I’ve been on the paralyzing train of “so much to talk about, there’s stuff that’s NDA I can’t talk about, I don’t know what to talk about!” So I’m choosing something easy.
Writer’s Dice!
Daniel Solis ran a Kickstarter for Writer’s Dice a couple of months ago, and I bought a bunch for give-aways. I have nine for you guys, and I will give them to nine random people giving comments- I need you to give me a good writing prompt.* And hey, if you need good writing prompts, check out the comment area!
If you’re interested in what to do with your writers’ dice, check out the latest download from Daniel Solis, Using Writers’ Dice in Writing and Game.
*US only, I’m sorry to say. International postage is evil.
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ISBW Endorsed Programs
New from the Murverse- ISBW Special #46 – Stonecoast Writer’s Residency January 31, 2012
- ISBW #230 – Feedback January 30, 2012
- Short Story Alert- Gimme Shelter January 27, 2012
Opening: There were 12,894 moons they could have landed on in the known universe, and she had to land on the one with…
I used to think stopping time was the greatest superpower ever.
She always took her luck for granted, until someone stole it from her.
After all these years we are still divided by a common language and 3,000 miles of ocean. And now the postal charges levied by the US Postal Service.
My heart throbs with longing and solitude and envy at those lucky US residents who are in your favour.
One day I might be able to reciprocate the situation.
“Well, shit. If I had known She was an It I probably wouldn’t have tried to …”
You wake in the middle of a field of grass wearing nothing and clutching a scrap of paper. The paper reads: “Try again” in what appears to be your handwriting.
Think of a time in your life when you were really, blissfully happy. Think of what you were wearing at the time. Now imagine an elephant in those clothes. Someone has to wash the elephant’s clothes. You are that laundry person. What did you have for dinner?
“Riding the land tides may have been dangerous as shit and its concommitant diseases, but it’s the best way to be the first to find the nuggets, and I’m not talking about the ones made of shit.”
Guess that’s really a first line as opposed to a writing prompt, but run with it.
Writing prompts!
1) “Angelica hasn’t been the same since…”
2) Free write for 10 minutes, and make sure to include the words AVUNCULAR, CREPUSCULAR, HOI POLLOI, and GRAPEFRUIT.
3) Your main character can’t carry anything outside the house this week, due to a religious observance. Clothing is fine, but no lifting other objects. How does s/he get anything done?
Are these like Rory’s Story Cubes?
Prompt: There once was a little girl who had an upside-down globe and wore her hair in pigtails.
Oooh! Fun dice! I may drop over to kickstarter and pony up some $$ for such a cool idea
Here’s a writing prompt of sorts, which I read in “What If?” I’ve come up with dozens of ideas by doing it faithfully, as well as improving my general craft:
For the length of a semester, keep an “image notebook.” Every day, record at least one image. (date the entries.) Use all your senses. Ask yourself: What’s the most striking thing I heard, saw, smelled, touched, tasted today? Images begin with precise sensual detail. One day you may overhear a strange bit of conversation, another you may smell something that triggers a memory.
Another day you find a photograph or take one or do a drawing. You might make a collage of words and pictures from magazines. This exercise is very open. Length is variable. Some days you may write a page and others a line. Don’t get behind.
Interesting juxtapositions emerge when you’re not conscious of how many images are colliding. If you do your week’s work all at once, you’ll lose the mystery.
“When Helga agreed to the donate her organs to science, she hadn’t envisioned her liver filtering blood for ailing vampires.”
You and your family wake up one morning surprised to find that all of you have superpowers. What are your powers and how would they affect your current lives? p.s. pets also wake up with superpowers.
I only have one word for all the writing prompts one could ever need.
Dixit.
You hear stories of demons, have nightmares of dragons. But you never see a demon. They don’t exist. So when the lights cut out, and that..thing exploded up from the floorboards, I thought briefly “What the fuck am I looking at?”
I don’t know, just something random. Could be moles. Enjoy.
Take a small amount of food-coloring and put it on a piece of paper. Lay that paper on the table. Now slam your hand on the table, hard enough to scatter some of it. Fold the paper over if you have to, in order to get a more interesting design. Let it dry. Then come back with a black marker, and/or a ballpoint pen: this food-coloring design is now the starting point for the face of your main character or a map of your major location. Doodle on top of it until you have some new ideas, make notes, and then throw this away and start writing down the ideas that came to you.
A prompt inspired by the dice giveaway!
A man is given a set of reality dice. They can change his life randomly (and not always for the better).
Go!
(Hmmmm. I might use that one myself!)
Take a piece of paper and sprinkle some food-coloring on it. Shake the paper from side to side, or have a child blow on it and make squiggles, finger-painting or with a straw. Use this as the inspiration for your setting-map, or your main character’s face. Make notes on this, or elsewhere, based on all the features you see in this “ink blot” and let it inspire you. A particular swirl could be a scar or a tattoo on a character’s nose, or a serpentine mountain pass through a range of tall mountains. Perhaps other shapes could indicate strange lines of power, or electromagnetic forces binding something. Let your imagination freely interpret what you see and don’t censor yourself!
I hope your NDAs come up soon, I’m jonesing for another podcast! Guess I’ll have to get by with the Dead Robots.
Here’s a writing prompt (I actually have a story in mind for this one, but who knows when I’ll get to it…): A woman is driving home late at night, having been on the road for several hours with only one other car ahead of her for “company.” Suddenly a deer jumps out in front of the other car, and the car hits the deer. The woman stops to see if the other driver is okay. A man gets out of the car, obviously a little messed up. He staggers to the back and opens the trunk of the car, and inside is…
You haven’t seen your dad for 7 years. You haven’t talked to your dad for 6 1/2 years. He is dying, probably going to only live a few hours after you get there, but is still lucid. what would you say to him for that 1 hour. What do you want him to say to you?
Where have I seen that goat before?
Oops… I didn’t mean to post twice. My browser wasn’t sending my first comment, so I thought it didn’t go through and I tried again, refining the idea.
“Well, hell, that was…odd.”
It might have been the truest words to come out of her mouth.
With the gun to his head he wasn’t afraid of dying, but he was afraid of…
In hind sight, it doesn’t surprise you that you know a dragon that is terrified of bunnies.
As soon as the man opened the door, I knew he was about to die.
Found in a hollow brick, in a hollow wall, in a burned-out house place, in a far corner of the woods between here and the shore, a twenty six-sided dice, carved from bone, no two alike, and a book of bound parchment. The book is a listing number combinations along with unspeakable names and short paragraphs of explanation. The paragraphs have been mostly entirely obscured by mildew and rot. Seems evident that rolling a certain combination of numbers pertains to one of the entries in the accompanying encyclopedia, but what does it all mean? Also there, a skull of unknown species, and a thin metal devices, with parts that swivel; some sort of unknown protractor, or similar device.
There was an old woman that emerged from the depths of the massive lake. She walks towards you, dripping wet, opens her mouth and says…what?