Thanks for another excellent prompt response. Your pet stories were adorable, funny, sad and totally wonderful. This week Alanna’s Mystery of the Pilfered Panda, Amelie May’s invisible Bear, Sasha’s horse called Barley, Harmony’s spy bunny and Charlotte P’s kitten rescue story caught my eye – but you’re all winners really!

The pets prompt ran for two weeks instead of one because I had to take care of our own new pet, Howl the cockapoo puppy. Howl is extremely cute, and extremely demanding, and I love him so much – but he hasn’t given me very much time to write lately! I’m hoping that might start to change soon, though …

This week I’ve decided to move from something very small to something extremely big – I thought we could all use a change from our own world, and so I’d like to challenge you to write about the whole wonderful universe with the prompt out of this world.

You can write about deep space, a rocket launch, landing on a new planet or even ordinary life on a world that’s very different (or very similar) to our own. You can write about meeting aliens on this world or any other, or you can write about being an alien (and to them, of course, we’re the aliens!). You can write about robots, space ships, zero-gravity … anything you like!

As always, you can interpret this prompt however you like – with a song, a poem, non-fiction, fiction, a story you write with a friend or on your own … it’s all up to you! I can’t wait to see what you come up with.

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.

I can’t wait to read your out of this world responses, Detectives!