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Featuring everything new and experienced authors need to develop creative and technical skills. Check out writing development articles, our Word of the Day, writing prompts, anthology opportunities and more!

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Prompts

Genres and Tags Prompts

I browsed the various genres and tags the other day and thought how about we go on a writing adventure, step out of our comfort zone, and try new things? PT #119 Your protagonist orders their favorite hot beverage at the coffee shop, stirs it with a strangely formed spoon, and suddenly the place is devoid of any customers. The door opens, and in comes a person wearing black clothes and a Venetian mask. Write the first lines of their conversation, or more? PT #120 Write a letter either as
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February Travels - The People We Encounter

Vacations are always a special treat.  You get time away from your humdrum life, time to recreate yourself and time to expand your horizons.  What a better vacation than to visit a friend in a new place to reconnect and explore.  Let's write some character sketches about the people we see and why.  I'm choosing some challenging scenarios to get writing something uncomfortable.  Good luck!   117 - You are at a resort on a tropical island when suddenly you hear your name.  Looking up, yo
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Beam Me some Prompts

In honor of the latest Readers’ Choice Awards category, I thought it would be nice to feature some prompts based on one of the most difficult genres to write.  Who’s brave enough to tackle some sci-fi?   PT Prompt #116 An archeologist on an expedition to study ancient ruins in the deep rainforest takes a wrong turn and discovers irrefutable proof of alien presence on Earth.  What did they find and what are the implications of the findings?   PT Prompt #117 A m
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Fanfiction Prompts

Think of a favorite book, game, show, or movie. Did you ever want to change something? Be a part of it? PT# 113 Choose a short scene and jump right in, be it as a new/random side character or even one of the MCs. PT # 114 You love a book/game/movie, but you always thought one of the characters chose the wrong love interest. Write a short scene where you hint at a different choice.  
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Let's Go Exploring

Let's do a bit of a flip-flop with today's prompts and push ourselves out of our comfort zones.  In honor of our upcoming Poetry Anthology, I thought it would be fun to feature a couple of prompts that can be used for either poetry or stories.  If you are a poet, then try writing a paragraph, short story, or vignette.  If you are a non-poet, then give writing a short poem or two a try.  The anthology theme is Exploration, so let's explore writing styles that may not be in our wheelhouse.  You ne
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Artful Prompts

Writing is an art that sometimes is inspired by other forms of art, including music, architecture, painting, or sculpture. Pt: 107: Someone drew a stairway with chalk on a street. Your MC sets foot on it and pretends to walk downward; suddenly he enters a basement. Describe what he finds.   Pt 108:   What happened?  
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Fire and Ice - January Prompts

Whether it's a warm, crackling fire while a blizzard blows snow against windows, or the cold clink of ice in a drink on a sunny, hot, sandy beach, the opposite sensations of fire and ice, hot and cold, are paired like no others.  The toasty heat of a radiator or the supple coziness under a comforter are more delicious with the bite of cold and vice versa.  So, for the prompts this week, we are going to explore opposites that complement each other.     #105 - Two college freshman are as
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Let's Get Technical

I love the challenge of technical writing prompts.  So here are two that hopefully you will like as well.  PT Prompt #103 Choose a setting and an emotion.  Write about the setting in a way that evokes the emotion without explicitly naming it.    PT Prompt #104 Two characters are having a conflict with each other but refuse to acknowledge or talk about it.  They are playing a game (can be any kind of game), and their true feelings keep sneaking out.  Write the scene.  
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Good-bye and Welcome Prompts December 30, 2022

PT#101 You moved a bookcase to make room for the New Year's Eve party and an old atlas falls down. Inside you find a yellowed New Year's resolutions list. Try to answer the wh-questions who, when, and what and create a story. PT#102 You get an email from yourself on New Year’s Eve warning you about a mistake you’ve made in the past year. What did you write to yourself? Happy New Year! Your Prompt Team  
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Father Christmas, Krampus, Santa Claus, Saint Nicholas, and Kris Kringle

There is a rich tradition in the West of creating Christmas and Yuletide tales.  Both sacred and secular versions of stories populate the airwaves and Internet with versions of light in the darkness, good defeating evil, epiphanies about faith, and even simple tales of happily ever after.  While we love to challenge conventions in these prompts.  Sometimes it is fun to go with the flow.  For these prompts, I'd like to challenge writers to create some wonderful stories of love winning, light conq
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More Holiday Prompts

It's the holiday season and it's a merry time for some and not so great time for others.  Here are two prompts to reflect both moods.     PT Prompt #97 You are gifted a magic snow globe.  What happens when you shake it? PT Prompt #98 You are spending the holidays alone.  Describe your day and any celebration or lack thereof.    
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Magical Prompts

Magic is in the air! PT#95 Sam got a magical advent calendar from gran Lulu. So far, the chocolate and marzipan were delicious but magical? What does the calendar’s magic do to Sam? PT#96 Looking for the box with Christmas decorations in the attic, your protagonist pushes cardboard boxes around. Suddenly something strange drops on the floor. After a closer examination, it turns out to be a mechanical arm. After playing around with it for a while it suddenly attaches itself to them,
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December Festivities, and not just the flashy ones!

December offers such a wealth of subject matter on which we can write.  There are the parties with friends.  Gatherings with relatives.  The symbols and holidays are liberally sprinkled throughout the month. I wanted to explore some different paths this year beyond Christmas. Prompt #93 - Winter Solstice - You are invited to a bonfire on December 20th in the middle of a clearing in the woods.  The snow blankets in a thick layer on the grass and coats the tree limbs.  There are tents with fe
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Happy Prompt-Day!

I hope everyone in the US who celebrates Thanksgiving had a wonderful day yesterday and has enough leftovers to make more yummy things like turkey soup.  I know I will have stuffed myself into oblivion (no comments on that one, Steve  ), but there's always room for more, right?  We have another holiday of sorts today... Alles Gute zum Geburtstag, that's Happy Birthday in German, to our resident wolf, @Aditus! In honor of Addy's birthday, I've decided to feature a couple of birthday-ish prompts. 
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Spacy Prompt

So, why the heck did I give you these random prompts? I helped my nephew to draw all kinds of alien species, that’s why. And because there has always to be a second prompt, I used the next sentence someone said to me as a first line. Val thought I have to explain my randomness. Prompt #89 The newest spaceship is ready to leave the space yard when the main engineer gets a last-minute order: He has to modify the captain’s chair. Due to the new captain’s species, he wouldn’t be able to us
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November, Remember

November is a month for remembering things.  Whether it's the Remember, Remember, the Fifth of November, with Guy Fawkes day, or November 11th, the Armistice Day commemorating The Great War, World War I, this is a month for looking back over past events.  Therefore, I'm suggesting prompts that have to do with remembering events of the past. #87 List of items: rosemary, a diary, a chest, RAM, elephant, and a red poppy #88  Your main character lost his memory.  What brings it back?  
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Wordplay

I love a good play on words, which is why I like Dad jokes and memes with puns.  Don't judge me... someone has to laugh at them!   Disclaimer: I'm not responsible for any eye strain or facial bruising caused by excessive from any stories inspired by these prompts.     PT Prompt #85: Sometimes words have very different meanings across languages.  For example, the word "gift" in English means something given to another person without expectation of payment, synonymous with "present"
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Happy Prompt-aversary!

While it feels like just yesterday when I approached Aditus and Cole Matthews about working together to continue offering GA prompts on a weekly basis, it’s actually been one year!  To celebrate our one-year anniversary, we thought we’d pay homage to GA’s late prompt guru, Comicfan, by choosing our favorite prompts created by Wayne.    Aditus: Comicfan’s prompt #213 made me put my toe in the water and write a very short story. I got so many encouraging comments that I dared to wr
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Hiding

PT #83 It’s a matter of common knowledge among friends and family that the protagonist of your story despises a certain person. Ironically, this very person dies in a freak accident at their house. As no one would believe this, they have to hide the body. Help them.   PT#84 In order to avoid the pesky marriage-soon-trigger, Ash doesn’t date, officially. Find the most outrageous excuses to tell the family or — just tell them a truth of your choice, preferably all nicely boxed
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October is Coming Out!!!

In October in the United States, we celebrate National Coming Out Day.  But that really doesn't do it justice.  Coming out isn't a day or a week or a month.  Coming out is a process for most of us.  It's intensely personal, incredibly liberating, and extremely terrifying for most people.  Let's practice our writing skills with some characters who are coming out of the closet, are remembering their emergence, or even contemplating doing it.   #81 - First Line - "How could you have outed me l
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Prompt Day Sept 2, 2022

Between editing, proofreading, and writing for the anthology, along with things being crazy at work, my brain is a bit on the crispy side at the moment.  So let’s get right into this week’s prompts.   PT Prompt #79 You are hiking through the woods when you encounter a wooden sign with the following words written in red, dripping paint:  I’d turn back if I were you.  Do you turn back or continue on the path?  If you continue, what do you encounter?  PT Prompt #80 Your ch
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Famous First Words

I always wondered if famous authors stare at a white sheet of paper or a blinking cursor, wrestling with the very first word, the first sentence, like me. There is a story somewhere, but how to begin? Or do the words just pour out of them? PT#77 Let’s borrow an opening line of a famous book and write a short piece of fiction or a poem. I’m pretty much f*cked. (The Martian by Andy Weir) All children, except one, grow up. (Peter Pan by J.M: Barrie) He was born with a gift
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Potpourri - Sometimes we need to mix it up!

When writing a story, we need lots of different tools and techniques.  Sometimes these may include using different styles of writing or even bringing to life challenging or even repugnant characters.  To practice these different techniques, I've given a couple of exercises.     #75 - Use the Passive Voice in a vignette.  For example, "Jenny was a great writer who once won an award.  She had written a story that garnered lots of attention and cause quite an uproar.  That excitement pass
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Prompt Day Aug 12, 2022

Still a bit short-winded, I present to you the Friday Prompts! PT# 73: You stare at your best friend’s wedding list. Instead of pots and pans or nifty gardening equipment with useful links where you could order it, you read: Surprise us! As your friends love “quirky things with character”, you decide to go to a yard sale. In the end, you have to choose between a huge, inflatable pink flamingo, a hand-pottered caterpillar-shaped bowl, and a coat rack that looks like a human spine. What
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Technically Unplugged

I spent last weekend out in the country with my BFF for her family reunion.  It’s been an annual tradition for us for over ten years now, and I look forward to it every year.  It’s an absolutely idyllic setting, surrounded by farmland and mountains sporting all kinds of greenery.  There’s no wi-fi, and cell phone signals are spotty, at best.  We sleep in a tent on a hill next to the main house and talk most of the night over a campfire, underneath a clear sky filled with stars never seen in subu
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