It’s time for Fandango’s weekly Story Starter prompt. Here’s how it works. Every Tuesday morning (his time), He is going to give you a “teaser” sentence or sentence fragment and your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to build a story (prose or poetry) around that sentence/fragment. It doesn’t have to be the first sentence in your story, and you don’t even have to use it in your post at all if you don’t want to. The purpose of the teaser is simply to spark your imagination and to get your storytelling juices flowing.
This week’s Story Starter teaser is:
He quickly climbed the trellis and reached the balcony outside of her bedroom.
If you care to write and post a story built from this teaser, be sure to link back to this post and tag your post with #FSS.
He quickly climbed the trellis and reached the balcony outside of her bedroom.
Although this sneaking around was kind of fun, he wished he could just ring the doorbell like a normal person, but Margo’s father allowed for no unchaperoned contact with the opposite sex. Simon understood where her dad was coming from. Margo was the most beautiful girl he’d ever seen. He went to tap on the window, but Simon tripped on a perpetually untied shoelace. He tried to catch himself, but he slammed face-first onto the edge of the balcony anyway.
Dang! Knew I should’ve worn loafers!
His nose hurt like hell and there was blood gushing from his nose and dripping from his hands as he tried to stop the bleed.
Suddenly, a light flashed on in Margo’s bedroom. He saw a hand shove the sheers and curtain out of the way, and Margo impatiently flung the window open.
“H-h-hi, Margo.” Simon said timidly. He could feel his face flushing, and he hoped Margo couldn’t tell.
“Simon?” she whispered. “What are you doing here? And what happened to your face?”
“Whaddaya mean?” Simon inquired. “You told me to come by tonight. Oh, and I tripped.”
“Umm. That’s tomorrow night …?”
“Oh, wow. Isn’t this Thursday?
Margo rolled her eyes and started to say something. Simon didn’t hear her because he was distracted by the looming silhouette standing to the right of Margo.
Oh no, it’s her dad!
The figure stepped out of the shadows and stood next to Margo. “What do you want, Simple Simon?”
Simon’s heart hit the dirt. This was even worse than her dad, it was Gregory Safire: star quarterback of their high school football team, homecoming king, and all-around heart throb of the 11th grade. He looked like a Greek god come to Earth and acted like a dick.
Simon sighed and looked down at his feet, mortified. All this drama just to help a hot girl with her algebra homework. The only thing that could save this moment of extreme embarrassment was if the balcony collapsed and took him with it.
And so, it did.
Right before Simon and the balcony crumbled to the ground, he was awakened by the sharp, obnoxious ringing of his alarm clock.


Tell it like it is