Writing Prompt

Writing Prompt: Groundhog Hour

Groundhog Day is a movie about a TV weatherman played by Bill Murray. His character relives the same day over and over again for almost the entirety of the movie. Only he knows that he is reliving the day over and over again; everyone else around him resets, and they do not know they are…
Issue Sixty Writing Prompt

Writing Prompt: Mad Scientist

Mad Scientists are an established stereotype now and they appear in movies, in TV shows, and books. It is usually hard to take them seriously. Still, they manage to be an enticing theme and many people play with the audience’s expectations. In the TV show Fringe, one of the main characters, Walter, was a mad scientist….
Issue Fifty Eight Writing Prompt

Writing Prompt: Road Trip

I have not been on very many road trips. However I am a big fan of road trip movies. Although I must admit my favorites are all deeply unconventional. They include Wristcutters: A Love Story, Dead Man, and Paris Texas. To give you a better feel for what I mean, Dead Man is the tale…
Issue Fifty Seven Writing Prompt

Writing Prompt: A Thousand Years

In Schild’s Ladder, a science fiction novel by Greg Egan, most of the characters live far longer than normal human lifespans. They are immortal, more or less. Some are incorporeal and others have bodies but not necessarily the same ones they were born with. Most of the characters in the book are scientists of some…
Issue Fifty Six Writing Prompt

Writing Prompt: One Last Wish

Imagine a character sitting in a room. There are a lot of cords and tubes. It looks like they are in a hospital. The person next to them is on a bed. It could be the main character’s mother, father, spouse, or someone else entirely. Before this person dies, they tell the main character, the…
Issue Fifty Five Writing Prompt

Writing Prompt: James Bond Attends Cooking School

James Bond is one of the most famous characters in modern fiction and cinema. He is iconic, but he is also frequently re-imagined. He went from a polished brown haired machine to a blond with a lot of baggage and a lot fewer quips. Even if you have never read one James Bond book or…
Issue Fifty Three Writing Prompt

Writing Prompt: Meet Cute

A “Meet Cute” is the moment in fiction when two characters that will have a relationship meet for the first time. Most romantic comedies have a “meet cute,” as do most young adult novels. You know that moment when the women drops her books and the man picks them up? That is one of millions…
Issue Fifty Four Writing Prompt

Writing Prompt: Abandoned House

There is an abandoned house in your fictional neighborhood. It has been abandoned for decades under mysterious circumstances. No one knows where the owners went. But for some reason the house was never sold again and the city has never torn it down. The rest of your fictional neighborhood is up to you, the one…
Issue Fifty Writing Prompt

Writing Prompt: Sonnet

There are many kinds of sonnets. Shakespeare’s sonnets are not the only option.  There are sonnets that stick to the Italian method. There are ones that are only concerned with iambic pentameter. One only contains the word watermelon over and over again for fourteen lines, and it is still technically a sonnet. Gerald Stern has…
Issue Fifty One Writing Prompt

Writing Prompt: In The Dark

This is a prompt that is simple but effective. You can use new characters, ones you have previously created, or even ones other authors have created. Put them in a normal situation, or rather, what would be a normal situation for them. Do they work at an office building? Place them there. Do they go…
Issue Fifty Two Writing Prompt

Writing Prompt: Wrongly Accused

In The Fugitive a doctor is accused of killing his wife. In Double Jeopardy a wife is accused of killing her husband. Both did not commit the crime they are accused of. They are both innocent. That has been a reoccurring theme in movies and literature for a very long time. It can be a…
Issue Forty Nine Writing Prompt

Writing Prompt: After Death

There is a book called Sum: Forty Tales of the After Life. It is a book of very short stories by David Eagleman, a neuroscientist and writer. Each of the short stories is a completely different interpretation of the afterlife. In one afterlife you know everyone else there, but just tangentially. You can never meet…
Issue Forty Seven Writing Prompt

Writing Prompt: Dark Alley

It is a familiar scene. If you close your eyes and you can picture it. A pretty woman walks into a dark alley. She is in a big city. Their is steam rising from the sewer. It goes without saying that it is dark and the alley is dirty. This scene has been shot a…
Issue Forty Six Writing Prompt

Writing Prompt: Amnesia

Amnesia has been a great literary prop for centuries. One of the greatest action characters of our time had amnesia: Jason Bourne. But he is not the only one. In See Jane Run by Joy Fielding the main character has amnesia. The same is true of Before I Go To Sleep by S.J. Watson. However…
Issue Forty Five Uncategorized Writing Prompt

Writing Prompt: Gender Swap

Are you working on a novel? Or do you have a favorite character from a novel by another writer? This is an exercise that requires an established character, one that you know really well, although it does not need to be one you created. Pick a character and then write down his or her name…
Issue Forty Four Writing Prompt

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