/r/WritingPrompts, the Most Magical Place on Reddit
/r/WritingPrompts, the Most Magical Place on Reddit
Lately I've been obsessed with /r/WritingPrompts, a subreddit where anybody can post a prompt and anybody can submit a story to it. Most stories are usually flash fiction, and the prompts on reddit - being a place full of nerds like me - has a lot of speculative fiction prompts that just get my mind racing. (Fun fact, my first book The Novel Killer actually was inspired by a writing prompt about a character who has power more powerful than "plot armor". Here's the prompt that started it all). It's just a fun place to go and celebrate the art of writing, and anybody is welcome as long as they have an account.
Every Friday I take a break from working on my more long form projects and take a look at what's happening over in the magical land of /r/WritingPrompts. I do it to stretch my writing muscles, look for inspiration, and, honestly, get that sweet sense of satisfaction of completing a story (something one must be patient about when it comes to long form projects like books, like the one I'm currently working on). Usually I'll find a prompt or two that really catches my attention that I'll spend the next hour writing about 1,000 words, submit it to the thread and call it a day. I'll usually then archive the story onto my writing discussion subreddit and then my writing website and call it a day. However, that has not been the case lately.
I don't know if it's my mind just in a more creative mode than usual, or if the prompts lately have been more eye catching in general, or both, but over the past two weeks I've written seven different submissions totally at 11,840 words, one of which became a 5,000+ word short story! And this is the magic of that subreddit. Whether you're a reader looking for some fun short stories that can capture your imagination for a few minutes, or a writer looking for some creative inspiration, then /r/WritingPrompts is the place to be. The community is so nice and supportive, there are tons of creative people itching to tell a story, and maybe your next book might come from there.
Happy reading & writing!
Flash Fiction & Short Stories
It Came From /r/WritingPrompts!
Lots of flash fiction and short stories out this time around! From introspective fantasy taking place from the point of view of a mimic trapped in the form of a box for 10,000 years, to stories about the code inspection department getting in the way of the construction of a temple dedicated to an eldritch god. (Perhaps the god shouldn't have tried building the temple on top of an apartment building.) All of that and more below!
Boxed In
The life of a mimic is one of patience and cleverness. To be the best you must have both, since a mimic can only change forms after their trap has sprung and their mean of adventurers has been consumed. Well, it’s been ten thousand years since anybody has come to the derelict castle I lay in wait in, and I’m beginning to think that taking a form of a storage crate might have been a mistake.
Original prompt: "I feel that I'm just a small wooden box that was left on a corner of the world for more than 10000 years, without anyone noticing it or thinking about opening it."
Unregistered Tenants
You can see them too? That’s a shame. I really liked you miss landlord, your rent was so cheap for this part of town. Oh well, I guess the celestial beings and I will have to sacrifice your body to become the avatar of our long awaited god, Dar’goth. We have big plans, I hope you understand as an entrepreneur yourself that these sacrifices must be made. (If you liked this, be sure to check out Code Inspection, below, for a sequel.)
Code Inspection
It’s not easy building a temple dedicated to an ancient long forgotten elder god on top of an apartment complex, especially when those pesky folks from the city’s code department bust out the old archaic codes from the past specifically for this kind of construction. Who knew that their code books dated thousands of years back when worshiping the old gods was nothing more than a passing fad, like Bennie Babies? (This story is a follow up to Unregistered Tenants.)
Original prompt: "You’re an ancient-era architect with a singular mission, to design buildings that people in the modern era will find cryptic or odd."
Billionaire Brutus Mayne Invests into Prison Reform!
Mothman City, MH. Local billionaire Brutus Mayne has pledged to end the brutal treatment of the inmates at the Markham State Asylum for the Criminally Insane, home of local vigilante’s Catman’s infamous “Rogues Galley.” The public is not happy with Mr. Mayne’s humanitarian aid, but Mr. Mayne says that he will not rest until the inmates there are given human treatment.
The Last Apple
Once the last apple had been eaten, the doctors finally showed their true faces....
Original prompt: "An apple a day keeps the doctor away, and this contract has kept you alive for hundreds of years. Now comes a day when you might not be able to eat an apple."
Pigeon Cop
High up in the sky, I fly searching for coo-rooks on the run. The citizens believe I’m a waste of taxpayers money, a joke, and an embarrassment. But I’ll show them! Now if only the criminals took me seriously too…
Original prompt: "You are the first deputized pigeon and are hunting down a criminal while trying to be taken seriously"
Long Forgotten Face
It’s been fifteen years since we’ve last seen each other. It wasn’t easy living with one another after an irreversible body-swap. If we had only hadn’t had that fight. Now I need to see him, still wearing my body, for some much needed closure. What they don’t show you in those body-swap comedies is just how horrifying it really is to live as another.
Original prompt: "You have a tough situation and you need help fixing it. Problem is, the only person who can actually help you is your ex."
Recommendations
What I'm Reading
Blame! by Tsutomu Nihei (Manga)
As mentioned in my past newsletter, I am really into media about loneliness, hopelessness, and wonder all within a fading and hostile alien world, and well Blame! (pronounced Blam) delivered. Taking place inside of a seemingly infinite brutalist-cyberpunk mysterious megastructure simply called The City, Blame! follows a mysterious man named Kyrii as he fights through the hostile forces that reside within it in order to find the series Macguffin, the Net Terminal Gene, which would allow a human to connect to the netsphere of the structure and deactivate the hostile systems, in order to save humanity. Nihei's artwork is beautiful, Lovecraftian, and grotesque all at once giving an endless sense of awe and wonder. Highly recommend if you're into the same bleak and lonely dystopian vibes that I am.
The Memory Police by Yōko Ogawa
Another book that evokes that sense of loneliness and emptiness within a fading dystopian world, almost literally as the inhabitants of this world slowly forget the concept of things as time goes one, and anybody who remembers is taken by the titular Memory Police and are never seen again. This book made me feel lonely, empty, and cold after I finished it. Would recommend.
What I'm Watching
Business Proposal (Netflix)
In a complete 180, another I'm really into right now is light hearted Korean TV (I especially have a soft spot for romcoms). My partner and I picked up this show earlier this month and loved it. It's a fun, cheeky, self aware romcom about an employee accidentally going on a blind date with the president of her company. Hilarity ensues.
Physical: 100 (Netflix)
My other Korean show I'm obsessed with right now is Physical: 100. This Korean reality-game show is quite a fun watch as 100 of South Korea's fittest people compete in various games to determine who it is the fittest of the bunch. I do have problems with how the games are structured (they're set up more for looking good on TV rather than actually being a good test of fitness), but it's still great entertainment and if you're a fan of shows like Survivor then you might enjoy this.
That's it!
Thank you for reading this edition of Dispatches from Quadrant Nine. See you in two weeks for another edition! For more, you can follow me on Instagram, Twitter, and Reddit. I also have a small subreddit dedicated to discussing all my writing over at /r/QuadrantNine that you can subscribe to. There's also my writing website where I post writing updates and short stories, and my personal blog where I share my own musings occasionally.
See you in two weeks!