art blog(derogatory)
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official daine visual archive
Not today Justin
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if i look back, i am lost
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almost home
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Stranger Things
"I'm Dorothy Gale from Kansas"
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YOU ARE THE REASON
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@shortfictionweeklychallenge
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So many prompts to choose from. What can we find in the archive today?
Bad Advice: What’s the worst advice your character received? Something so patently wrong they disregarded it immediately and questioned the giver’s sanity or intelligence? Something they thought was valid but proved less so in practice? Something they fervently believed in until their own repeated experiences made them change their mind? Write about your character and some colossally bad advice.
Short Fiction Weekly Challenge
Friday Nostalgia Prompts from Short Fiction Weekly Challenge! Enjoy!
Lost!: Really, really lost. So far off course that they don’t know where the course is, let alone how to get back on it. The compass is gone or broken. The sun or stars are hidden behind the clouds. The radio dead or not receiving signal. How did your character get into this situation? Is is real--as in they are physically lost? Is it metaphorical--they’re in a completely unfamiliar situation with no idea how to get out of it. Most importantly: how are they getting home?
Panic Mode: What event sends your character into a panic? Is it an actual, obvious threat to life and limb, or something more existential? Is it a situation they know sends them into a panic, or is their reaction a surprise even to themselves? What is it they’re afraid of? Is their panic justified? Can they avoid the situation or must they face it? Will anyone help, and how?
The Road to Recovery: After a serious injury (or intentional surgery) there’s recovery time. It’s not downtime--your character is healing! So what does that healing look like? Are they surrounded by supportive friends and family and healers? People making sure they’re well-taken-care-of and that their injury heals properly? Are they rushed back into the field before they're ready, for any number of reasons? Does the injury heal badly, whether due to incompetence, ignorance, or malice? What parts of recovery are the most difficult for them? What permanent effects do they have, physical or psychological, and how do they deal with them?
Ten Years Ago Today
A decade of prompts from Short Fiction Weekly Challenge.
Week of July 3, 2015
Sight: Humans are a visually-oriented species, so sight is one of the easiest senses to evoke in a story and most writers use it automatically. We describe how a room looks or our character’s physical appearance. We tell the reader what our character sees. It is the most basic scene setting tool. This week’s challenge: make the character’s vision a central part of your story. Having trouble? Take it away. Maybe it’s too dark to see. Maybe they’re temporarily blinded. Maybe they’ve always been blind. Experiment!
SFWC Blast from the Past!
This week’s Blast from the Past prompt:
Trigger Warning--Everyone--every character--has strong feelings about something. The old standby is “don’t discuss politics or religion” but there are many other options. What sets off your character? What’s that one topic they have to argue about? What’s their position and why? Is it rational? Was it learned and never questioned? This week, push one or more of your character’s buttons.
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So many prompts to choose from. What can we find in the archive today?
Giving Up: No way! Your character would never give up! That’s what makes their struggle, their story, so good, right? But they do have to give up some things, don't they? If nothing else, a life that might not make a very interesting story, but a good life nonetheless. Maybe the essence of their story is giving up. Maybe they give up toxic beliefs and become a better person. Maybe they realize that the course they set out on isn’t going to work out the way they thought. Maybe they see that the person they’ve been pursuing romantically is never going to love them back. Write about a time when your character gave up--and it was good for both them and your story that they did.
Short Fiction Weekly Challenge
Friday Nostalgia Prompts from Short Fiction Weekly Challenge! Enjoy!
Loyalty: True loyalty is a complex subject. Essentially, someone puts your character’s well-being equal to or exceeding their own. It doesn’t mean agreeing with everything your character says or does, but offering a different perspective when warranted. It contains elements of being a friend and a lover, without necessarily sharing the more intimate or personal components of those relationships. Though, one hopes that friends and lovers are also loyal. Perhaps this is why betrayal hurts so much; the one who had your character’s back had a knife all along. Other times we mistake a loyal character leaving for betrayal, when in fact they can no longer bear to watch someone they care about self destruct. Consider who’s loyal to your character this week, to whom your character owes loyalty, why, and what might happen to change those dynamics.Â
Teachers and Heroes - Everyone has someone they look up to, or someone who's taught them something important. Or a hero that they strive to be like. Who does your character admire and look toward when they're not sure what to do? Who has had an impact on making them the person they are today?
Dodged a Bullet: Unless your character is Neo from The Matrix or a Jedi (or Sith), it’s unlikely they’ve literally dodged a bullet. What about a metaphorical one? Most often, these situations are avoided by luck or unrelated actions, not by foresight. What close calls have they had? What situation could have turned out disastrous but didn’t, and why? Whether it’s a big deal, like a planetary lockdown your character narrowly avoids, or a minor one like an outbreak of food poisoning at the restaurant your character decided not to go to at the last minute, when has your character dodged a bullet? And if it applies, go ahead and explore the literal meaning as well!
Ten Years Ago Today
A decade of prompts from Short Fiction Weekly Challenge.
Week of June 26, 2015
I Dare You!: Few phrases in the English language have gotten people into more trouble, except possibly “Hey watch this!” So how about your character? Do they feel obliged to accept any dare? Do they dare others? Or do they regard the whole concept as ridiculous, an excuse to overrule common sense in exchange for a fleeting moment of acceptance or popularity? I dare you to write about it.
SFWC Blast from the Past!
This week’s Blast from the Past prompt:
Birthdays–Does your character celebrate their birthday? What do they do? Have a big party or an intimate gathering with a few close friends? Or do they hope no one notices? Perhaps they eternally claim some age they like the best, whether it’s a birthday past or one yet to come. Maybe they neither know nor care. Living another year might not mean much to them. Maybe they mark a day of different personal significance. Or maybe a significant other throws a surprise party whether your character wants it or not. Consider birthdays this week, and what they mean for your character.
Searching...
So many prompts to choose from. What can we find in the archive today?
Travel Without A Map: This one is easy for those habitual pantsers out there. Write a scene or a whole piece without having any (or as little as possible) preconceived idea of where it’s going. Let your characters tell the story they want to tell. They might surprise you! Write the whole thing, beginning to end. Don’t go back and change things! Not even typos! Or try not to fix typos--that’s hard. The goal this week is a word-vomit, totally unplanned draft that nevertheless is complete of itself. Travel without a map or GPS, but do make it home at the end.
Short Fiction Weekly Challenge
Friday Nostalgia Prompts from Short Fiction Weekly Challenge! Enjoy!
Extreme Weather: Characters living on starships or hermetically-sealed habitats usually don’t have to worry about weather. But most characters dwell in places where weather--especially extreme weather--is very much a concern. Suppose a freak hailstorm wipes out the crops? Or a warm spring melts the mountain snow too soon, flooding everything and leaving no water for the summer? Wildfires burning through grasslands, forests, and towns? Strong seas make water transport and fishing impossible? Volcanoes have both local and immediate effects as well as long-term and global ones. Smoke, ice, flood, rain, tornadoes, maybe solar prominences or meteor storms. Write about your character living through and dealing with wild weather.Â
Bus Stop: How did your character meet their Love Interest? Blind date? Friend-of-a-friend? Co-worker? Professional matchmaker? Your world's equivalent of a dating app? Chance meeting at a bus stop? This week, tell the story of how they met.
Closure: When has your character known it’s over? Whatever events disrupted their lives (you know, the ones that make for interesting stories) are done and there aren’t any more surprises lurking around the corner. It could be the end of a chapter or the end of the story, or the calm between storms. But there is a sense of closure and completeness. How does your character recognize that moment? Do they? Do they enjoy the respite, or are they too worried about the next crisis? Do they recognize it only in hindsight? What do they do, and where do they go from here?
Ten Years Ago Today
A decade of prompts from Short Fiction Weekly Challenge.
Week of June 19, 2015
Best Buddies: Does your character have a best friend? The one they’d like to hang out with just for fun, whether fun is cross-country skiing on Hoth or downing shots in a Nar Shaddaa Huttball cantina? The person who completed their sentences long before they met their significant other? Maybe became their significant other? Did your character stay in touch? Have they grown apart or away, the friendship almost remembered, but not quite important enough to restart? This week, write about your character being with, losing, forgetting, or reconnecting with their best buddy.
SFWC Blast from the Past!
This week’s Blast from the Past prompt:
Sleeping Rough: Has your character ever been without a safe place to sleep? No money for a room, no one to share with, lost (urban or wilderness), or run away? Was it part of a training exercise, experiment, or mission and therefore only temporary? Was it indefinite, desperate, with no alternative and no end in sight? Was it voluntary and, despite the difficulties, still preferable to the situation they left behind? Have they been fortunate enough to never worry about housing, and how do they react toward another in poorer circumstances? This week, consider your character sleeping rough.
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So many prompts to choose from. What can we find in the archive today?
Breaking Point: At some point, your character will have hit their breaking point. The last straw, crossed the line, they’ve had it with something, someone, or some situation, and aren’t going to put up with it anymore. Something has to change--so what is it? Mundane: the last straw with a job they hate. Relatable: their SO doing that thing (you know, that one thing). A larger issue that requires recruiting others who’ve also hit their breaking point, or a tiny one like the takeout place getting their food wrong for the last time. Write about your character reaching their breaking point and what they change in response.
Short Fiction Weekly Challenge
Friday Nostalgia Prompts from Short Fiction Weekly Challenge! Enjoy!
Dear John: before breaking up via text was a thing there was the "Dear John” letter. Has your character written one? Received one? Breakups are never easy. The letter (or text) means one person doesn't have to face the raw emotions (and possibly violence) of the other. So what would your character write, or what did their letter say?Â
Discovery - In our characters' journeys, we make some surprising discoveries. Sometimes they're things about ourselves or our friends, other times they're discoveries about the world around us. Either way, they usually take us by surprise.Â
The Other Big One: Retcon a Canon Character Death, or Resurrect a Canonically Dead Character: They didn’t deserve to die. They were fridged to further another character’s story. Their death was pointless. Their death was dramatic and appropriate--but what if they lived? A character you like. A character you hate--but they’re fun to write and died just when they were getting interesting. Maybe they’re now undead: a vampire, zombie, ghost, or ghoul. Whoever it is, how and why they died in canon doesn’t matter. This week, someone lives (or comes back from the dead).
Ten Years Ago Today
A decade of prompts from Short Fiction Weekly Challenge.
Week of June 12, 2015
You Were the Chosen One! Or Were You?: Game stories often cast your character as The Chosen One, the One destined to Fix All The Problems. But not every character fits that trope, and not every one should. Does yours? Or not? Emphatically not? Or maybe they are, but not in the way anyone hoped. Bringing balance to the Force by reducing its practitioners to two Dark and Two Light certainly fulfills the prophecy, but probably wasn't what Yoda expected. Where does your character fall on the Chosen One continuum? How do they show that in their story?
SFWC Blast from the Past!
This week’s Blast from the Past prompt:
It Takes Two: Write a story in two parts. Use any previous prompt (or pair of prompts) or choose your own topic. The reason for the division is up to you. Switch perspectives, follow a different character, or leave the reader with a cliffhanger. Publish on successive days or in separate posts. Each section can be any length but they can’t stand alone! They must need each other to be complete.
Searching...
So many prompts to choose from. What can we find in the archive today?
Self Care: Write the kind of scene you need to write or read. Not necessarily the next one to finish your fic. The kind you need to write: fluffy happiness, cathartic violence, something silly, something deep and philosophical, something satirical and full of sharp cutting edges. This is for no one but you. There’s no obligation to share it with anyone, even SFWC. And if you prefer, take the week off and write nothing. Recharge. You have permission. Take care of yourself this week, however that looks to you.