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brightknightie) wrote2023-04-08 11:51 am
brightknightie) wrote2023-04-08 11:51 am
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Some possible brainstormed prompts for FKFicFest '23
I've been brainstorming some possible prompts for ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
fkficfest (nominations open through April 15; any community member may nominate). Some of these are wholly my own imagining; others are based on Google-searching "great short story prompts."
If any happen to appeal to you, please do feel free to take or modify and use or submit them! If you've already got yours set, and you see how some of these could be better, please let me know.
Some personal favorites so far:
Not good for a common prompt in a fest, but could make a good story in the right circumstances in the right authors' hands:
a "metaphor of the week" parallels Nick's conviction that he should be human, and Lacroix's rejection of that conviction, with a trans character's experiences
fkficfest (nominations open through April 15; any community member may nominate). Some of these are wholly my own imagining; others are based on Google-searching "great short story prompts."If any happen to appeal to you, please do feel free to take or modify and use or submit them! If you've already got yours set, and you see how some of these could be better, please let me know.
Some personal favorites so far:
- a minor or original character must step up and fill in for a major character
- the first thing that happens is that a canonical character dies
- didn't expect to run into that person at the party
- unexpectedly wakes up in the trunk of a car
- forced to stay home
- keeps coming across the same stranger
- two characters switch bodies [a la Freaky Friday]
- a character is aware that he/she/they are in a story and/or have an audience [a la She-Hulk]
- day of rest
- waking up to the best news
- retreats to a remote cabin
- lost old letter finally reaches a reader
- in a packed storage unit
- an unusual photograph turns up during research
- a deep fear holds a character back
- dead body at a house party
- brush with fame
- something we don't usually show visitors
- here, put on a mask
- disowned heir
- decluttering
- all suspects point to each another
- murdered after a company retreat
- the victims had the same taxi driver months before
- an elderly person suddenly confesses to a series of murders
- a virtuoso musician is found dead
- the night before an important social function
- Try again; concentrate; it won't be easy.
- Are you sure you want to do this?
- an antique locket
- Why does that person look familiar?
Not good for a common prompt in a fest, but could make a good story in the right circumstances in the right authors' hands:
a "metaphor of the week" parallels Nick's conviction that he should be human, and Lacroix's rejection of that conviction, with a trans character's experiences
no subject
"A minor or original character must step up and fill in for a major character" sounds really interesting to me, as does the unexpected meeting at a party one.
The Freaky Friday trope is such an invitation for shenanigans. :D Just read the one with the enchanted moccasins that switched Nick and Lacroix a while ago. I think it was from Shelly(?). Such a good take on it.
"Here, put on a mask" also inspires quite a plethora of possible plots. I'm really looking forward to seeing which ones you'll choose.
Happy Holidays!
no subject
The one FK use of the Freaky Friday trope that I always remember off the top of my head was a crossover between the original Nick Knight pilot and first-season Forever Knight, in which the two Nicks woke up in each other's realities. Many things happened, but the nicest that I recall were that our FK Nick got a lot out of talking frankly with Jack (the NK reality's Natalie) and the NK Nick fell in love with Natalie (our FK reality's Jack).
Happy holidays to you, too!
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The crossover one sounds like loads of fun! Might try to find it. :D
no subject
no subject
I remember, a billion years ago, James had a piece in which an OC vampire kept "coincidentally" needing shelter and Nick kept rescuing him with the Caddy's trunk, and it turned out that this was the OC vampire's very unusual method of flirting with Nick -- needing to be rescued and to share a trunk.
Still pondering. I see a split between prompts I'd best like to write and to read :-) not to mention what others will want to vote for. ;-)
no subject
As for the ones you have here: I think some of them are a bit specific. For example, "dead body at a house party" certainly describes the classic country house murder à la Agatha Christie and her peers. The obvious North American equivalent would be to relocate to a "weekend at a summer cabin". But might one substitute some other situation with a self-limitingly small set of suspects, such as a convention, school lock-down, Greyhound bus trip, or such? I mean, does it have to be a party per se?
I guess my question is how closely the interpretation needs to cleave to the prompt.
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Think of it like the old N&Npack Christmas challenges of 3 things to incorporate into a story; as long as you fit in, say, the sled, the cocoa, and the snowglobe in any way at all -- well, any pro-N&N way, of course :-) -- you'd satisfactorily fulfilled their challenge; you could put all three things into a TV commercial the characters saw at the airport on their way to Hawaii, if you wanted to. You didn't have to build your plot closely around the challenge elements, though you could if you wanted to, and most of them usually did.
To successfully transpose "dead body at a house party" to a Greyhound bus trip, perhaps one would want to make one of the characters say a line of dialogue to make the transfer pointed for readers to recognize...? "This is just like that house party I read about in that Agatha Christie novel" would do it, I imagine...?
House parties: Not at all important, but my understanding of the breadth of the term "house party" seems perhaps out of alignment with yours...? My understanding of the term runs through, in addition to, of course, the house parties in Agatha Christie novels, also those in Jane Austen's novels, Rex Stout novels, and all the way back to Boccaccio's Decameron, plus the series of "House Party" movies that started in the '90s and ran into the '00s, and, well, here's a Google news search of recent news articles containing the term "house party," with headlines from "Lincoln Police make arrest in house party homicide" to "My neighbour invited the whole street to a house party except me." In recent years, young people have taken to renting out AirB&Bs and holding very destructive house parties in them; I'm pretty sure young people have been doing that forever, just in varied ways by era, class, and location.
Brainstorming: Most brainstormed ideas do not make the final cut. :-) I did not mean in any way to imply that all of these are worth using. My apologies for any misunderstanding.
no subject