Writerly Prompts

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After much deliberation, you and your spouse have decided to adopt a child. You find an agency, fill out the requisite paperwork, and after months of anxious waiting, you are finally cleared to bring your precious new infant son home. Things proceed quite well at first, but as the months go on, things get strange. Your child is developing motor skills beyond his age, crying louder than any baby you’ve ever heard, and after three months he’s begun to sprout hair all over his body. Turns out he’s monkey.

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PHOTO PROMPT FRIDAY

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Write “The Great American Novel.”

Literally just those four words, repeating for nearly two-hundred pages. Submit it as a sample when applying to an MFA program, and when pressed assert that its satirical metacommentary.

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Write a story set in a fantasy world based on Victorian England. It must take place entirely in your analogue for Western Europe, and maintain the contentious race and gender politics of its time, presented completely without commentary. Y’know, for historical accuracy.

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Write a story in which every sentence is written in a different language. If you run out before the story is done, just make up some new ones.

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The people of your land have long been oppressed within a cast system based on the Super Smash Bros. Melee(2001) tier list. Consorting with those more than a tier’s length away from you is frowned upon—romance is not tolerated at all. One day however, you, a humble Roy turnip farmer, catch the eye of a beautiful Peach heiress in a crowded marketplace. You meet and quickly fall in love, but you know that the gluttonous king and his vulpine armada would never approve of such a union. Will this be your love’s final destination, or is the fire in your heart enough to conquer any fox?

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Scores of allegations of sexual misconduct have been leveled at your most beloved British white man. In a blaze of righteous fury, you snap the funko pop figure of his most famous character and whip it at the far wall of your bedroom. As its shattered remains clatter on the floor, you spot something alarming: circuitry. The kitschy figurine’s friendly exterior was a trojan horse, its beady eyes a pair of HD cameras. Shaken, yet compelled to investigate further you come to the sickening discovery that the same is true of each of the plastic bobbleheads you find.

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Write a fantasy story appropriating a culture you are only familiar with through wikipedia.

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The vast and powerful forces of darkness threaten to tear the universe apart, and you're the only one with the power to stop them. Every 20 minutes you must stop to review a comic book on youtube.

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A lonely, unconventionally handsome English professor feels isolated and alone in this world - that is, until his cycle of ennui is broken by a spunky, free spirited young student. Will he risk his wife, his career, his entire life, all to chase the one person that makes him feel truly alive?

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An action story in which all combat is replaced with heated rap battles.

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In a world where humans lay eggs... one woman dares to give live birth.

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Everyone is bobbleheads.

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One day you discover that you can only speak in quotes falsely attributed to Mark Twain. This never actually poses a meaningful challenge in your day to day life.

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You are graduating from a prestigious film school with high marks, a solid reel, and an internship lined up. At the graduation ceremony the valedictorian approaches the podium. The crowd is silent. All eyes are on him. He clears his throat, take a deep breath, leans into the microphone, and states that he doesn’t actually care for Quentin Tarantino that much. I mean, like, he’s fine, but he’s kinda self indulgent, and he prefers his earlier, more reigned in work like Jackie Brown. The crowd erupt into a cacophony of ape-like howls and screeches; all except for you. You agree.

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Tyler the Creator

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While hunting in the mountains, a young farm boy stumbles across a strange stone which catches his eye, and takes it home. After a few months, the stone cracks. It was no stone after all; it was a dragon egg.