Monthly Artist Prompt: April Showers

I found this one suggested on Brush Warriors, however had a bit of trouble finding an origin point for it. From my (albeit small) amount of searching, I found this post from 2014 which had it as part of an Art With Heart series. The earliest form I could find for an artist was found at deviant art on the page of kesleyleah.

I was quite excited at the idea of using this theme as a prompt for writers. Weather often features as a plot point, either descriptive or a catalyst, but what if we were to use it as the main feature of the story?

Week 1

The Squall Passed Quickly: A story of seafarers sent adrift in a storm. Was the storm natural or conjured? Who survived? Is the storm truly over?

As an extension of the theme: Is rain good or bad to your character? Do they have memories in which rain is a feature? What is the relation to rain for a forest spirit? A troll? A sorceress trying very hard to make it home? How does it impact your character’s actions or moon?

Quick Exercise: Pick three of the following and write a piece of no more than 100 words.

• The rain stick
• The water fairy
• The magical umbrella
• The weather gauge
• The rainboots
• The lost dragon
• The grateful garden
• The most morose gnome
• The leak in the roof
• Not that kind of magic

Week 2

And then there was the flood: Did they know it was coming? Can they get to high ground? Is it ending or is this a new way of life?

On Writing Visual Descriptions: Go overboard with the visual description on purpose. Use all the adjectives you can and leave no detail out. Read through it again a little later and cross out any part that doesn’t give you an impression of what the character is thinking or doing. Re-write it only with the details remaining, then compare the first with the second draft.

Week 3

The storm goddess is angry: is she withholding all the rain? Nonstop rain? Is she wrecking the countryside? Why is she angry and what will it take to appease her?

Snowball Plotline: Write a plot using one sentence each for the beginning, middle and end.

• Ex: Harriet was on a quest to recover her grandmother’s amulet. Along the way she learns a dark family secret. Will she choose power or love?

Now expand each sentence into three:

• Harriet never knew her grandmother. Her family’s power was tied to the amulet the old woman fled with. If she wanted her birthright, she would have to find her grandmother.
• Along the way she meets people who knew/know her grandmother. The woman had made many enemies and hidden a secret from the family for years. A few people follow her, hoping to settle scores.
• She led the mage straight to her grandmother’s lair. The mage places the grandmother in danger. She must choose between saving her grandmother or reclaiming the pendant.

This may be enough for some pantsers (it is for this pantser anyways) but you can choose to snowball it again and write another three sentences for each of the nine above. Continue until you reach a point where you feel confident writing the scene, knowing what’s going to happen.

Week 4

Weather Spell Gone Wrong: They did everything right. They followed all the instructions to the letter. So what went wrong? How does the spell take a very very wrong turn?

As an extension of the theme: Life giving rain on a dried out land…are the farmers happy? What about those in the lowlands? How much rain is too much? What kind of plot points or situations can you think of that would halt your character in their tracks, and what do they do about it?