Fiction writing prompt: The first result of google search for “Fiction writing prompts” on June 22, 2021: https://blog.reedsy.com/creative-writing-prompts/
Selected entry: The first entry on the page: https://blog.reedsy.com/creative-writing-prompts/general/write-a-story-about-characters-going-on-a-summer-r/
Approximate time writing: 10 minutes
It was summer. Heat glared in through the car windows down the highway. The Atlantic Ocean rumbled mutely on our left. John was taking me to his hometown in Florida. We were driving from Maine, which is my home state and where we lived together. We met in New York City 10 years ago. This trip was supposed to be a prelude to our wedding. Everyone knew it. It was all but planned. The specifics just needed signatures and deposits. It felt like a tractor-trailer rolling down the highway with no brakes. It was an inevitability.
The trip was supposed to be a seven-day adventure down the East Coast, us taking our time, stopping every night along the way. At first, I thought it was insane. Although I was a small town girl, I had never been on a road trip before. That’s how John was, how he is I imagine. He was always trying to push the boundaries. In some way, I thought that our proposed marriage was just another case of that. It probably was. Either way, I was happy about it. The road trip. The wedding. Everything. John was my dream guy. Of course he had some quirks. A vegetarian, a fitness freak. We were complete opposites in many ways. I avoided fitness whenever I could. My only exercise was running. I could run for hours, just getting lost in my thoughts. Most runners I know struggle with this. But luckily it came naturally to me. Otherwise, I would be a couch potato or worse.
John being John and me being myself, he invited the insanity, and I reluctantly agreed, always reserving the right to complain about any of it at any time. The road trip, he said, was our first step into our lives together. He said it would be raucous, relaxed, and revelatory. And he was right. Just not in the way I expected.