shortfictionweeklychallenge

[shortfictionweeklychallenge]

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So many prompts to choose from. What can we find in the archive today?

Time Change: When has your character been out of sync with their surroundings? In space all planets have their own day-night cycles as well as years. Travel to a new place at light speed or more means having to adjust to a wildly different schedule upon landing. And what time does the crew keep in transit? Is there an agreed-upon standard or does every captain choose their own? Fantasy settings can still have abrupt time changes: long-distance teleports, extended sleep spells, world-altering magic. Does a place like Discworld have time zones? Maybe your character is the habitual early riser in a world or night owls, or the reverse.

[shortfictionweeklychallenge]

Short Fiction Weekly Challenge

Friday Nostalgia Prompts from Short Fiction Weekly Challenge! Enjoy!

Mix It Up - For this challenge you can write anything you like. The catch? Someone else's character has to be in it along with yours. It can be your friend's or someone else in the thread as long as you have gotten their permission and as long as your story involves your character and another player character that you don't play - NPCs, companions, etc don't count. Get creative with this one and see what cool stuff you can come up with. We have some really talented minds in here and I'm sure people will come up with some awesome stories. 

Run!: Away? What from? Toward what? Who’s commanding your character to run and why? Is your character telling others to run? Are they sacrificing themselves to stop some horror? Are they about to become the horror? Are they furious? Is your character in danger? Are they panicked? Giving up? So many possibilities! Run with it! 

Liability: A disadvantage or debt: a liability is something your character is responsible for, or something that holds them back. It could be a literal, monetary debt. It might be something they inherited but don't want. Perhaps another character, who really ought not to be in that situation. Maybe your character is the liability, endangering the mission because of inexpertise or some other quality. How does everyone deal with it?

[shortfictionweeklychallenge]

Ten Years Ago Today

A decade of prompts from Short Fiction Weekly Challenge.

Week of May 1, 2015

Dance:  We’ve had music prompts before, but what about dance?  Whether formal or informal, group, alone, or in pairs, most cultures accompany music with dance.  How does your character relate?  Do they sit on the sidelines watching others or do they command the attention of all on the floor?  It’s May Day!  Write a story about your character and how they dance, even if it’s with two left feet. 

[shortfictionweeklychallenge]

SFWC Blast from the Past!

This week’s Blast from the Past prompt:

Good Things Come in Small Packages: write a drabble, around 100 words, on any previous prompt or none at all. Some sources put drabbles at anywhere from 53 words on the low end to 500 at the upper end. I recall the majority of our stories being in the 500-1500 word range. Let’s push that lower limit. We had an unofficial drabble week a long time ago. This time it’s for real.

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Searching...

So many prompts to choose from. What can we find in the archive today?

Last Resort: Things have Gotten Real, all the other plans have failed, now it’s the last resort. The final thing to try before failure. So what is it? Is it a serious, life-or-death situation or is your character trying to rescue a nearly-ruined cooking attempt (which might, after all, be life-threatening). Is your character the one their friends or superiors call on as their last resort? How do they rescue the situation? Do they?

[shortfictionweeklychallenge]

Short Fiction Weekly Challenge

Friday Nostalgia Prompts from Short Fiction Weekly Challenge! Enjoy!

Exploration - You could travel your whole life and not see all of Earth - so what about people who have an entire galaxy to explore? What new things have your characters uncovered along their journeys? 

You’re My Only Hope: It is your character’s most desperate hour. They (and possibly their friends or organization) need help. The kind of help they can only get from one person, and they’re not at all certain they’ll get it. How do they convince the person to aid them? What kind of help is it? Why do they need it and why is this other person so special? What happens if your character fails to recruit them? Is their help really that crucial? Do they end up a liability afterward? 

Ceremony - All cultures have ceremonies. Graduation, marriage, retirement; religious, civil, or social to name just a few. Does your character come from a culture with an elaborate coming-of-age celebration? Do they feel out of place at a companion’s promotion? This week, consider the various official rituals your character has taken part in or attended as a guest or observer.

[shortfictionweeklychallenge]

Ten Years Ago Today

A decade of prompts from Short Fiction Weekly Challenge.

Week of April 24, 2015

Scent: Humans as a species aren’t known for having a particularly good sense of smell.  Despite this, perfumes and scents are incredibly popular, either to hide, replace, or enhance natural odors on both their person and possessions.  Does your character care?  Do they have a favorite scent?  A soap, a perfume, an incense?  Do their species’ preferred fragrances turn off others--or smell really good?  How do their companions (some of whom may have better olfactory abilities) deal with the profusion of clashing or complimenting scents?  Or do they prefer your character au naturel?

[shortfictionweeklychallenge]

SFWC Blast from the Past!

This week’s Blast from the Past prompt:

Current Events–Events in the larger fictional world shape your character’s little slice of it, whether they want it to or not. What things are in the news for your character? What do they hear about on the Holonet or from the town crier, read about in the paper or posted on boards? How do these events affect them? Are they concerned about current events or blissfully unaware of anything outside their immediate experience? Maybe your character is the one making headlines. Write about it!

[shortfictionweeklychallenge]

Searching...

So many prompts to choose from. What can we find in the archive today?

Out of Touch: A phrase with a number of meanings. When has your character been out of touch, and how? Did they drop out of contact with their friends and family?  Why? What interfered? Maybe they are always out of step with cultural norms: missing jokes and references and classically “out of touch.” Is this a choice? A facet of their personality? Were they removed from the larger culture for some reason and now miss everyone’s references and make ones no one remembers? Are they from the future, having learned of the present only from books? From the past, unmoored in their new world? A character can be out of touch in a number of ways. Explore some this week.

[shortfictionweeklychallenge]

Short Fiction Weekly Challenge

Friday Nostalgia Prompts from Short Fiction Weekly Challenge! Enjoy!

Adopted: Is your character related to the people who raised them? Have they welcomed a person into their family as a child or a sibling? Were they raised by their birth parents, but one or more of their siblings or other relative was adopted? Was the adoption a secret or was it known openly? Was it unofficial or were there numerous rules and customs to follow? How did this affect their family dynamic? Were there different rules or was everyone treated the same? Was “you’re adopted” thrown around as an epithet or an excuse for difference? Or was it joyful, a fact your character will never forget? This week, consider ways to make that found family a “real” family.

Failure - Our characters have flaws. They have bad days. They do it wrong. And sometimes they don't win. What failures have your characters experienced? What, if anything, did they learn from it?

Seemed Like a Good Idea at the Time: Think Han Solo turning the corner into the stormtrooper barracks. When has your character done something that made the situation worse? Tried to roll with the situation, but ended up in hotter water instead? Stuck with the original plan even when events changed so as to render it useless? Maybe things didn’t get worse, but definitely didn’t improve at all and now there’s a different crisis. Write about an idea that seemed like a good one at the time, but turned out less so.

[shortfictionweeklychallenge]

Ten Years Ago Today

A decade of prompts from Short Fiction Weekly Challenge.

Week of April 17, 2015

Paranoia: “Is it paranoia when they really are out to get you?”-- every Agent ever, and a healthy number of Sith besides.  So how about your character?  Are they reasonably cautious, just planning for the worst, or outright paranoid?  Or is everyone really out to get them?  Credit to Joseph Heller for the paraphrased quote.

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SFWC Blast from the Past!

This week’s Blast from the Past prompt:

Deadlines--Time is running out. Your character has something to do, to complete, to finish, to arrange, and their time grows short. What were they doing? Was it something they put off until it was critical? Did they plan for a long time and only now the pieces are coming together? Did the situation arise suddenly and demand a quick response before the critical time? Was it self-imposed or did another character impose it? A deadline is nothing more than a date or time by which something must be ready or complete. Write about it this week.

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Searching...

So many prompts to choose from. What can we find in the archive today?

Earworm: Ever get a song stuck in your head? What about your character?  Is there one song you can count on to do it or any random one? Do they hum holiday jingles until the next holiday rolls around? Are they annoyed or delighted by their own personal soundtrack? Typically people find earworms unpleasant and want to get rid of them, so how does your character go about it? Try to find a new one? Give it to someone else? Grumble until it finally goes away?

[shortfictionweeklychallenge]

Short Fiction Weekly Challenge

Friday Nostalgia Prompts from Short Fiction Weekly Challenge! Enjoy!

If Wishes Were Horses: then beggars would ride. We often think of wishes as something for children, but everyone does it. Wishes can be for anything from a lucky chance through feasible-but-difficult to outright impossible. What things does your character wish for? Little wishes? Not much more than good luck? Middling-possible wishes? Things that could happen given some work and luck? Something that could never happen? Prohibited by the laws of physics or just wildly improbable? There’s nothing really wrong with wishes, however impractical or unlikely. Every so often, wishes come true.

A Matter of Life and Death: This week the stakes are high. Your character has to intercede or maybe they're the one in the situation. It's a matter of life and death. Whose? Why? How did the situation get this serious? Is there any way out? Is it really a Matter of Life and Death or did someone use the distress beacon to order pizza?

A Favor: Your character needs help, and someone owes them a favor. Perhaps your character is the one who owes a favor. These are social obligations with no clear monetary value, yet we seem to know instinctively when a request is reasonable. Even when it’s not, we may find ourselves honoring it. In some circles, a favor may be more codified and ritualized. Yet while money may be involved, it's never the real debt. Do your character a favor and write about them cashing in or fulfilling a social debt this week.

[shortfictionweeklychallenge]

Ten Years Ago Today

A decade of prompts from Short Fiction Weekly Challenge.

Week of April 10, 2015

Mistaken Identity: A classic literary device employed in drama and comedy alike.  Has your character ever been mistaken for someone else?  Have they made an error about another’s identity?  What happened?  Did hilarity ensue, or was it a more serious situation? 

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SFWC Blast from the Past!

This week’s Blast from the Past prompt:

Making a Mountain out of a Molehill - Some characters are more prone to blowing things out of proportion than others. Maybe it’s just certain situations. Consider a time when something that seemed insurmountable turned out to be minor. Was your character’s preparation or anxiety unreasonable? Or did their actions make the difference between a mountain and a molehill? 

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Searching...

So many prompts to choose from. What can we find in the archive today?

Second Thoughts: a close cousin to both regret and cold feet, second thoughts usually occur when the situation isn’t played out yet. Before your character decides to back out, and maybe isn’t all that sure they want to. Sometimes it’s just the voice of anxiety. Other times they’ve received new information and need to re-evaluate their course of action. Maybe there is no new information, but your character took a step back and considered the full ramifications of their choices. Write about a time your character had second thoughts, what they were about, and what they eventually decided to do.