To follow this month’s theme of plot, I’ll be choosing photos to inspire them. What plot does this photo prompt?
The woman or girl playing the violin looks contemporary. But why is she playing beside a gap in the rocky cliff on a misty day? The moisture can’t be good for her violin. Since I haven’t done a speculative fiction prompt in awhile, I’ll take the photo prompt in the that direction.
A savage, mysterious beast lurks among the clefts of the cliff. It’s been coming into the nearest town and attacking people. Scientist can’t even catch a glimpse of it on trail cameras. The woman’s grandmother remembers a similar incident when she was a girl and that the beast disappeared when a young man ventured to the cliffs and played his guitar. The young man disappeared too. The woman and her grandmother conduct more research, and then the young woman heads to the cliffs.
Or the woman is playing in the secluded area because in her world, music had been outlawed. Music is the most powerful form of magic and the rulers keep the art to themselves. When the woman plays by the cliff, she unleashes a special kind of magic. Once she understands its potential, she has to learn how to blend her music with it in order to overturn the government.
Or the woman could be evil. She knows if she plays this cursed violin at this spot on a particular day, the violin will be enchanted with the power to control people when she plays it.
For more photo prompts for plot, click here.
Now it’s your turn. What plot does this photo prompt?
OR! If we go back to the monster idea… Maybe when she was 11-ish years old, she and her little brother fixed up an old abandoned row boat that they found and took it in the bay but got into trouble in the channel and capsized. She struggles to get herself and her brother back to shore but the waves keep pushing them both under. Nearly to shore, she loses her grip on her brother and panics, unable to spot him in the dark water. She reaches shore and runs up and down the beach, trying to spot his head bobbing or a waving arm. She DOES spot a long object down the beach, crawling from the water and sprints over, but stops short upon meeting the big eyes of a scaly beast crouched over her brother, who lays on his back in the sand as if asleep. The creature dashes back into the waves, her brother coughs and cries, and she springs to her brother’s side. Ten years later, she’s the only person who’s not afraid of the village’s fabled ocean creature. Per an old local nursery about staying inside on foggy mornings or else meet the sea devil, she strikes out on every foggy morning to play her violin on the shore. And a figure can be seen sitting in the surf amidst the heavy fog, listening to the music.
WOW!!! I love this, especially the last lines. You could start the story with someone lost in the fog, afraid of the legend, and then he comes across the girl playing to whatever’s out in the fog. She tells him her backstory and the lost person begins to question everything he’s been told about the sea devil.