Turn up the heat
Your fun flash prompt for the week
We are now into our second heatwave in the UK.
The rules begin to change when the thermometer creeps up over 30. We are not climatized to it. There is no relief at night as we don’t have the delights of Air-conditioning or easy access to clean waters.
The humidity of it makes you want to peel off your skin. It drives dogs mad, and people… well, it can take them into places we would never expect them to go.
Your sweaty prompt
So this week’s prompt is to set your story in a heatwave with a character that is pushed over the edge.
The environment is your character’s nemesis. Really sit down with the feel of the heat. The claustrophobia. How does it taste? Salty? Dry? What has happened to the land? The people around.
Circumstance: What irritating or delicate situation is the character in that requires patience and tact? Show them struggling to hold back. Show them trying to be their best selves, but faulting.
What is the final thing that pushes them over the edge?
Have fun with it! Torment your poor darlings! Turn up that heat. Break that freezer. Put on a Malfunctioning boiler. Roast them alive! Mwahahahaha!
Flash Fiesta: 7 days of flash fiction
Saturday 26 July - Friday 1 August
7.30pm – 8.30pm (UK)
Want to have more fun in your writing life?
Sick of the ‘suffering writer’ trope?
Want to feel genuinely excited to show up at the blank page every day?
Then this summer’s writing adventure is for you!
Join author and Director of the Oxford Flash Fiction Prize, Freya Morris for 7 days of flash fiction fun inspired by The Writer’s Playbook. This course is all about putting the joy back into writing—no stress, no judgment, just playful, imaginative exercises that spark creativity, laughter and first drafts.