Another Prompt Romp From My Writers' Group!

I love the ladies in my writers groups! Each is talented and generous with her time and approach the craft of writing with her own special lens. 

Warming up our sessions with a five minute prompt is great fun. Our flash fiction pieces make us laugh and roll our eyes. The results are filled with adventure, heartache and sometimes murder, but I'm amazed how the "certain something" each author has somehow comes shining through in our tiny missives. I've shared with you before about how one of the writers' groups  It's a firm five minutes. When the timer goes off, the pens go down. No exceptions! (Well, maybe we'll let a word or two be added to finish a sentence, but that's all!)

The prompts come from either a list of about 100 different starting points or one member creates one and shares it with the group. 

As in the past posts,  I've provided an imperfect summary of what each member writes and placed the prompt in bold with the response following immediately afterward. The responses are not edited for content or grammar, but paragraph breaks and some punctuation is added.

Donna (middle grade children's book author):

At the end of the town lay an old over grown garden…

...It was a place to find peace and quiet, after the maddening crowds at my place of employment—Dillerman’s Grocery Store. It was the end of my eight hour shift and still daylight. The sun shone bright and strong as I ran from my post to the great out-of-doors. I love the Fall crisp air, the clean fresh—take-a-deep-breath air. My legs knew where to carry me—down the car filled parking lot and past the tipped over carts.  I ran onto the field into the sweet smelling grass. There it was, I could see it rising up from the weeds with piles of hay tumbled free. I jumped in glee, and embraced it, my own sanctuary.

Bette (historical fiction author):

At the end of the town lay an old over grown garden…

… People went there often, but always alone, and this day, close to Halloween, or Spooks Night, as Bella was wont to call it, the girls vowed to go in together.

            “Oh, let’s go in from different directions!”

            “No! Are you crazy? There really are ghosts you know, you know! Remember what happened at Nonnie’s house?”

They had all scattered, tipping over chairs and each other and running down the stairs and out the back door because the light had gone on all by itself. Maia was so frightened that Bella’s dad had to go to the back of the deep yard to comfort her, and she was wiping her eyes when they got back to the house.

Maya refused to go in to that room again until Bella moved one of Nonnie’s Jesus pictures in there and hung a cross necklace from the lamp.

A new quiet came over the four girls. 

Maggie (children's book author):

At the end of the town lay an old over grown garden…

...filled with thorns and pricker bushes.  Once a lush and productive space, it resembled it's owner.  Marguerite had the shape and blossoms, once upon a time.  Now, even her demeanor seemed wasted away.

"What has happened to me?" she asked the unfamiliar reflection in the scum covered pond.

A light breeze ruffled her frayed skirt.  It was a warm kiss of wind, unusual for this time of year.  She came out of her revelry to see...

Cyd (young adult historical fiction):

At the end of the town lay an old over grown garden…

As kids, we were convinced it was haunted and worked hard to come up with stories to spook each other – witchy apparitions, chilling moans and screams. We longed to investigate, but feared that the owner or other frightening specter would surface and scare us out.

But one day, I drove by a corner of the garden to see a young man with a backpack push aside some thick bushes and squeeze between them and a stone pillar and disappear.

I thought I ought to call the police in case he was a drug dealer, the scourge of our small community.

Instead, I parked my car and followed, pushing aside the thick bushes…

Me (crime/suspense author):

At the end of the town lay an old over grown garden…

...The carpet of green stretched out from one end of the wrought iron fence to the other. The view of the valley below was spectacular.

"Yep. Your pa loved it here," said Jammie.

"Yep. Shor did," said Jake.

"Shame he ran off like that."

"Yep. Shor was."

"No word ever?"

"Nope. Never."

"Shame."

"Yep."

"No body ever found?"

"Nope."

A car rumbled up. Jake looked up in surprise. "Surveyors? Contractors?" he asked.

"Nope."

"Then who?"

"Vegetation expert from the Co-op."

The stooped man walked around the enclosure with a Y-shaped stick.

"Here." the man said.

Jammie dug in a rough circle. In minutes he found a skull and bones. The gap in the teeth were identical to Jake's dad's.

"How'd you know?" asked Jake.

"The grass. Never grows the same way once the earth is turned."