From the Bookshelf

October 2025

Dear Writers,

Welcome to the October installment of my series From the Bookshelf, in which I create a prompt based on an excerpt of a book I pull from my shelves. The excerpt is presented without context intentionally. The monthly prompts may be for flash fiction or nonfiction, and they may be inspired by all kinds of books: a travel guide, a book of essays, poems, or fiction, a dictionary, a biography . . .

I love writing prompts, and I hope you have fun with these. They are free for anyone and everyone.

This Month’s Prompt
“The Bridge,” by Russell Edson, in Micro Fiction, ed. Jerome Stern (New York: Norton, 1996)

Every so often, I’ll rifle through a book of stories and read the first lines to see how they grab me. What makes me turn the page? What keeps me tuned in? If the sentence is too long and general, I move on. If it’s long and the language is there—if there’s music—I’ll probably stay. But if it’s short and suggestive of a kind of dream? I’m very much in. And that’s why I’ve included this first line from Edson’s micro “The Bridge.”

In his travels he comes to a bridge made entirely of bones.

I’m interested right away in how the familiar phrase “In his travels” leads to something wild that may or may not be true. Usually “In his travels” is followed by phrases like “he came across several scenic waterfalls” or “he encountered snobbery toward Americans.” But no, it’s a bridge made of bones. We don’t know what kind of bones—horse bones? Human bones? And if human bones, is this a dream? It’s really important to leave that open so curiosity is piqued at its highest level. And beyond those questions is the more subtle one: Will he cross it? When you “come to” something, there’s a suggestion that you’re stopping to look at it. You’re pausing before this bridge. What a first line wants is a question that you need the answer to.

All this from one line.

Now it’s your turn. Write a first line that begins with a familiar setting or situation but ends with something strange that may or may not be true. (Another famous first line, by Franz Kafka, does this same thing, of course! “As Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from uneasy dreams he found himself transformed in his bed into a gigantic insect.”) Begin with the familiar and end with something absurd.

Then keep writing to see where it leads. The more curious you are, the more curious your reader will be!

Have fun with this one,

Cheryl