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What effect would a power outage have on your story?

Perhaps you write in a future setting where they do not have such issues any more – so, what would happen if there were a power outage and what might cause it?

What would the effect be if there was a power outage on a space ship or space station? Would the artificial gravity, if they have it, fail?

What might be the equivalent in a medieval society?

Set your timer for 15 minutes and begin writing a scene where two characters use swords. This could be a sword fight, someone swinging a sword they found in an antique shop or old attic, even two men with wooden swords practicing a fighting technique.

The goal is to spend fifteen minutes on how to write about the movements that go into the use of a sword, or sword-like object. Perhaps someone holding off ruffians with a cane or an umbrella?

Write a brief story, roughly 500 words, from the perspective of a dog.

Perhaps it might worry about its favorite toy or a bone? What might it hear as it listens to the neighborhood dogs bark? Why exactly does it chase cats, or cars, or the mailman?

Do dogs perceive humans as nothing more than their servants?

What about a story from the perspective of a puppy out on its first adventure? Or a old dog that just got in trouble because the farmer thinks it killed some laying hens when the dog knows it was a badger that did it?

Take these three things and work them into a story:

1. And old woman

2. Goldfish

3. A hammer

There is no subject, no right or wrong, just fifteen minutes and a blank page to fill. Get started and see what you can come up with when in a crunch and in need of something to fill a page.

Set timer for 15 minutes and… GO!