Writing Prompt – Playing with Fire

We recently purchased a new wood stove at the House of Awesome™.

It’s a classy cast-iron affair with a glass window to look through while the fire burns and a fan on the back if we want to heat the place up like a sauna.

Needless to say, we’ve been playing with fire for the last week or so. Lots of fun.

Here’s Your Prompt:

• Free write about the following, “My mother always told me to play with fire…” (Nope, not a typo there. We’re turning this old chestnut on its head.)
   
• What would the world be like if Prometheus had never stolen fire from the Gods? What would your world be like?
   
• “Out of the fire, Came a man sunken, To less than cinders, A tea-cup of ashes or so…” – Pool, by Carl Sandburg, Chicago Poems.
   
• As part of a character sketch for your latest short story or novel: Your protagonist’s house is on fire. What are the one or two items he grabs on the way out the door? What important item does he leave behind without a glance? Why? Same for your antagonist: what is she certain to take? What does she leave behind. What’s her rationale?
   
• “Fire obtained by friction. It has been supposed to defeat sorcery, and cure diseases assigned to witchcraft.” – Needfire, by E. Cobham Brewer, Dictionary of Phrase and Fable.
   
• The word fire turns up in several English-language idioms. Try one or more of these phrases fir a story or poetry starter:
  • trial by fire, or, baptism by fire
  • come under fire, draw fire, or on fire
  • add fuel to the fire, or, fueling the flames
  • fire in the belly, or, a fire in the loins
  • fire blanks, fire away, or fire a shot across the bow
  • fire is a good servant, but a bad master
  • fire up, hang fire, or light a fire under something
  • no smoke without fire

  (For more such idioms, check out the Free Online Dictionary.

Good luck!