'The Amazing Story Generator': Mix-And-Match Creative Writing Prompts by Jason Sacher

I'd purchased this book in London and thought I'd left it at home there when we moved to Abu Dhabi. So, imagine how glad I was to find it yesterday amongst my Abu Dhabi books. The idea behind 'The Amazing Story Generator' by Jason Sacher is that it 'triggers random, playful, and profound associations that will help launch your next great story. Simply flip the pages to combine three different story elements and create intriguing plotlines'.

So, I've given it a go this morning and randomly flipped it open and these are the elements I got:

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I didn't use the same structure of the elements that would have been a story about the oldest man in the world who on New Year's Eve plans the perfect murder. Instead, I mixed and matched the elements and changed them around. And here's what I came up with:

MARLA

On New Year’s Eve he’d have been gone for nearly two weeks now. The posters were beginning to curl at the edges, the leaking rust of the poles slowly seeping into the paper making each seem as if framed in a brackish brown border. It had only just stopped raining and Mara was taking this as a sign that something was going to be different today. She was tired of the rain, the people, the bloody posters. Hell, she was tired of everything and she thought it was about time there was some news. Any news. Even bad news. Anything, she thought, would be better than this waiting game of nothingness.

Her eyes were drawn back to the poles. With the sun well and truly up, the posters were tanning a colour that reminded Mara of old treasure maps she’d see in museums when she was a little girl. She hated museums now, or anything old for that matter, and she hadn’t and wasn’t planning to step into a museum ever again. Not if she could help it. She’d done enough of old things and it was time to sweep the past away, and start fresh. But not yet, not until this Mazen business was over, with Mazen preferably dead. Not yet, not yet, not yet she kept repeating to herself like a broken, or perhaps reassuring mantra, but soon. Yes soon, she thought. Mazen would be found and she would have what she wanted. And then she’d show them; each and every one of them. She had plans, not for a perfect murder. She was done with that kind of thing. She had 'Mara' plans on the lines of a ‘Mara makeover’ just like the ones they gave in those TV shows where they changed people into glamorous ones, like superstars, so that you hardly recognised yourself when the experts were done with you. She would get new teeth and new boobs, extensions too. She could get anything she wanted once this was all over. New clothes, new car, new house, new everything.  But bloody Mazen had to be found first and found he must she thought for how far could the oldest man in the world really go?

The End

Give it a go and let me know what you come up with. Better yet, post your story in the comments section or email it to us and we'll post. It's fun! Have a great weekend!