Another week for you to run amok!

I’m off on holiday again (it’s turning out to be an exceptionally well-stuffed year for holidays) so will schedule prompt words for 5th of May and ask each of you to nominate your winner for this week.

A very warm welcome to newcomers; Rie and Ghostrunner who both made strong starts. I’m not alone in hoping you will stay around and use this weekly exercise to entertain us. Please do make the effort to comment on others’ posts – we all like to know we’re being read.

This week’s winner has been picked from a strong field because I fell in love with the phrase ‘Pay it or chew cabbage’ – well done AR Martin for ‘the Price is The Price’. (Several others jostled for a place).

Words for next week: bruise inquisition souvenir

Entries by midnight Thursday 4th May, new words posted on Friday 5th

Usual rules: 100 words maximum (excluding title) of flash fiction or poetry using all of the three words above in the genres of horror, fantasy, science fiction or noir. Serialised fiction is, as always, welcome. All variants and use of the words and stems are fine. Feel free to post links to your stories on Twitter or Facebook or whichever social media you prefer.

‘Plots, true or false, are necessary things’ [John Dryden]

At least in novels, as I am discovering, to my hair-tearing cost. When writing to Prediction prompts forward planning is best avoided and I fear has made me complacent because, 90k words into my current wip, fourth in the series, I’ve come to realise is very necessary indeed.

But in between the wrestling, I’ve enjoyed some stunning reading here, in the company of fellow writers whose words – both post and comment – provide evidence we are engaged on something valuable. There were, as ever, half a dozen which made it to my shortlist, and Perry, for his Exodust, made it to the top, for the lovely language and weightiness behind what was being said..

Words for next week: necessary pucker willow

Entries by midnight Thursday 28th April, words and winners posted on Friday 29th

Usual rules: 100 words maximum (excluding title) of flash fiction or poetry using all of the three words above in the genres of horror, fantasy, science fiction or noir. Serialised fiction is, as always, welcome. All variants and use of the words and stems are fine. Feel free to post links to your stories on Twitter or Facebook or whichever social media you prefer.

‘The tumult and the shouting dies’

A hundred and ninety-four episodes, and never a week missed (unless Prediction itself was absent) is a four years acquaintance with the Captain, and while I understand, as Kipling would have it, that ‘Captains and Kings depart’ (and we have been promised a Mad Italian to take his place), it is nevertheless sad to see him wickedly settle down.

But so typically and so well did he bow out that Antonia is undoubtedly this week’s winner.

Which is a relief, for it would, once again have been hard to choose. I console myself that we are all rewarded by both what we are offered to read and by the comments of our fellow writers.

Words for next week: rubric, sparse, spendthrift

Entries by midnight Thursday 20th April, words and winners posted on Friday 21st

Usual rules: 100 words maximum (excluding title) of flash fiction or poetry using all of the three words above in the genres of horror, fantasy, science fiction or noir. Serialised fiction is, as always, welcome. All variants and use of the words and stems are fine. Feel free to post links to your stories on Twitter or Facebook or whichever social media you prefer.

Delighting in the detail ...

... Of which there has been an especial richness this week.

John’s ‘He flexed his shoulders and felt the stitches pull’ first alerted me to how effectively a small detail adds colour and uniqueness to a piece of writing, then I found those put together by Rich to give us Alison’s grandfather’s room, Patricia’s Arthur, mildly murmuring, Antonia’s ‘borders on decadence’ and Perry’s ‘eyes gummed with the sherbet of sleep-deprivation’.

 Jeffrey’s  ‘Night Messenger 3’ wins the ‘leaps and bounds ‘trophy, for that’s what his writing has lately made and Patricia rises to the top with ‘Other side of the tracks’.

Words for next week: falcon, fremescent, lurch

Entries by midnight Thursday 13th April, words and winners posted on Friday 14th

Usual rules: 100 words maximum (excluding title) of flash fiction or poetry using all of the three words above in the genres of horror, fantasy, science fiction or noir. Serialised fiction is, as always, welcome. All variants and use of the words and stems are fine. Feel free to post links to your stories on Twitter or Facebook or whichever social media you prefer.