Well done on your responses to last week’s prompt, Detectives! Your stories were so clever and thoughtful and romantic. I particularly liked Polly’s story about real female pirates, Ana’s story about a crush that might break up a friendship, Inaya’s Partition love story, Bel’s Murder Most Unladylike meet cute and Shims Girl’s geeky love story.

Because a lot of you have gone back to school by now, there’s less time for you to write your stories. So for the rest of this year, these prompts are going to become monthly, not weekly. You can still post your responses at any time, of course – and if you get bored you can always go back and respond to older prompts!

For the rest of September, your prompt will be resolutions. This was suggested by Detective Society member Neve – and it seems like a great choice, since this is the beginning of the school year, a time full of new challenges and big decisions.

A resolution is of course just a decision – to take up running, or learn to bake, or to be nicer to a family member or friend! You can write about characters making resolutions and breaking them, deciding to do something nice or not nice at all. You can also write about resolve in general – that’s the inner strength you use to get you through a difficult time and deal with upsetting things going on in the world.

Good luck, Detectives – both with your stories and with taking the big decisions that are part of all of our lives!

The rules …

1. It can be as long or as short as you like, and take you as much or as little time as you want.
2. It can be any genre (type) of story you want. If you have an idea for something that I haven’t mentioned (writing a poem! Being inspired by a song you love! Writing non-fiction!), don’t wait for my permission – just go for it! This is your creativity working!
3. You are not allowed to worry about grammar or spelling.
4. You are not allowed to worry if it isn’t perfect, or criticise yourself as you’re writing.
5. You are encouraged to make a plan before you begin, to make it easier for you to get to the end of the story. This can be two words or a whole page! But if you don’t want to do this, you don’t have to.
6. Get to the end of the story without stopping to go back and fix bits you don’t like. Once you’ve finished, read it through again. If you still don’t like those bits, you can edit them now!
7. If you want (and only if you want!) you’re allowed to post the first 500 words of your story in the comments below. I have to moderate the comments so it may take a while for them to show up – please be patient. I don’t want to see you apologising for your story or minimising what you’ve done when you post – writing a story is a triumph and you should be proud!
8. Please do not use your full name when you comment – first names are fine, or you can make up a username that you like! Also remember to stay safe online and not get into private discussions with anyone you don’t know in real life without telling an adult first.
9. If you like someone else’s story, you are allowed to comment to say so! If you’d like to give them ideas that might make their story even stronger, that’s OK, but please be kind and remember how deeply we all care about our writing. A good format for feedback might be something like: ‘I loved ****! Have you thought of ****? I think it might make your story even better!’ I will delete any comment if I feel it’s critical without being constructive.
10. I can’t promise to give feedback on any individual stories – I’m not marking them!
11. This isn’t a competition, and there will be no winners and no prizes, though I may choose a story or two to highlight in future posts.