Written by May 8th, 2014

Writing Prompt: One Last Wish

Imagine a character sitting in a room. There are a lot of cords and tubes. It looks like they are in a hospital. The person next to them is on a bed. It could be the main character’s mother, father, spouse, or someone else entirely.

Before this person dies, they tell the main character, the person who is most likely narrating this story, their dying wish. Then they pass on.

It is your task to write the story, not of the room or the dieing, but of the wish and what it is and where it leads the main character.

You can tell this story from any perspective, but I have found that this prompt generally works best when it is told from the point of view of the main character. First person narration really works.

You can start the story at any point. You can start it right after the main character is told the wish, you can start it right before they have been informed of the wish, or it could be set in the future where they already know about the wish and have had time to try and do something about it.

No matter where you go with this prompt, have fun with it.

Happy Writing.

 

We Send You Publishers Seeking Submissions.

Sign up for our free e-magazine and we will send you reviews of publishers seeking short stories, poetry, essays, and books.

Subscribe now and we'll send you a free copy of our book Submit, Publish, Repeat

Primera:  Seeking Manuscript Submissions

Primera: Seeking Manuscript Submissions

Primera is a digital-first imprint of Oliver Heber Books. Oliver Herber Books was founded by the author Tanya Anne Crosby, and you can learn more about the publisher as a whole here. They are based in Michigan. In 2023 they started Primera, which is open to agented and direct submissions from authors. It was hard…

Search Press

Search Press

Search Press’s tagline is “the world’s finest art and craft books”. They specialize in “practical, reference and inspirational art and craft books for beginners through to professional artists and crafters”. Everything they publish is highly illustrated, They only focus on publishing nonfiction work that fits into these categories. You can get a feel for what…

Brick Cave Media

Brick Cave Media

They are a small Science Fiction and Fantasy focused press based out of Arizona. It was founded by Bob Nelson and J.A. Giunta. You can read their origin story here, but it essentially started out as a self-publishing operation, initially not even focused on books. In 2010 they published their first book. They have published…

53 Magazines Seeking Genre Fiction

53 Magazines Seeking Genre Fiction

Most literary journals are interested in literary work, by which they mean, not genre work (although this is changing a little). The definition of genre is a category of artistic composition, as in music or literature, characterized by similarities in form, style, or subject matter. However, in the context of writing, genre can refer to…