Your Writing Prompt Is To Write A Writing Prompt

Short one today, peeps. For today is the MIGHTY WENDIGO NORTH, a day where a nomadic pair of intrepid heroes will brave the soul-crushing rigors of I-95 to wind their way into the territory of the ice-antlered, heart-hungry WENDIGO. Once there, they shall battle the WENDIGO, which is also tantamount to drinking beer with him because that’s a surefire way to calm the WENDIGO’s dread hungers.

Or something like that.

So, first, a quick link: remember, if you’re stuck in the middle of your unfinished novel and you don’t know what to do next, listen to Poppa Doyce. Poppa Doyce says: “Send in the ninjas.”

Second, I had a lot of fun yesterday working up some writing prompts that stank of rampant dipshittery.

And thus, I encourage you to jump on into the fun-bucket.

In the comments below, write your own redonkulous writing prompt.

Keep ‘em short and sweet.

Also keep ‘em funny and, y’know, batshit insane.

Funniest one gets a prize.

That prize is my love and admiration. And a pony. An imaginary pony that I will send via an equally-imaginary pony express. You will also earn +2876 laugh points. That’s a big number. You can trade in those points for all kinds of cool toys. Like a decoder ring. Or some parachuting Army men. Or a working photon pistol. Or the digital services of a slightly-talented-but-you-won’t-write-home-about-it prostitute.

Your writing prompt is to write your own writing prompt.

Go.

23 comments

  • matt

    November 21, 2010 at 8:51 AM // Reply

    “If you were still what you were before you became what you are, how would ‘were-you’ address ‘are-you’ regarding the transformation you made from what you were to who you are? Be specific!”

  • Darren G Miller

    November 21, 2010 at 9:18 AM // Reply

    So, you’re prompting us to write prompts? Then I’ll be prompt.

    You, with all your adult human baggage, libido, knowledge, etc., are trapped in the body of an infant. Describe a day in your life. Then do the same for the infant who is trapped in your body. Be sure to include rabid badgers in both stories. Why? Because nothing says “fun” like rabid badgers.

  • Amber J. Gardner

    November 21, 2010 at 9:42 AM // Reply

    Write the incredible life journey of a poop from the moment of its creation to its adventure down into the sewers or septic tank. Bonus points if you add a romantic subplot between the poop and a piece of used toilet paper.

    Double bonus points if you can write it without throwing up.

  • Keith

    November 21, 2010 at 9:52 AM // Reply

    The agents of QUONT continue their desperate battle with the agents of SCHLUNG! Define the acronyms to discover your protagonists! Deepen the conflit or have the rivals of QUONT & SCHLUNG come together in the end!

    K

    • terribleminds

      November 21, 2010 at 11:23 AM // Reply

      @Amber: Makes me think of SOUTH PARK’s “The Poop That Took A Pee.”

      @Keith: You just made me pee myself a little. Beware: you already have my love and admiration. What would you do with DOUBLE the amount?

      – c.

  • Cam Banks

    November 21, 2010 at 11:26 AM // Reply

    Using only third person narrative techniques, explicitly frame all scenes with references to the amoral protagonists’ nasal passage and/or fingertips. Your plot must include the following key elements: SPANIEL, DIRTY LADY WITH FLESH HANDBAG, MOONBASE.

  • lamiaverita

    November 21, 2010 at 12:17 PM // Reply

    A love story filled with passion, violence, peace, harmony and copious amounts of blood lust written through the eyes of the blind heroine. Caveat? 500 words or less and absolutely no characters touching.

  • Christopher Gronlund

    November 21, 2010 at 12:18 PM // Reply

    You guys are cracking me up! (And I actually want to run with DeAnna’s prompt.)

    Here’s my contribution:

    She’s a recently paralyzed barrel racer in a rodeo. He’s the last of the centaurs. Your writing goal? Make their love story bigger than Twilight.

  • Heidi

    November 21, 2010 at 12:29 PM // Reply

    Is there a god? In a 150 words or less, written from the POV of an ameba buried in the fleshy bosom of an aging burlesque dancer, please prove (or disprove) the existence of the great almighty. Bonus points if you can link the precepts of Buddhist existentialism to the invention of the pastie.

  • Sarah W

    November 21, 2010 at 12:56 PM // Reply

    You’re a piece of gravel in the craw of a prophetic chicken. In the writing style of the Marquis de Sade, discuss parallels between the friction of your physical existence to the farmer’s interpretation of the chicken’s warnings about global nihilism.

    • terribleminds

      November 22, 2010 at 6:25 AM // Reply

      And I think the opening @matt smith one gets my eternal love and adoration.

      @Sarah W’s comes in second, just for straight up weirdness and hilarity.

      Well done, both of you. You may pick up your points and admiration at the door.

      – c.

  • Sheri Blume

    November 21, 2010 at 1:55 PM // Reply

    Write a story about a group of gregorian -chant-singing-monks- turned-rappers who have a run-in with the protestant mafia. Bonus points for writing it in Biblespeak. Extra bonus points if you can work in the protag’s love affair with a unicorn.

  • matt

    November 22, 2010 at 5:57 AM // Reply

    As an addendum to the horror of prompts: I spent a year on the committee that wrote the 10th-grade writing test prompts for NC public schools. Most of these above are better than the first suggestions I remember being thrown around.

  • Rhiannon

    November 22, 2010 at 6:10 AM // Reply

    Elephants. Vampire slayer elephants. Vampire slayer elephants who hunt with the sharpened tusks of their fallen, which they hold in their trunks after using teamwork to fashion them into stakes. And ninjas. Who are really meerkats, and also hunt the same vampires, but do so using telepathy and snake venom-coated darts made from hippo nostril hairs. Must be set in the San Diego Zoo, with extra love awarded to those who can incoporate a sign language-speaking primate priest caste, the word ‘ruffage’, and syphilis. 500,000 words, plus appendix describing the elephant-meerkat geneologies and a complete copy of the Book of the Man-Beast (the gorilla’s holy book), which must be written in sign language pictographs. In Klingon.