September 25th Writing Prompt: Mother

September 25, 2023July 21, 2023 Michael DeAngelo 0 Comments

In a strange turn of events, someone approached a female patron in the tavern last night and claimed to be their child. As shocking and almost laughable as such a claim could be, there seems to be some truth to their words. How could this be? Is it all just a ruse, or is there something more to this claim?

Ideas and questions:

There aren’t too many options for how something like this would have come to pass, but if you think outside the box, you could approach some ideas. Perhaps the mother unknowingly lost a year of their memory. Perhaps time travel is involved. Perhaps there’s a gateway to another dimension.
It’s also possible that, even though there seems to be some credibility, it’s a complete fabrication. If that was the case, perhaps there would be some reason for the subterfuge.

Does the age of the two central characters to this plot line up? Or is there something there that might not be as straight-forward as you would expect, either?
Does the gender of the alleged child play a role in your story? Is there somehow more credibility to one over the other?
How does the person convince their “mother” that they are, in fact, their child? Do they realize that such a claim is as wild as it is?

Challenge:

A change of point of view could be an interesting way to dig into the emotional state of the involved characters. Remember, you don’t necessarily have to use the child or the mother as the main characters if you believe you could serve the story better in a different way.