Writing Prompt Story Starter: Crockery


story starter

There’s a story starter behind this collection of crockery.

Remember our previous Illustrations Editor, Sarah?

I’m very happy to report that you’ll still see her byline on absolutely delightful story illustrations even though she’s left us. She’s working freelance for us from her new life in California. Win-win!

I’m still in touch with Sarah personally, too. (On WhatsApp. I’ve impressed myself with that!)

You know us here on the Fiction team: we’re all great pals. So it’s not a question of out of sight, out of mind.

We miss Sarah, and are very interested in how she gets on in her new life. Such an adventure.

I was in touch for a chat this week. She’s about to move into her new apartment and, being Sarah, has been scouring the local “goodwill” shops — what we call charity shops — to furnish it.

In a side comment, what do you think of the term “goodwill” for such shops? I think I prefer it.

“Goodwill” sounds more kindly, less patronising than “charity”. But anyway, back to Sarah . . .

Chuffed

She sent me this pic of some “nice second-hand dishes” which, she said, she was “pretty chuffed” to have found. Aren’t they fab?

They struck me as quite retro. Seventies? When everything was brown and cream?

I was engaged in the Seventies, to not-Mr-Fiction-Ed, and I remember being given a dinner service that was very like this. It ended up in a charity shop, too!

There’s also something nice about there being only two pieces of one, one of another. Are they left-overs? Or are they individual pieces, hand-thrown?

That makes me think of the potter . . . 

And then there’s that swirly pattern, which is like a story starter in itself, starting from a central point and spiralling on and on.

It’s over to you to spin your story magic!

For more story starters, click here.

Take a look at some of our writing advice on our Fiction pages.

Shirley Blair

Fiction Ed Shirley’s been with the “Friend” since 2007 and calls it her dream job because she gets to read fiction all day every day. Hobbies? Well, that would be reading! She also enjoys writing fiction when she has time, long walks, travel, and watching Scandi thrillers on TV.