Random Prompts

A friend of mine just posted this, and I actually liked it so much that I decided to share it with you.

Prompts for writing

What if…? Your turn!

Once again, It is time to have prompts for stories. I’m going to just let go with everything I’ve thought of this whole month and it’s your choice if you want to use any of them. Sometimes we all just need ideas.

• How would you tell the Chanukah or Christmas story to someone who doesn’t know it?

• What if a king marries an enemy spy instead of the neighboring princess he is suppose to?

• What if your dog dies?  What would you miss? How would it happen?

• What if you couldn’t drive a car?

• What if your religion was banished?

• What if you woke up one morning to a not forecasted  blizzard?

• You’re leaving earth. Why?

• If you could jump ahead ten or twenty years, what would your life look like? What might it look like? (Thoughts I’ve had from the movie 13 going on 30.)

• What if you needed to go to the enemy to keep your sister safe?

• What if your siblings were born in a different order?

• What if you were suddenly going to have a baby?

• What if you could automatically gain any skill you want? (I know, matrix-ish, but I think about it often enough.)

•  What if you were given three wishes?

• What if aliens were really in the solar system and we just haven’t seen them?

• What if you failed at your current goal?

• What if cars were banned?

• What if guns were banned?

More from the Random Mind of Abigail

I know that I said I would post prompts on the first Monday of the month, but I forget and then it’s gone. Because of that, I’m doing it this week and my originally scheduled post will go next week.

So here are some random thoughts I’ve had throughout the last while. I just cleaned out my drafts folder, which is where I store these thoughts, so some of them are very old actually.

• The EPA wants to ban farm dust. Farms cannot  without producing dust.
• It’ll illegal on terraformed planets to plant plants from Earth.
• A nurse that can feel the patient’s feelings.
• What would happen if every plane that flew over your house might be a bomber?
• Venus is the result of greenhouse gases gone awry.
• Save the males, until we can learn how to make sperm and then we don’t need them anymore.

I actually thought I had more, but as I’m reading them, they don’t fit into prompts as much as science fiction plot elements that might help you out. And that is more a Wednesday post. :)

So, hope that got your brain working. That last one there I’m considering doing a story about myself.

Walking past a thousand story ideas.

Everybody walks past a thousand story ideas every day. The good writers are the ones who see five or six of them. Most people don’t see any.

–Orson Scott Card

This quote made me think that I’m missing something. And because of that, I’ve decided to start Prompts of the First.  The basic idea is I’m just going to bounce out with a bunch of random ideas for writing. Anything that comes into my mind that oculd possible, with some delicate writing, be made into a story.

Understand I’m not asking you to write the story for me. I am merely recommending story ideas for you to write and make your own.

Why am I doing this?

Two reasons. First of all, when I started looking for writing prompts, they were all too specific. Examples:

• You have been captured by cannibals. How do you try to convince them not to eat you? If that fails how do you attempt to get away?
• In the middle of the night, you get an urgent call from a friend you haven’t talked to in years. Something terrible has happened. What is it and why is he/she calling you? (Okay, that one might be fun.)
• You’ve left town—ditching your old, miserable life—hoping to start a new life for yourself. You’ve given yourself a new name, fake background and style. Write about your first encounter in your new town.
• Storms have knocked out the power. You find the flashlight and make shadow bunnies on the wall, but you can tell the kids are not amused. So instead you decide to tell a scary story. Create a story that would scare even the toughest of teenagers.

I didn’t like that. I wanted something a little more vaguer, that doesn’t involve me.

The second reason why I’m wanting to do this is I want to notice more of the plots in every day life. I want to notice seven or eight of them a day. Right now, if I can come up with thirty prompts, I’ll be happy, but this’ll be an ongoing goal for me throughout the month.

At the first Monday of the month, I’ll share them with you. Feel free to post your own however.  The more the merrier.

That being said, here we go.

• What can you hide in a tooth?
• A death ray that feels like a gust of hot air. Once someone crosses it, they’ll die, but no one can see it.
• If you stop feeling a part of your body, it stops existing.
  One word– Shape shifters.
• By now, everyone has secrets–the kind of secrets that’ll cost a man his life.

So, there are my five ideas. Hopefully, I’ll get more next month. And maybe…. i’ll remember to write more down, because I know I had more.