Story Prompts

Ficlets

storyprompts — Wed, 25 Jul 2007 02:16:14 +0000

Here’s a spot to gain some inspiration for your stories.

Ficlets

Thrill me!

storyprompts — Tue, 17 Jul 2007 18:35:46 +0000

A couple of thriller prompts for a dreary day …

A text message pops up on our hero’s phone in the middle of the night. It reads, “You will pass away in three days.”
A woman comes to work on Monday morning to find a bloodstained $100 bill on her desk.
A man comes home to find not dinner on the table, but a loaded gun. His wife sits down across from him and says:
- “You or me, kid.” …or…
- “We’re playing Russian Roulette for the kids.”

–By Mark Worthen

Friday morning motivation

storyprompts — Fri, 13 Jul 2007 11:39:10 +0000

It’s Friday. You’ve got the entire weekend ahead of you to do a little writing. Over at Moleskinerie, they posted a quick list of Simple Things You Can Do Right Now To Jumpstart Your Writing Efforts. And on Daily Writing Tips, you can find a short piece titled Ready, Set, Write! that covers the same topic. Check them out and get to writing!

Fan fiction as inspiration

storyprompts — Thu, 12 Jul 2007 12:32:19 +0000

Fan fiction. That dirty little word used to implicate someone as less than a writer in the eyes of writers. But sometimes it is legitimate writing as well. Taking an established character and creating a new story with them is the bread and butter of the comics medium. Most of the writers in the field are writing characters that have been around since before they were born!

I hear you saying it already, “This is about writing prompts not an editorial about fan fiction and comics.” OK already, geez. Here are my writing prompts for you.

Take a character from a favorite movie or book and write about the day before. We all know what happened in the book or movie, but something had to happen to them before that.
Relocate a character to another established “world.” Look how well it was done with Aliens vs. Predator. Freddy vs. Jason. Imagine what would have unfolded had Kal-El landed on Earth during the time of Planet of the Apes? What if the Oompah Loompahs ran Fantasy Island? Spritle and Chim Chim stowed away in the trunk of Luke Skywalker’s landspeeder when Luke and Ben went to the Cantina…

– Posted by Jimmy Z. Johnston

Monday morning motivation

storyprompts — Mon, 09 Jul 2007 12:55:42 +0000

When it comes to writing a first draft, my goal is to get the story out without worrying about how awful it might read. I’ll use rewrites to make it pretty. Over on Daily Writing Tips, they’ve posted some great guidelines for muffling your internal editor.

Summertime story prompts

storyprompts — Sat, 07 Jul 2007 19:07:45 +0000

It’s the weekend, so I thought some weekend themed prompts were in order:

Write a story about a backyard barbeque. The twist? One of the guests shows up with a cooler marked with a bio-hazard symbol.

Many people wouldn’t dare hit the beach without a nice “starter tan.” So, a trip to the tanning salon might be in order. Write a story about a tanning salon visit gone horribly wrong. It might be a humorous piece, or it might be something akin to the rather gruesome film, Hostel.

Summer blockbusters are a big part of the season. Write a one-line “high concept” description of the summer flick you’d like to see. Then, start writing a story based on that idea.

– Posted by Cullen Bunn

A couple of story prompts to get us started …

storyprompts — Thu, 05 Jul 2007 03:20:53 +0000

Here are some ideas to get this project started and the old wheels turning. Use one of the following as a starting point for your next short story:

Just as Julie was about to pop the jawbreaker into her mouth, she heard a tiny voice, screeching, “Please, help me!”

As Mildred opened the dusty old hat box, she was surprised to find …

“But I didn’t want toys for my birthday!” whined six-year-old Kenny. “I wanted a subscription to Astrophysics Monthly!”

– Posted by Cullen Bunn

Where do you get your ideas?

storyprompts — Thu, 05 Jul 2007 00:47:52 +0000

Sometimes, staring at a blank computer screen can frighten the creativity right out of you.

For a lot of writers, getting started — coming up with that gem of a story idea — can be a difficult hurdle to jump. That’s where this site comes in. Throughout each week, we’ll post several “starting points” for those poor souls suffering from writer’s block. Use these ideas as the foundation for your own stories … or simply do a little free-writing (even if it’s just a paragraph or two) based on the inspiration you find here. The idea is to keep your creative juices flowing and try to write something — anything — every day.