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Rant: I used to think you needed a detailed prompt to get anywhere. Now I just write down a single, weird image and see what happens.
For years, I'd write these elaborate, paragraph-long setups with character backstories and plot points. It felt like homework. The change happened about eight months ago after reading an interview with a writer who said her best story started from the phrase 'a man selling clouds in jars.' I tried it. My last three decent pieces began from 'a library where the books are allergic to people,' 'a bus stop that only appears at midnight,' and 'a tattoo that changes with the weather.' It forces you to figure out the 'why' yourself instead of having the prompt do the work. Anyone else completely strip their prompts down to almost nothing?
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adam_hernandez3mo ago
Wait, you got three whole stories from "a library where the books are allergic to people"? How did you even start explaining that without a huge info dump?
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verafoster2mo ago
My mail route has this one older lady who always tells me about her garden. She never talks about watering schedules or fertilizer brands. She just says stuff like "the tomatoes were shy this morning" and I already know it rained last night. Good storytelling is like that. You don't need to explain every little thing, you just give people enough to figure it out themselves.
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hall.nora3mo ago
Who said I explained it, @adam_hernandez?
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