Today’s writing prompt will allow you to work on your skills centered around writing suspenseful scenes. Keep reading to see the full writing prompt and my completed version of it.
Today’s Writing Prompt: Something Strange
Write a scene in which something strange happens, something that can’t easily be explained. Today, focus on your skills centered around writing suspenseful scenes. Try writing from a first-person point of view. And write shorter sentences to quicken the pace of what you write in order to make it more suspenseful.
Completed Version of Today’s Writing Prompt
Something Strange, by K.E. Creighton
As I remove the last glass orb ornament from the tree, I notice something shiny near my feet. I step back to get a better look at it. It’s a small silver square– a small package wrapped in shiny snowflake paper and a thin red ribbon.
How did that get left behind? It wasn’t hidden. But it certainly wasn’t there over the past three or four days, since Christmas. Was it?
When I pick up the package to examine it, I hear it tick. Faintly. But still, I hear the seconds click. That can’t be good. Can it?
I call out for my mother and sister who are in the kitchen, one room over. They have no idea what I’m talking about. And when they eventually enter the room and see me holding the package, my sister gets excited and my mother asks me who it’s for and from. That’s when I notice it has a small sticker on its side with my name on it. So, I start to open it. My sister pouts like she’s six all over again. My mother looks curious.
When I open the box underneath the wrapping, I see the round face of a watch nestled in black velvet. Its glass cover is cloudy. And its band is soft worn leather with tiny cracks. I lift it up near the light and see an engraving on its case back that doesn’t look as nearly worn as the band but is instead crisply etched. I murmur the engraving aloud, “Time is an illusion.”
My mother chuckles and says, “That’s something your grandfather used to always say. Drove your grandmother nuts. Especially when he’d say it after being late for dinner or church. Let me see that.” She held the watch in her hand and said, “Well, I’ll be. That is daddy’s watch. I haven’t seen it in years. I thought it got lost in one of the donation bins when we had to clean out his stuff ten or twelve years ago when he passed. You probably don’t remember. I think you were only ten or so. How did it get here?” All I can do is say, “I don’t know,” as we continue to stare at the watch.