Why “Idea Prompts”

This is a Prompt for Serious Writers. It’s not for the casual writer who journals for the sheer joy of it. It’s for the advanced writer who is hungry for Ideas they can develop into saleable properties: novellas, magazine articles, plays, columns, TV series, movies…

I started this blog because I was disappointed by the lack of quality Prompt sites that are steadily updated with stimulating topics. The few active sites rely on overly simplistic topics (e.g., Write About Your Best Day Ever, or, Write a Paragraph About Puppies).

Another failing of Writing Prompts is that they’re designed for freewriting, a form of mental idling where the writer merely follows the force of gravity, the pen moving from left to right in a continual parade to the bottom of the page.

I never liked spending my writing time in pointless exercises. If I’m going to write, I want to focus on topics I’m interested in, or topics that I might could easily develop.

That’s why I call this blog My Idea Prompts, not My Writing Prompts. My purpose is to stimulate writers’ Imaginations, as I would want mine stimulated. I’m demonstrating to those who suffer frequently from Writer’s Block that good Ideas can easily be drawn from a wide variety of sources.

Each Idea Prompt will have a little explanation of where I got the idea from, plus some suggestions for developing the Idea further. If you like any of my Ideas, just leave a Comment to tell me you’re going to give it a go.

Good luck!

Pop Culture: Repurposing Fad Products

IMAGINE… finding new uses for fads that have passed their expiration date.

Literary: Musicals Based on Classics

IMAGINE… turning a great classic work into a Broadway Musical

Pop Culture: The Invention of…

IMAGINE… someone other than Ricky Gervais invented the first lie.

Local: The Neighborhood Battlefield

IMAGINE… your neighborhood was the site of an exciting battle.

Genre: Fan Fiction

IMAGINE… writing a ‘lost’ episode of your favorite television series.

Culture: Movie Spinoffs

Idea Prompt for 10/17/2009.

THE SOURCE: Can’t really tell you how I came up with this. It’s just something I’ve done most of my movie-going life.

WHAT WAS I THINKING… Next time you’re watching a beloved movie classic, think about minor characters and what their stories are. What happens to them after they leave the screen?

Why not make them major characters in their own story? I’m not talking about a prequel or sequel, as those words apply to the protagonist. What I’m talking about they do on TV all the time: a spinoff.

IMAGINE… giving your favorite supporting character a movie of their own.

… THE POSSIBILITIES:

Casablanca: After Bogart and Rains fled into exile,“Rick’s” was reopened under new management. Sydney Greenstreet now ran the place, with all the old familiar characters sticking around, including Sam the piano player. The time is just after the Allies land in Africa and the Germans are hurredly preparing to flee.

The Godfather: Tom Hagen has quite a colorful part to play in the Corleone saga. The horse’s head in the bed is worth a separate story all its own. His being the lone non-Italian non-Jew in the family makes him a unique character. You’ll want to fill in Hagen’s backstory when you research the real life mobster that Hagen is patterned after, Murray Humphreys.

Wizard of Oz. From Toto’s point of view. Seriously.

THE EXERCISE: Create a concept for a favorite character in a famous movie. Start with AFI’s Top 100, and look for characters whose stories haven’t yet been fully told.

NOTE: If you’d like to develop these Ideas further, just leave a Comment and share your work.

Quote: “Golden Age Never Was the Present Age”

Idea Prompt for 10/16/2009

THE SOURCE: Prentice-Hall Encyclopedia of World Proverbs, page 167.

What the quotation is saying, in other words, is “There’s no time like the past.”

WHAT WAS I THINKING… Think of the various “Golden Ages” that social historians refer to: the Golden Age of Comics, Golden Age of Hollywood, Golden Age of Porn.

Did you notice that every Golden Age is in the past, not the present? Nobody says “The Golden Age is Now.” (Well, Sports Illustrated has said that, but that was in 1954.)

The sentiment was amusingly presented in a show tune, as the devil from Damn Yankees, lamenting how the good guys seem to be succeeding against his wishes, pined for the “Good Old Days.”

What would you say this is the Golden Age of?

IMAGINE…. a future history that looks back on our present time as the Golden Age.

Just what would this be a golden age of? A future where we look back on the Bush II era as ‘the good old days’. How bad would things have to get for future historians to take that view.

…THE POSSIBILITIES:

CGI Films: Just as the 1940s were the epitome of hand-drawn animation, so, too, will our day be seen as the Golden Age of CGI film. Soon we’ll experience the Hanna-Barberization of Pixar’s craft, all for the sake of saving a couple million bucks.

American Football Running Backs: With talk of longer football seasons, there is an attendant discussion of redesigning training regiments to produce lighter, tighter players who will better withstand the longer season. Rather than scampering around slow, heavy linemen, running backs will soon be running for their lives against equally fleet opponents.

THE EXERCISE: Write a couple paragraphs from a future history outlining just how the early 21^st Century was the “Golden Age…”

NOTE: If you’d like to develop these Ideas further, just leave a Comment and share your work.

Literary: George Jean Nathan

IMAGINE… a farcical slapstick scene dropped right in the middle of a morbidly serious play.

Literary: The Man Without a Country

IMAGINE… how you might update the classic novella “Man Without a Country.”

Prop: Rapier

Idea Prompt for 10/10/2009

SOURCE: Descriptionary: A Thematic Dictionary, page 455. I randomly chose “rapier,” a weapon frequently used in hand-to-hand combat.

WHAT WAS I THINKING… Since it’s the weapon of choice for swashbucklers, how can this cliche be avoided by a writer searching for new ideas? Well, what are some uses for a rapier that don’t involve hurting another person?

Say a collector had a few rapiers hanging on his walls, yet he was short on practical implements around the home. How could he repurpose a rapier to be more useful?

Still, if you want to exercise your mental muscle, stick to a rapier’s original use.

IMAGINE… a swashbuckling fight with rapiers a-flashing!

… THE POSSIBILITIES: Many a Romance novel incorporates hand-to-hand combat, especially with swords, so it’s useful to be familiar with weapons like the rapier.

Research the weapon. Compare some Errol Flynn movies (with relied mostly on foils) with the Richard Lester Musketeer movies (which used rapiers). How does fight choreography change with the difference in arms? What are some basic tactics when dueling with rapiers?

In your writing, describe the sound of steel on steel, how it feels in a person’s hand when striking another’s weapon.

THE EXERCISE: Create three original reasons why two people would engage in a swordfight.

NOTE: If you’d like to develop these Ideas further, just leave a Comment and share your work.