Llamas As Far As The Eye Can See - 500+ Prompts on Topics for Writers In Search of a Fresh Perspective

By Dollypegs

Prompts can come from anywhere.  Misheard song lyrics, overheard conversations, your own memories, and even lines from antique correspondence can provide

 

interesting ideas.  Everyone has a story, and is a story, and the stories people want to read are, at the root, about themselves.

 

 

Some people's stories are a little odd, and that's a wonderful thing.  Some people's stories are very odd, and that's even better.

 

 

This book of writing prompts is a chance to reach for those stories, to loosen up your creativity in a non-judgemental setting.  They are for practice, for giggles even. 

 

Sometimes you have to get silly before you get serious.

 

• Language: English
• Publisher: The Thousand Doors Publishing LLC
• Release date: May 7, 2024
• ISBN: 9798224138579

Dollypegs

Dollypegs has been co-writing the fanfic Rites, Writings, and Ris with Stevie Foxx more or less weekly since 2016.  With over four hundred chapters, it's longer than War and Peace, but a significantly lighter (and funnier) read. Her upbringing in a large, noisy, egregiously ethnic family, and experiences as a newspaper writer and photographer, wallpaper sample maker, and clown for children's parties, have provided more material for this book, and for upcoming fiction projects, than she can ever say (or would care to admit). When not writing, she creates art dolls, tries out recipes far above her skill set, and helps Stevie assemble furniture the wrong way round.

Book preview

INTRODUCTION

Prompts can come from anywhere.  Misheard song lyrics, overheard conversations, your own memories, even lines from antique correspondence can provide interesting ideas.  Everyone has a story and is a story, and the stories people want to read are, at the root, about themselves.

Some people’s stories are a little odd, and that a wonderful thing.

Some people’s stories are very odd, and that’s even better.

This book of prompts is a chance to reach for those stories, to loosen up your creativity in a nonjudgmental setting.  They are for practice, for giggles even.  Sometimes you have to get silly before you get serious.

A lot of the following ideas start ‘in medias res’, dropped right into the action, but the nature of the action is up in the air.  You could use these prompts as raw ideas, for first lines, or at the middle of the story, or at the end.

Mind out for the entrails. could blast off in so many directions.

The best part of using this book is there are no rules.

No rules, no mistakes, no way to screw this up, no trap door to open under your feet if you dangle your participle just this once.

If you aren’t already in the middle of producing the Great (Fill In the Blank) Novel, but aspire to it, you could use this book for daily exercises.  Applying the seat of the pants to the chair, and all that.

If you have the urge, you could use these prompts to inspire the Great (Fill in the Blank) Novel.

Or maybe you have a whim to jot down a ficlet.

Or you could be that one-shot-AU-every six-months fanfic writer looking for something fresh to toss out into the world.  What if there weren’t one or two beds, but three?

The more you write, the more fluid your writing will become.  The more enjoyment you get our of writing, the more enjoyment the reader will get from your writing, even if - especially if - you’re writing for yourself.

Please note: English has a limited number of useful pronouns, so feel free to mix, match, or invent pronouns for any of these prompts.

GRUESOME SCENARIOS

These were the most fun to create.  Perhaps it’s best not to think about that closely.

IT’S BEEN RAINING BLOOD for the past two days.  I don’t think the windshield wipers will help.

We’ll just mop up your brains from the shop floor, and then you can go.

When you said you were dead inside, I didn’t think you meant it literally.

Well, here are his shoes.  His feet aren’t still in them, so that’s a plus.

He was awful chatty for a guy with a fork jutting out of his head.

She spat out her last tooth at his feet.

He hunkered down on the floor, wrist-deep in his brother’s chest.

They do trepanning on the weekends.

He reached up and popped his eye back into its socket.

Going to a kid’s birthday party at the Villisca Axe Murder House

He had the sense to find the finger and put it on ice.

He kicked the head out of his way, happy it wasn’t his own.

Or

He kicked the head out of