Writing Prompts

corellion
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How's about a thread for writing prompts. The idea being to use Wikiquote's random-page feature, taking four quotes and using them to birth a story. For instance, on a trial run, (it's unimportant who said them):

 

  • Life in this society being, at best, an utter bore and no aspect of society being at all relevant to women, there remains to civic-minded, responsible, thrill-seeking females only to overthrow the government, eliminate the money system, institute complete automation and destroy the male sex.
  • It is impossible to carry the American people along with you on a program of caution to forestall a threatening position.
  • And above all, Fascism, the more it considers and observes the future and the development of humanity quite apart from political considerations of the moment, believes neither in the possibility nor the utility of perpetual peace... War alone brings up to its highest tension all human energy and puts the stamp of nobility upon the people who have the courage to meet it.
  • You know who I am?! I'm William Tiberius Shatner!

 

There's four quotes, three are very powerful political statements and the last is something William Shatner said whilst drunk. It's actually kind of fun doing this, even if you're just coming up with story ideas doing it rather than writing. But writing is important. I imagined a story in which the women revolted and men had to shackle them down to use as breeders because they were constantly frothing at the mouth and the sort. And William Tiberius Shatner was president. But yeah, along those lines. Give it a try at least. Wikiquote can be found here.

 

Here's another from me, whilst I'm doing it.

 

  • If anybody really believed the things I did on stage, they wouldn't clap, they'd scream.
  • Happiness sneaks through a door you didn't know that you left open.
  • I've been to Europe once. I don't have to go again.
  • A fresh mind keeps the body fresh. Take in the ideas of the day, drain off those of yesterday.

Sometimes I guess they're quite open ended.
Enjoy regardless. Write.


Posted January 24th, 2008 by corellion

elegantly_bitter
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Re: Writing Prompts

Listening to people conversations in crowded places, on public transport etc. can be very fascinating and offer up some great story bases too. I'm sure you know this though.

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Thu, 01/24/2008 - 10:17

Asgenar
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Re: Writing Prompts

I've also used a Word of the Day and I find a random Flickr image is a good writing prompt, especially for free-writing. Here's a blog post about random flickr viewing, which is interesting. I also like a good Flickr Time.

 

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[I]Gertrude Stein said it best, "To write is to write is to write" you have to do it to do it.[/I]
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Tue, 02/05/2008 - 19:37

Asgenar
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Re: Writing Prompts

http://photo.net/photodb/member-photos?user_id=2231437&include=all

 

Great pictures, inspiriational?

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-Asgenar
[I]Gertrude Stein said it best, "To write is to write is to write" you have to do it to do it.[/I]
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Wed, 02/06/2008 - 17:20

Asgenar
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Re: Writing Prompts

One more:

 

http://tbl.squareamerica.com/archives/2008/02/post_5.html

 

From the blog "The Boat Lullabies"

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[I]Gertrude Stein said it best, "To write is to write is to write" you have to do it to do it.[/I]
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Wed, 02/06/2008 - 19:11

Vanderferret
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Re: Writing Prompts

elegantly_bitter wrote:

Listening to people conversations in crowded places, on public transport etc. can be very fascinating and offer up some great story bases too. I'm sure you know this though.

[br]

Simply watching people in public can also be eye-opening. When I was a teenager, my father and I occasionally went to a mall and sat on one of the benches to watch people as they shopped. To watch their expressions and the things they did when they thought everyone else was too busy to notice. Girls rolling their eyes at the friends they secretly hated; the guilty expression of a boy trying to decide if he'd get caught taking a steel necklace; young parents walking away from their screaming children; a kid thinking he'd be slick and touch a State Trooper's side-arm. Very interesting stuff. Occasionally we would make up stories for them, or dialogue, sort of like a live version of [i]MST3K[/i].[br][br]

I still do this to some degree (though it very rarely involves a mall anymore), and I've gotten some interesting ideas and story snippets from it.[br][br]

Asgenar wrote:

I've also used a Word of the Day and I find a random Flickr image is a good writing prompt, especially for free-writing.

[br]

This is also a great idea, and one I've used fequently. I get a lot of ideas from random images and random words, and from reading headlines.
 


Thu, 02/14/2008 - 17:00