From the Bookshelf

July 2025

Dear Writers,

Welcome to the July installment of my series From the Bookshelf, in which I create a prompt based on an excerpt of a book I pull from my shelves. The excerpt is presented without context intentionally. The monthly prompts may be for flash fiction or nonfiction, and they may be inspired by all kinds of books: a travel guide, a book of essays, poems, or fiction, a dictionary, a biography . . .

I love writing prompts, and I hope you have fun with these. They are free for anyone and everyone.

This Month’s Prompt
Family-Focused Behavioral Pediatrics, by William Lord Coleman (Philadelphia: Lippincott, Williams & Wilkins, 2001)

The author of this slim volume of guidance on pediatrics is Dr. Bill Coleman, a pediatrician from Chapel Hill, North Carolina, and this book was my first ever freelance editing project. Bill was incredibly kind, funny, genuine, and generous, and I will never forget my time with him. But we are here for the writing prompt, so let me proceed.  

Family life cycle changes, such as becoming a family with adolescents or with elderly grandparents, require adjustments that can be stressful . . . Many families cope well with these transitions unless additional changes are imposed upon the family life cycle (e.g., internal stressors, such as divorce or the formation of a stepfamily, or external stressors, such as the loss of a job or the move to a new city or state). Then the family’s coping ability may be overwhelmed.

Let’s write a hermit crab! This is a story in which you borrow a familiar text, such as a recipe or a doctor’s report (!) and make a story with it. The form here will be the doctor’s visit report, which is different from “Visit notes,” which are what the family sees on an online portal for the doctor’s office. These will be notes the doctor writes that are for the doctor’s office only. Using as much formal language as possible, describe the particular situation of a family and what happens during the doctor’s visit. One thing I learned by editing this book, and what I remember decades later, is often a parent—after the medical issue has been addressed—will ask something offhand, just as their hand is on the doorknob (“the doorknob question,” Bill called it). This is what they really want to talk about, and it rarely has to do with a medical issue. In this excerpt, there is mention of one of the “family life cycle changes” that can be overwhelming. Pick a sudden change that affects the family. Usually a whole family is not allowed in the examination room, so you will be limited to one or two characters. Maybe a mother is with her 10-year-old son or a father with his 6-year-old son and toddler daughter. Here is a template for a doctor’s report. And here is a link to examples (with a slightly different form). Make sure to include the medical reason why the patient has come in, and describe how the “life cycle change” comes into play during the visit.

You can do anything you want. Have fun!

Cheryl