Few Imaginative and Funny Writing Prompts

Today, let’s move away from the usual serious topics. The topic for this post is Imaginative and Funny Writing Prompts. It’s just our imagination and us; the wilder the imagination, the better ideas we can get.  Here are few of my wacky ideas.

1. Imagine your Main Character’s boyfriend/girlfriend, who is  prone to jealousy and suspicion, volunteers for a clone experiment. It succeeds, and now there are two of them, exactly the same. Its Double Trouble. What happens to the poor MC when she/he  has to put up with the two of them?

2. Three men wearing strange clothes follow your Protagonist  and her/his friend home. It turns out that the Protagonist’s girl friend/boyfriend is an alien with amnesia, and can't remember a thing. These men have arrived to escort him/her back. What happens now?

3. Your Protagonist  befriends a man who is the Keeper of Secrets. Now your protagonist is aware of every secret  in the world. He/she can blackmail everyone. What does your protagonist do?

4. Your Main Character is stranded with a  shape-shifter on a deserted highway. Now what happens?


5. One of your characters meets with an accident, he/she wakes up in the hospital and realizes that they have developed an ability to read people’s minds, or see their future. This can be disastrous.

These prompts are great short story ideas.Can you think of any wild and funny writing prompts? We all badly need to exercise our  creative muscle and also laugh. Please share them with us.

Do You Like Writing Chapter Titles?

 I just cannot imagine writing a book, without chapter titles enticing my readers into the story, or making the readers mull over what will happen in the course of the chapter. Actually, I have an obsession with chapter  titles. I need them to get my creative juices flowing in a big way. When I write the  first draft by hand, right on  top is the chapter title sending frantic messages to my brain.

Infact, I sometimes feel that I initially conceive the chapter title and later build a scene around it. For me the title works as a  scene prompt or a trigger to propel the story forward. Many times a title jumps into my mind and then my brain cells start buzzing with ideas to build around the  chapter title. I know, I must be sounding funny, even weird, but that’s just the way it is with me. So far, I have never written a book without chapter titles.

I am sure that if I just had plain old numbers: 1,2,3,4,  my poor brain would clam up and I would be stuck in a major writer’s block.

Let me share two incidents  that occurred while I was working on my current WIP. I was stuck big time at a point in my  book. I was so badly stuck that I even thought about shelving the manuscript for the time being. Then, magically I had an idea to take the story forward. The idea came in the form of a character, who became the chapter title and literally grabbed the story out of my hand. A few days later another chapter title jumped into my head  and brought  with it one of my favourite scenes from the book.

What about you all? Do you have chapter titles in place when you start writing, or do the chapter titles make their appearance later, after you have finished writing? What is your chapter title creative process? Do you like chapter titles? Or do you feel they are a waste of time.

Some Writing Prompts to Trigger Creativity

I came across few of these writing prompts in a book. I tweaked and modified most of them to suit our  current needs: keeping our WIP in mind. I am sharing them with you all, in the hope that it will help us out of tight spots and knots in plots.

1. Select an ordinary domestic item  such as a teapot, a mug, a jeweled brush, a broom and write an article on it. For eg: the jeweled brush can belong to a princess, the broom can be a witch’s who has lost her magic powers. This prompt  creates wacky short stories.

2. Write a conversation between your protagonist and antagonist. This prompt can pinpoint  the weaknesses and strengths of  both the protagonist and antagonist and will assist when its time to bring them face to face.

3. Interview your protagonist at different ages: 7,11,15,19, 23, we can even reach their old age. I am sure this prompt will be fun and will help us with our protagonist’s goals. What kind of a person has our MC become in old age, have they achieved everything that they set out to do? How did they achieve everything? Are they happy, or bitter?

4. Try Time Warps. Imagine you or your protagonist coming back from the future and confronting your present self, or, the present day world. We can also send the protagonist into an alternate universe. This writing prompt can also be tried for the antagonist.

5. Take some unusual  pictures and  write about it from the Point of  View of one of the characters in your WIP. This will make us see things from that person’s perspective and give us a peep into that character’s mental makeup.

6. Stare into the fire, clouds, rain, tree, a table, or, even a house and see what pictures start to form. The setting sun or the sunrise are wonderful prompts. Write the scenes that you see  from the point of view of your protagonist. What feelings do these  scenes evoke? What is the protagonist’s emotional state when he/she encounters the above scenes?

I seldom try Writing Prompts (I may have just tried few). But these have motivated me to give them a go. What about you all? Do you do writing prompts, or, are you like me and generally give them a  miss? Any favourite prompts you want to share?

Picture Credit and Copyright Melissa Crytzer Fry