Category: Writing Prompts

Prompts are short, fun exercises that can be used to get the creative juices flowing or break the ice at a critique meeting. They start as a brief list of ingredients, forming a challenge for the writer to incorporate all of them into one self-contained piece. There are many ways to come up with prompts and each author will find a unique way to express a given prompt.

Carla Fondly Recalled

  • k-avatarfirst missionary journey
  • a zen-like joy
  • condemned to the eternal fires of hell
  • a victory ode
  • when men met and sat
  • One has to eat!

Carla fondly recalled her first missionary journey, and even more fondly her first doggy journey. Thinking about those moments brought her a zen-like joy.

“As in, like, joy?”

“Yes, Darla, close enough.” Carla knew she shouldn’t try to explain such things to her little sister, as the poor girl invariably came away moist and bewildered. If she kept it up, Carla feared she’d be condemned to the eternal fires of hell.

Anyway, it was time to take a break from composing a victory ode to when men met and sat outside her bedroom door like patients in a porno waiting room. To dinner! One has to eat!

bonus points for using them in order!

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Everything About Felicity Was All Brown

  • by jenrolled her beautiful eyes
  • like some patient livery cob
  • suddenly declared unlawful
  • no other password
  • the beautiful dog’s friendly attention
  • as plainly as the geese
  • causing an obstruction in the shaft
  • interposed his elegantly marked body
  • in the crepuscular twilight
  • WOW! Is she dragging!
  • such petty jealousies
  • all brown, brown eyes, brown hair

Everything about Felicity was all brown, brown eyes, brown hair, brown tobacco-stained teeth. She wore a brown velour jumpsuit and brown leather boots. Erasmus thought she dressed that way to hide her beauty from the eyes of men, to prevent such petty jealousies as she must have experienced in school when she no doubt turned the heads of her friends’ swains. It was for very similar reasons that Erasmus had covered his body with detailed black tattoos. Such subterfuge did not fool Erasmus, who saw her sensual attractiveness as plainly as the geese flying overhead and honking in the crepuscular twilight saw the small pond in the woods as their pit stop for the night.

“Why must those horrid sentries be causing an obstruction in the shaft?” wailed Felicity.

WOW! Is she dragging! thought Erasmus. Felicity was usually stoic in the face of such disappointment. She must be completely exhausted to break down like that. They knew when they signed up for the Amazing Race that there would be frustrations, but nothing had prepared them for this task, in which they were required to navigate their way through a disused emerald mine in Myanmar. Much to their chagrin, the team had just found themselves back at the entrance and had gone outside for some fresh air and to pet the large black dog that was chained there.

“Are you certain you know no other password?” Erasmus asked.

Felicity rolled her beautiful eyes like some patient livery cob who had lost all patience upon learning that horses had been suddenly declared unlawful.

“If I knew another password,” she grumbled, “don’t you think I would have mentioned it?”

Her despair drew the beautiful dog’s friendly attention, and it demanded to be petted. Erasmus felt a flair of jealousy and interposed his elegantly marked body between Felicity and the animal.

longest prompt evah!

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Doesn’t Do To Enter A Stressful Occupation

  • k-avatarpressed up close, I’d imagine
  • plagued by depression and anxiety
  • vices are often hid
  • in front of the wall safe
  • that’d be the day!

Doesn’t do to enter a stressful occupation if you’re already plagued by depression and anxiety. But my shrink said what I needed, what would break my downward spiral, was excitement. He was just using me to perpetrate espionage on his chief rival down the street, but he explained it like this: safecracking would be therapeutic for me, and our doctor-patient confidentiality would protect me in the event that my shrink somehow ran afoul of the law.

“You’ll love it, once you try it. The trick will be getting you to stop!”

That’d be the day!

So now I’m curled into a ball in front of the wall safe in the rival shrink’s pitch-black office. I’m pressed up close, I’d imagine, trying to slip into the wall itself in my desperation to hide. I just know I’ve tripped some kind of alarm and the cops are racing to the scene. My shrink wasn’t using me after all. He was just trying to get rid of me. Throwing me to the wolves.

I pull myself together, and pull myself up the wall until I’m standing, staring at the dull metallic surface of the safe I’m now determined to defeat. My hearing is heightened by a lifetime of paranoia, making the action of the lock as plain as speech. Gifts are often hid within burdens, as vices are often hid within virtues. The safe clicks softly open, and I behold the scent of chocolate chip cookies.

The note on the plate is addressed to me.

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“I Ain’t No Mau-Mau”

  • by jenI ain’t no Mau-mau
  • said the flabbergasted writer
  • breast of alligator
  • inflection the echo of the heady times
  • actor-robots never panic

“I ain’t no Mau-mau,” said the flabbergasted writer as she declined the breast of alligator proffered by the mute servant. Even to her own ear her voice had a tremulous inflection, the echo of heady times sweeping the tropical capital where she was currently on assignment.

The prime minister was making an elaborate toast which the translator translated as “actor-robots never panic.”

The writer blinked in confusion.

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Everything Was Up For Grabs

  • k-avatarin such a cloister
  • from card tricks to chicks
  • like the truck says
  • she understood. She always did
  • no longer limited to swimming through gray jello

Everything was up for grabs in such a cloister, from card tricks to chicks. You just had to know what to say to the Sister in charge. You had to kneel, and tell her these four little words, “Like the truck says.”

She understood. She always did.

Then you followed her down a long, oppressively hot corridor. You smelled roses, and you heard crying behind closed doors. You followed the Sister in charge, and your eyelids itched and your ears started ringing, because you were so close. Just a few more steps and you’d be no longer limited to swimming through gray jello. Color and texture would be returned to your existence. For a while.

Unless that was the wrong kind of hilltop building, and the Sister in charge wouldn’t understand. Maybe there’s only the one cloister where it works that way.

But you go inside to see what’s up for grabs.

 

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Under the Full Glare

  • by jenthe full glare of publicity, with
  • the ambassador opened his mouth
  • Sweet Samantha
  • Your poor people was overwhelmed
  • the shifting cluster of rocks in that part

Under the full glare of publicity, with video cameras broadcasting his every word and gesture, the ambassador opened his mouth to offer his condolences to the Prime Minister. “Sweet Samantha,” he began, but instantly regretted the term of endearment. He started again, but was so flustered by his faux pas that he lost some of his hard-earned fluency in sweet, sweet Samantha’s native tongue. “Your poor people was overwhelmed by the shifting cluster of rocks in that part of the colony.” He faltered, too dismayed to continue.

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Silver Maple Turned

  • k-avatarhis “jurisdiction”
  • her flushed face
  • the old woman
  • first choice
  • silver maple

Silver Maple turned her flushed face up to see how Judge Watkins was reacting to her ministrations to his “jurisdiction.” Paying the fine would have been her first choice, but this option wasn’t so bad. The old woman knew all the tricks, literally. Judge Watkins would get off, and so would she.

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“You Really Should Make An Effort”

  • by jenbe sensitive to electrical fields
  • umbilical cord. It included
  • brought them succulent branches
  • once was plowed
  • I predict a lot of insomnia

“You really should make an effort to be sensitive to electrical fields,” my mother once said. “Their feelings are easily hurt.” So I made every effort when a couple of them moved in next door. I did some research into their customs and then prepared a gift basket tied up with a ribbon the exact color of an umbilical cord. It included many homemade goodies. The next day I brought them succulent branches of coca leaves from the field near our street that once was plowed, but has now been taken over by a drug cartel. I predict a lot of insomnia if they eat the leaves.

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In Fighting Trim

r-avatarIt’s been quite a while since Rune Skelley was in Writing Mode. For most of this year we’ve been editing various projects, and moving forward we’ll be doing more of the “not actually writing” parts of writing.

The music novel needed a lot of work, which did involve a fair amount of composing new material. It also involved a far greater amount of wrestling with the material we already had: rearranging, streamlining, repurposing, polishing.

The science novel was in much better shape. We’re practically done with the second draft already, and it required very little in the way of new material.

Once we get it wrapped up, we’ll knuckle down and start marketing it. That will require some writing, but not the usual sort. Not the sort we like. We’ll need to concoct the perfect query letter, as well other marketing materials like a synopsis and maybe an author bio.

Then, while the marketing machine chugs away in the background, we’ll move onto the next items on our To Do list, which involve a bit more editing, and then the brainstorming and outlining of the next novel. Again, not much actual writing.

We know that if we stay away from writing for very long at all, the fiction engines cool down and it takes an enormous effort to spool them back up again. That’s where our writing prompts come in.

All those brief and weird things we post on Mondays and Wednesdays are our way of keeping in practice. Sure, they’re often incoherent, but they’re fun and they don’t need to lead to anything bigger. Their only job is to keep the writing parts of our brains from atrophying. When we’re in the middle of writing a novel, they’re not really necessary, although we’ll sometimes use them as a warmup exercise. But in times like this, where there’s no composition of the horizon, they’re life savers.

How do writing prompts work best for you?

The Best Immersion-Therapy

  • k-avatarsex-anxious parents?
  • copulating since 1400
  • projections of the men
  • the demon’s scrotum is clearly in view

The best immersion-therapy for sex-anxious parents? Gotta be Grotto des Grotesques, where the foyer is populated with digital projections of the men who have held the title of Lothario Supremo since the award’s inception in 1239. Very soothing!

Also, in its depths, is a geothermal manifestation of a pair of infernal trysters who’ve been copulating since 1400. Although most of the lovers’ forms are embedded in calcite and sulfurous accretions, the demon’s scrotum is clearly in view.

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