“Somewhere in the night, someone was writing.” ~Neil Gaiman, Forbidden Brides of the Faceless Slaves in the Secret House of the Night of Dread Desire

Today I bring you the first of a new feature on the blog. From now on, we’re going to be giving you a writing prompt or exercise each Saturday. I hope you’ll take a bit of time to stretch your writing muscles and play along. If you have a blog of your own, and post your Saturday pages there, please let us know by leaving a link in the comments. We’d love to check it out!

Without further ado, I present you with a line from a story called Closing Time which you can find in Fragile Things, a collection of stories and poems by Gaiman.

“I should have run then. My heart was pounding in my chest. But the devil was in me, and instead of running I looked at the three big boys at the bottom of the path, and I simply said, ‘Or are you scared?'”

This is the start of your next story. Now, go write.

Closing Time Fragile Things Mentors Neil Gaiman writing prompts