Appreciation post: My old notebook from a rainy weekend in 2021

Found it last week while cleaning. Back then, I wrote a prompt about a character who only speaks in questions, and it kickstarted a whole short story. Anyone have a simple prompt that got out of hand for them?

3 comments

3 Comments

elliot_thompson11d ago

Honestly, I've never had a simple prompt blow up like that. Most of my ideas that start small just fizzle out after a page or two. That whole "sparking a whole story" thing seems like a rare lucky break, not the usual way writing works for most people.

ray_mitchell11d ago

Yeah, tell me about it... I had this one about a guy finding a weird key in a parking lot and I wrote maybe three pages before I just... ran out of road. Feels like you need that perfect storm of an idea, @elliot_thompson, and most of the time the storm just misses you completely.

elizabeth2202d ago

Sounds like you guys are waiting for lightning to strike. In my experience, you gotta be the one holding the metal rod in the storm. That weird key story could still work if you just gave the guy a reason to care about it.