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.

Lara Edged Awkwardly

  • k-avatargiant sticky bun
  • unsubstantiated
  • considerable
  • Ludwig Neitzche’s illness

Lara edged awkwardly through the narrow passage, moving crabwise with both an armload of philosophy and a giant sticky bun to pay attention to. She nibbled at the pastry as she moved to the appropriate location in the stacks to deposit the pretentious tomes that burdened her right arm.

Not dropping anything as she placed the heap of books on a nearby carrel took considerable dexterity. Then she had to work one-handed because her glazed left hand had more important things to worry about than — she glanced at the cover of the next volume — Ludwig Nietzche’s Illness.

She hoped to have time for a smoke break before that so-called reporter showed up. The cute one. Lara took a larger bite of the sweet, gooey treat, reminding herself that the rumors of this chick’s heterosexuality were as of yet unsubstantiated.

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It Wasn’t Long Before Bernard Fell Under Suspicion

  • by jenmass
  • punishments
  • suspicion

It wasn’t long before Bernard fell under suspicion. He attended mass with Father Mulcahey on the Sunday in question. He had a criminal past. His boots were found in the garbage can, caked with mud.

Bernard maintained his innocence, claiming the Father was just a good friend from way back. And as for his record, well he’d taken his punishments, paid his fees!

He couldn’t explain the boots though, and was quickly lynched by the angry mob.

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Blood Jets Up To The Ceiling

  • k-avataremptied
  • jets
  • nameplate
  • within the system

Blood jets up to the ceiling from Daggart’s neck-stump, swamping the desk blotter and sweeping the nameplate to the floor, and then, emptied at last, his torso slumps back in the swivel chair as if wearied of exsanguination.

“Well,” thinks Maurice as he wipes his blade, “so much for working within the system.”

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Claudia Thanked the Semiskilled Employee

  • k-avatarthirty-sixth
  • thanked
  • semiskilled
  • avenged

Claudia thanked the semiskilled employee as her thirty-sixth and final item traversed the scanner and made its way down to the steel-clad staging area for conveyance into a sack, her choice of wood-pulp or petrochemical composition, and surrendered the necessary currency to atone for all these items’ removal from the shelves, and wondered if her inner smile showed at all as she produced also that instrument of rebate, a coupon rare and wondrous that would regain her all the money and more from this accursed edifice, this store that had hardened her soul and rounded her back. Yes, at last she would be avenged.

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Niggling Doubts Plagued the Countess

  • by jenoperator
  • unremitting
  • attitudes
  • niggling

Niggling doubts plagued the Countess as she waited, gold-plated telephone pressed to her dainty, shell-like ear, and mussing her elaborate coiffure in much the same way Dirk had done during their one night of hedonistic abandon all those weeks ago, for the operator to place the call that would forever change her life, and the attitudes of all the women in her social circle who were so unremitting in their pessimism.

Bonus points for using all the prompts in a single sentence!

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Bernice, Steely Eyes Inscrutable

  • k-avatarunmeaning
  • book!
  • trigger
  • preaching

Bernice, steely eyes inscrutable and finger tense upon the trigger, thinking of the words Leopold so aptly chose to illuminate unmeaning, and thinking also of her wanton youth in Shanghai, but not listening to the inane preaching of the tent-revival charlatan, lastly thought, “Please shut up so I can read my book!“

Bonus points for using all the prompts in a single sentence!

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Felicity Learned

  • by jenencountered
  • first impressions
  • savvy
  • fulfilling

Felicity learned, years later, and after much heartbreak and broken promises, not to mention a sullied reputation and a destroyed credit rating, that she should have trusted her first impressions when she initially encountered the savvy Arch-Duke of Kiev, and not rushed headlong into fulfilling her girlish fantasies.

Bonus points for using the prompts in a single sentence!

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Jacket Blurb #2

k-avatarOur critique group meets in a bookstore, and that inspired this week’s writing prompt. We were each assigned the title of an existing science fiction novel we had not read, and had to write the exciting synopsis for the back cover.

Kent’s assigned novel was Friends Come in Boxes

Pop goes the weasel.

Timmy shivered in darkness, a darkness in his own mind. A darkness reaching for his soul.

Pop goes the weasel.

Years before, he’d had the courage to turn the handle and release the jaunty little tune. To summon the smiling clown. And ever since, it had taken all his courage just to walk outside. Because now he knew.

Pop goes the weasel.

They say that friends come in boxes. But they don’t say whose.

Jacket Blurb #1

by jenOur critique group meets in a bookstore, and that inspired this week’s writing prompt. We were each assigned the title of an existing science fiction novel we had not read, and had to write the exciting synopsis for the back cover.

Jen’s assigned novel was 43,000 Years Later

An epic saga tracking the bloodline, the passion, the tribulations and joys of a single family through the most influential 43,000 years of man’s recent history.

It starts when Percival Gray meets the young, beautiful Persimmon Smith and romance blossoms. Follow through the years as their family grows and shapes world (and eventually galactic) events!

43,000 pages would scarcely be enough to contain the tale of what happens. Where will they end up 43,000 Years Later?