Want a dose of inspiration? I'm back with more prompts!
As Adele Gardner, I host Adele's Writers Cafe, which is a live Zoom-only inspiration workshop for micro poetry and prose. These free sessions are made possible by Hampton Public Library. If you're interested, feel free to check out the ongoing collection where you can find past, present, and future workshops in the series (ages 18+, free, but registration required for each individual session via Eventbrite):
https://www.eventbrite.com/cc/adeles-writers-cafe-micro-poetry-prose-3651389
For more details on how these work, as well as additional prompts, feel free to look at Part One in this series.
Here are some more prompts I've created for your enjoyment! As always, feel free to use any part of the prompt, or let it take you in a whole new direction. You can even use these to further explore a character or situation in an existing work in progress.
If it is helpful, try writing something for each prompt for ten minutes with a timer. You may not finish your idea in that time. And you most likely won't get beyond the rough draft stage regardless. But having this short a timer can help us just get our thoughts out there, in some form that we can play with later.
Travel or Transportation: So
many ways to go places, so many places to see! Sometimes we feel a need to get
away, find a chance of scene, or simply a change of mind. Think about traveling
in the mind’s eye through books, media, and/or the imagination. Or science,
science fiction, or fantasy traveling via portals, teleportation, space shuttle,
interstellar ship, or tesseract. Or physically visiting another place on Earth
near or far (as near as another room in the house; as far as the next universe
or beyond); it might be a visit to family or friends, a road trip, or a daily
commute. Will you stay in a haunted hotel? Imagine any form of conveyance,
ancient, modern, or futuristic.
Time Shenanigans: We all need more time, don’t we?
Explore time’s impact—or our impact on time. Have fun with time travel, time
loops, déjà vu, past lives, alternate versions of characters in
the multiverse when time branches off through different decisions or
circumstances. How about the effects of relativity? Or time passing at a
different speed for people on different worlds? Humans may experience time
moving too slow or too fast—and sometimes we can change our own perceptions of
time, living in the Now. Explore your connections to time, including how you
want to spend it.
Pets: The creatures we cohabit with change our
lives. There are so many types of pets, historical, modern, and otherworldly;
maybe your character chose one, or maybe the pet chose them. Pets can reflect
personalities, but also influence them. Maybe the character defines themselves
by these pets and wouldn’t live without that type of pet; or maybe this is a
reluctant (though caring) pet-parent who made an exception in an otherwise
pet-free life.
Missing: Is your character missing someone
or something? This could be the emotion of longing for something or someone
currently at a distance or out of reach, or the actual fact of someone or
something being lost. The character might feel they are missing part of
themselves but not be sure what the missing piece is. Or they might be hunting
for something specific, or trying to reclaim a part of themselves temporarily
lost by the wayside.
Family dynamics: Your protagonist has great powers—be they magical, scientific, superpowered, or as part of a pantheon or mythology. Write a letter from their point of view to a parent or sibling, providing insight into the familial relationship and a greater understanding of the protagonist.
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Adele Gardner's poetry collection Halloween Hearts is available from Jackanapes Press:
https://www.jackanapespress.com/product/halloween-hearts
Themes of Halloween, horror, Edgar Allan Poe, and Ray Bradbury. The press has seasonal discounts.
Max Jason Peterson has two stories in the new anthology Coastal Crimes 2: Death Takes a Vacation from Wildside Press.
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