This week – the prompt is U is for Unusual.
Unusual. Out of the ordinary. Something you wouldn’t expect. Strange. Different. Not normal.
It could be something out of place… a window open when it shouldn’t be or a door closed when it should be open. Maybe it’s somebody who shouldn’t be where they are, or they’re not where they should be. Perhaps it’s something that’s been moved from where it normally is, e.g. a missing vase, or it could be a painting that’s slightly askew. Why is it like that?
You could describe someone’s appearance as unusual, e.g. Lady Gaga’s meat dress or ‘A Flock of Seagulls’ lead singer’s hairstyle.
Or you may be describing an object – ‘I’ve never seen anything like it before… I didn’t know they were supposed to have tentacles…’
Unusual could be someone – or maybe like a pet – acting out of character. It’s a stock question for police interviews: ‘Was there anything unusual about his or her behaviour?’
Agatha Christie stories are full of ‘Well, I thought it was strange…’ and ‘Oh, he wouldn’t normally do that…’
Or you could be writing a story with an unusual setting, such as a mythical land where people live by very different rules. Or a well-known story from an unusual point of view, e.g. a mouse who gets turned into a footman in Cinderella – what’s he got to say?
So, what or who is it that’s unusual? Who notices? What effect does it have? What do they do about it, if anything? Where does it lead to?
Plenty to go at. So, it’s the usual stuff – who, what, where, when, how and why?
Let’s hear your stories, poems, pieces of descriptive writing – don’t forget it doesn’t have to be the complete story – prompted by the word ‘track’. But it is only a prompt. If you’ve got something else that you’re burning to write about, then write about that.
Send them to louise.hulland@bbc.co.uk and we’ll review them when we next meet on the radio.