Last Thursday, much to my and Cathy’s regret, our washing machine gave up the ghost. While we await the delivery of a new one, we’ll have to make a trip to a coin-operated laundry. It’s been a while since I’ve been in one of those, but for many years I accompanied my mother on Saturdays when she did our family’s wash. I remember the smell of detergent powder and the vending machines where you could buy a small box if you needed one. I remember the sound of the coin tray being pushed into the washer and the rush of water into the drum. The dryers hummed. When the clothes were dry, they were also warm. We put them in a wheeled basket and found a spot at a folding table. Somewhere close to noon, we were usually ready for my father to pick us up and drive us home.

One day, while we waited for him to arrive, a little boy, maybe eight or nine, sat down next to my mother. When she asked him his name, he proudly and loudly proclaimed, “Hog Sausage.”

“Your name is Hog Sausage?” my mother asked. She was a grade school teacher for thirty-eight years and accustomed to the whimsical nature of youngsters.

The boy nodded, and my mother said, “Well, all right then. It’s good to know you, Hog Sausage.”

Nothing could have pleased the boy more than my mother’s acceptance of the fantastic world he was creating. Hog Sausage, he said he was, and Hog Sausage he would be. My mother had said it was so.

Something out of the ordinary can put a narrative into motion. Here’s the way Charles Baxter’s “The Next Building I Plan to Bomb” opens:

In the parking lot next to the bank, Harry Edmonds saw a piece of gray scrap paper the size of a greeting card. It had blown up next to his leg and attached itself to him there. Across the top margin was some scrabby writing in purple ink. He picked it up and examined it. On the upper lefthand corner someone had scrawled the phrase: THE NEXT BUILDING I PLAN TO BOMB.

As the old man, Edgar, used to say on the animated television program, The Bullwinkle Show, “Now there’s something you don’t see every day, Chauncey.” In this case, the message that finds Harry Edmonds now must be dealt with. He must decide whether to take it to the authorities. He tells his girlfriend he got as far as the vestibule of the police department before he changed his mind for fear the police would think him an accomplice. This is the conversation between Harry and his girlfriend that follows:

“Oh, that’s so melodramatic,” she said. “You’ve never committed a crime in your life. You’re a banker, for Chrissake. You’re in the trust department. You’re harmless.”

Harry sat back in his chair and looked at her. “I’m not that harmless.”

“Yes, you are,” she laughed. “You’re quite harmless.”

“Lucia,” he said, “I wish you wouldn’t use that word.”

“Harmless? It’s a compliment.”

“Not in this country, it isn’t,” he said.

Again, the unexpected line of dialogue from the girlfriend propels the narrative by putting more pressure on Harry. He didn’t plan on her calling him “harmless.” He doesn’t like to think of himself that way. Now, what will he do?

I can take the story of my mother and Hog Sausage and play the What if? game. What if the boy’s mother had scolded my mother for affirming the boy’s fantasy? What if his mother had said, “It’s people like you who turn little boys into liars.” What would that have caused my mother to do? What would have been the consequences of her action?

I’ll leave you with this writing prompt:

Find something out of the ordinary to open a story. Let that something put your main character into action. Let another character say something that challenges your main character’s identity. Now you have tension both on the plot level and the character level. You’re off and running with a new story.