We’ll have some fun with homophones for this week’s creative writing prompt/exercise:

Break and Brake

Two same-sounding words with very different meanings. And to add to the confusion, they can both be verbs (‘doing’ words) or nouns (objects).

‘The driver was enjoying a break from work and was travelling at breakneck speed. But distracted by a break in the clouds, he didn’t brake in time, and the car hit a wall. Broken glass was everywhere but he didn’t break any bones. It was only later he discovered his brakes were faulty.’

There. I’ve started a story idea for you – someone (who?) taking a break (how?), driving badly (why?), hitting a wall (where?), discovering possible foul play (when?).

You should be thinking through all the possibilities here to create a new short story. Give it 2,000 words (just because that’s the usual limit for competition entries, although there are always exceptions).

By the end of your story you will have explained who your main character is, what they are doing and why, using that ‘who, what, where, when, why, how?’ formula. The point of it all is for you to entertain and/or educate your readers, make them think, laugh, cringe, or whatever, just provoke a reaction!

Good luck!

Call back next Wednesday at 5pm (Irish time) for another prompt, just for fun and intended to trigger some new creative writing.