After spending a good amount of time searching for writing prompt resources for my Writing Exercises category and not finding what I really wanted, I’ve decided to create my own writing prompts. Actually, I’m calling them Story Prompts since I added a few words or phrase to begin the story with. I’ve also set the main character, archetype, narrative, place and mood for each story prompt. I’m still playing with the concept and it may change as I continue adding story prompts. Each prompt is generated randomly but since I only have 8 prompts thus far, it’s likely my readers will see the same prompt if they visit the story prompts page often. Refreshing the page will bring up another prompt. Just click on Random Story Prompts to go to the story prompt page.
This little project was fun to create and I will be adding more prompts as time permits. If anyone wants to add a prompt or has an idea for writing/story prompts or uses one of my prompts to create a story with, please leave a comment. I’m open to any and all ideas.
Hi Glo,
I recently found myself wallowing in a writer’s funk (less of a block, more like a quagmire). My biggest problem came when none of my standard prompts could make it change. I wanted to do something other than the “daily silliness” blog posts…I needed to get into some fiction.
Two things happened. One, I found a group of folks who did a story circle. Each person writes one page of a story, then it gets passed to the next person, who reads it, and adds a page. It’s a fun way to write, although it helps to make sure everyone can complete their page within the allotted. The challenge with this is you only have as many pages to complete the story as you have people in the group. So each story must begin, build, climax, and conclude through the chain of writers.
Second, I learned that Tarot cards can be used to formulate a story. Make up a layout that makes sense and go from there. The first two cards are the main characters, then subsequent cards form their personalities, situations they may be in, and how they respond to said situations. I realize Tarot cards aren’t for everyone, but you could almost do the same thing with photographs and a word jar.
(Now I should go check out what you have in your prompts and hope I didn’t duplicate anything!)
Karen
Thanks for stopping by and providing some excellent information. I think using Tarot cards is a great idea, not one I haven’t thought of myself. I also think using visual aids would be a great way to help inspire the creative mind. I have one I think I’m going to use in as story prompt, or I think I have it somewhere. I did a sketch of it when I was doing the art thing and the image still lingers in my mind. There’s definitely a story in that image.
Have you heard of or explored flash fiction? It’s an interesting concept and it appears to be gaining in popularity. There’s a writers site that I’m going to write about that does a form of flash fiction every Saturday night. It’s an intriguing concept.
I’ve heard of flash fiction, but I’ve yet to get a definition of it that allows me to wrap my little pea brain around it. Now I’m looking forward to reading your article about it.
Karen
I was involved in a Flash Fiction blogging group. It fell apart quickly, but I’d love to try again.
Here’s one of my entires and the rules I had to follow:
http://asland.blogspot.com/2005/03/flash-fiction-challenge-5-wake-up_22.html
Where are your random writing prompts? I don’t see it on the Writing Exercises page. Did you write the script in PHP?
Michelle, thanks for stopping by and leaving a message. My writing prompts are linked to right above this post. Just click on the “Random Story Prompts”. I guess I need to make that more clear somehow.
The script is in php but I didn’t write it, I just did a little hacking to make it do what I wanted or close to what I wanted it to do.
I haven’t looked at your link on the flash fiction but will as soon as possible. I think flash fiction is an exciting concept and could be used in a variety of creative ways. When I have some extra time, I will do a writeup of flash fiction and the ways it is currently being used. I didn’t know anyone had tried to do it via a blog flash fiction group. That sounds like a great idea. Wonder why it didn’t last?
I finally found the writing prompt link. I thought it was a header.
The flash fiction group I was in probably fell apart because it was organized by one person and it was dependent on him to come up with the prompts. It’s also harder to do the stories than it initially looks, but as I said, I’d love to try it again.
This is an example of one of the assignments:
1. Maximum length: 250 words.
2. The theme is: power
3. The time is: 1968
4. Within the story, you must use this text: “all due respect.”
Can you tell me where you got the original PHP script? I had tried to come up with a flash fiction prompt generator that would spit out assignments like the one above, but I gave up. Initially I tried to modify the scripts from the Seventh Sanctum site:
http://www.seventhsanctum.com/index-writ.php
I’m pretty sure I found it on http://www.hotscripts.com/. There is a link in the script but it doesn’t work, meaning there is no script on the page linked to. I’ll email the script to you if the email you are using when commenting is correct. However, I think the one you tried would be better for how you want to use a script. What kind of problems did you have with the script? Were you able to install the script on your blog?
I downloaded the Word-Based PHP Generator from the link you provided. Is that the one you tried to use? I will look at it when I get a chance and see what it can do.
Edited to add: I took a look at the script you were trying to use and it’s probably not a good script for what you want to do. If you want the one I’m using, leave a comment here and I will send it to you.
Yes, please send me the script. I need all the help I can get. Thanks!
Hi,
I wonder if my own blog might help some readers here with their own writing.
READING ON WRITING at www.editorialdepartment.com discusses the nuts and bolts of a different great short story every week. Each entry unpacks key guidelines for the craft of fiction writing. Readers of the blog write in with their own observations about what makes that week’s story tick and how it might shed some light on their own writing techniques. It’s a wonderful way to learn with others about how to read and how to write.
Please visit READING ON WRITING at www.editorialdepartment.com every week. I’d love to hear from you! Here’s the link:
www.editorialdepartment.com/content/blogcategory/33/181/
Kevin
I already have the Editorial Department listed in my resource directory under Novel Writing and I wrote about the book Self Editing For Fiction Writers almost a year ago. The Editorial Department is a great resource for writers and I encourage my readers to visit the site.
Thanks for dropping by and commenting.
I have search your site and can find no link for “Random Story Prompts” did you remove it?
Steve, I’m sorry, I did take it down because it quit working for some reason and I haven’t had the time to mess with it. I will try to get it back up this weekend.
The best way to stop spam would be to spend some time in moderating the comments persoanlly rather than relying on any captchas. You can go to the other extreme of not allowing anyone to comment - but then the whole essence of sharing information is lost. At least Yahoo and MSN rewards the commentators with relevant backlinks, so that is a reward which many spammers like to go for.
Tom, I’m not sure why you chose to comment on comment spam here. I don’t have a captcha on this blog and this post doesn’t refer to any kind of spam. But since you did, lets talk about the facts.
Yahoo and MSN both honor the no-follow tag and WordPress comes with the no-follow tag set by default so any spammer looking for a backlink reward will not get one from most WordPress users.
This blog has been online for over three years and I have spent plenty of time moderating comment spam but when you wake up one morning to more then 50 comment spam comments waiting for you in moderation, you will start looking for ways to divert the idiots. I have been very successful at sending there spam into oblivion, it never reaches my eyes, let alone the eyes of my readers.
Now I’m wondering if you came here from Maria’s blog, Silver Fox Whispers? Where I did implement a captcha because of all the spam landing in her moderation cache. While her readers never saw the spam, she had to look at it and it was exceptionally disgusting. The captcha was the only option since I can not upgrade her blog because of some of the plugins she uses. It’s working for now but if it ever stops working she may be forced into having to let go of her favorite plugins and opt for an upgrade.
Tom, moderating all comments will only keep readers from having to see the spam, it will not stop the spam from coming because spammers are idiots. It’s tricky to allow your users the ease of use and still stop the spam from reaching your moderation cache but it can be done.