Prompts
Where Hearts Remember Humanity” - A Poem About the Gentle Power of Love. AI-Generated.
Where Hearts Remember Humanity” - A Poem About the Gentle Power of Love A moving and captivating 800-word poem about love's perpetual bond with humanity. Between love and who we truly are, when we live deeply and allow kindness, compassion, and courage to tame our fears. A faithful ode to the light that lives, even in a broken world and who restores our hope in our human connection and the spirit of our people.
By Hustle Nest3 months ago in Writers
Reworking A Story That Was Submitted To A Challenge
Anne Bernays and Pamela Painter — What if? Writing Exercises for Fiction Writers prompts — The Exercise - Take a story you have completed and go through it and intensify the conflict, magnifying the tension and shrillness at every turn, even to the point of absurdity or hyperbole. Add stress wherever possible, both between characters and within them as individuals. Exaggerate the obstacles they face. Be extreme. The Objective - To create an awareness of the need for a high level of tension while encouraging a healthy regard for how easily it can become excessive. This exercise is not meant to "improve" the story, although it often provokes new and more dynamic descriptions and dialogue. It raises the writer's consciousness about the need for conflict in fiction.
By Denise E Lindquist3 months ago in Writers
The Voice Refined Through Another Medium
For centuries, words have been the vessels of human thought, the means by which understanding passes from one heart to another. From quills and typewriters to keyboards and screens, the tools have changed, but the mind behind the message has not. Now, in the age of artificial intelligence, some claim that words refined through its assistance cannot be fully human. They say that if an essay or reflection has been shaped, polished, or expanded by an AI tool, then its authenticity is somehow diminished. Yet that belief mistakes process for purpose. The truth of writing does not depend on how the words are arranged, but on who the words come from.
By Peter Thwing - Host of the FST Podcast3 months ago in Writers
A Catena Rondo Challenge
Introduction This was suggested by Calvin London. This will run til the last day of November, and five random dollar tips will be awarded to five random Catena Rondo poems that are posted in the comments with a link to this piece in your poem.
By Mike Singleton 💜 Mikeydred 3 months ago in Writers
Here Comes Judge!
Anne Bernays and Pamela Painter — What if? Writing Exercises for Fiction Writers prompts — The Exercise - Look in your files for a story that seems stuck, a story that has a story block. Next, write at the top of a separate sheet of paper the two words. What If. Now write five ways of continuing the story, not ending the story, but continuing the story to up your thinking about the events in the story. Your what if's can be as diverse as your imagination can make them. More than likely, and this has proved true through years of teaching and writing, one of the what if's will feel right, organic to your story and that is the direction in which you should go. Sometimes you will have to do several groups of what if's per story, but that's okay as long as they keep you moving forward. The Objective - To illustrate that most story beginnings and situations have within them the seeds of the middle and end. You just have to allow your imagination enough range to discover what works.
By Denise E Lindquist3 months ago in Writers
He Always Wants to Go Home!. Top Story - November 2025.
The challenge ended and I am sending the tips out to the stories I liked, which is every one of them. I was completely blown away by this collective creativity and the different takes the authors provided on the prompt.
By Lana V Lynx3 months ago in Writers
A Business Woman, And Her Fiance
Anne Bernays and Pamela Painter — What if? Writing Exercises for Fiction Writers prompts — The Exercise - In a few sentences, create a specific character in a specific situation. Complicate his life with opposing forces and alternatives within that situation. Ask, Given the situation, what would my character want? What would my character do? How would he act or react? How will those actions propel the story toward a point of crisis and a final resolution? Practice creating characters involved with specific situations. Then outline miniplots for how you would complicate their situations and move them toward an ending. Keep this outline brief. The Objective - To understand how the most effective plots are those driven by character. To see how a character within the given of any situation creates his own destiny.
By Denise E Lindquist3 months ago in Writers
Once Upon a Time Again
Anne Bernays and Pamela Painter — What if? Writing Exercises for Fiction Writers prompts — The Exercise - Write a linear story, in which a strong main character is on a quest for something important and specific (e.g., a shelter for the baby, medicine for a sick mother, or the key to the storehouse where a tyrant has locked away all the grain from a starving populace). The object is given - don't explain its importance. The main character starts acting immediately. She then meets a (specific) obstacle; finally, she triumphs over the obstacle by means of a magic or supernatural element that comes from the outside (like Dorothy's red shoes in The Wizard of Oz). You may introduce minor characters, but the narrative should never abandon your main character. This story should be told through action and dialogue. Limit: 550 words. The Objective - Like a medical student who must learn the names and location of human bones before going on to more complex systems, a beginning writer must be able to handle and control basic plot before moving on to more subtle elements like motivation, subtext, and ambiguity. Many of the greatest novels incorporate a quest (Moby Dick), a journey (David Copperfield), and triumph over an obstacle (The Old Man and the Sea). These works also concentrate on one protagonist and end, if not happily, at least on an emotionally satisfying note of resolution.
By Denise E Lindquist3 months ago in Writers
