My third year of high school (we didn't have grades but yes, at an ordinary high school it would have been my junior year) I took a literature class. It must have been American literature. I took world literature my first year of high school.

Halloween rolled around, as it always does. The teacher, Jean who also taught my advisory, writing, senior seminar prep and Spanish class decided that we would have a contest to write the scariest Halloween story.

I wrote about a group of children going to play hide and seek in an abandoned factory. One of the girls had brought along her baby sister. For some reason, the Devil was meandering about and decided to have some fun. So he gives the baby sister an apple to eat, and says since she has eaten of the underworld, she has to stay in the underworld. Yes, I took some inspiration from the tale of Persephone.

Anyway, I wrote this story about these kids hiding and Satan finding and killing all of them but one. It didn't matter though, because the police came and the winner of the game was arrested for murder. The little girl just kept eating her apple.

I won but a handful of votes. My prize? Lunch at BK paid for by Jean. She let me have anything I wanted, including a slice of pie. I remember keeping the cup from my meal that day and looking at it thinking; It's like I got paid for writing. It's like I'm a REAL writer!

For one whole afternoon, I felt glamorous and talented.

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