brightknightie: Woman typing in an office with other women around her , 1930s (Fanfic workout)
Amy ([personal profile] brightknightie) wrote2024-03-19 08:12 am

On addressing writing prompts

Something I always remind myself of when I'm not immediately clicking with a writing prompt -- that is, when I'm writing for myself or a challenge like FKFicFest, not when I'm gifting to an individual, of course! -- is that it's totally okay to turn the prompt around and around until it blossoms for me. I could straightforwardly fulfill the prompt on its face, or I could make it a red herring, a subversion, a reversal... as long as the end result recognizably shows the prompt's influence.

Just for example, the prompt "an unexpected event leads to chaos" can produce exactly what it says on the tin! Yet it could also produce a story centered on a character who fears (or hopes for) that outcome, regardless of whether the outcome happens. Or one where a character's meticulous preparations for every eventuality manage to avert chaos, or a character's overconfidence or carelessness results in a completely expected event causing chaos. The unexpected event and the chaos could be from a story within the story: a book or movie or play or game the characters enjoy. The event and the chaos could be tiny, local, personal, domestic, or enormous, global, social, public. Maybe everyone except the character totally expected the event, or maybe the character is the only one who expected it, and everyone else is taken by surprise. Or maybe only the character views the result as chaos, and everyone else finds it quite orderly, or vice versa.

:-) How do you brainstorm with writing prompts?

senmut: modern style black canary on right in front of modern style deathstroke (Default)

[personal profile] senmut 2024-03-19 05:07 pm (UTC)(link)
I read the prompts. I determine if any of them speak heavily to a muse I am capable of writing. Then I look at the mechanics inherent to the prompt - straight reading, subverted, ironic -- and decide how to craft the fic to reach the meaning that speaks loudest.
thefruitbat: Friutbat (Default)

[personal profile] thefruitbat 2024-03-19 08:36 pm (UTC)(link)
I start by reading all the prompts, and then I let my mind linger on them, one after the other, and see what my mind associates with each of them, and how it interprets the prompts. Sometimes It comes up with a small idea for one of them, but quite often it tries to combine them, and make two or even three main plot points of a story. Then I jot down the ideas, and maybe it ends up as an entire story, or it's just a small scene.
Right now, my brain has trouble with Life Things, so everything is a bit slow, but I'll try not to push it and give it time to mull the prompts over. There's an idea or two, but nothing yet that makes me say, "that's it!" I'm glad that there's still two months to go. :)
thefruitbat: Friutbat (Default)

[personal profile] thefruitbat 2024-03-20 03:17 pm (UTC)(link)
Thank you! :)
pj1228: Lacroix (Default)

[personal profile] pj1228 2024-03-19 09:49 pm (UTC)(link)
Like [personal profile] thefruitbat I let my mind linger on one prompt for a day and then another. While doing so, I turn it around and try to find a setting and characters associated with it. This works best while driving a long distance, which hasn't happened yet.
Right now, I have attached a setting to one prompt, but no storyline has come out of it yet.
switchbladeeyes: (Default)

[personal profile] switchbladeeyes 2024-03-19 11:49 pm (UTC)(link)
Brainstorm the permutations of the prompts on their meanings (there are a lot of possibilities!) and try to think how that would apply in a story context. Sometimes inspiration just strikes. (Not yet for me though!)

Also, I'm looking through and combining winning prompts with non-winning prompts and seeing if the combo resonates. Gives me some new perspectives to think on. Combining was something [personal profile] nicholas_lucien commented on during the voting. Helpful for brainstorming!
celli: a woman and a man holding hands, captioned "i treasure" (Default)

[personal profile] celli 2024-03-19 11:50 pm (UTC)(link)
I normally hijack a friend and make them "break" the story with me - if I don't have a solid good idea, we do sort of the same thing, try a bunch of different takes on it until something sticks.