Fun for Friday: Spam as Prompts?
If you’d like a prompt that could lead to some seriously ridiculous stories, think about using some of your spam emails (or snail mail) as a source of inspiration. Here’s just a few ideas you might take from your spam!
- Imagine the spam email being received by someone who is not a modern human. Have it appear in a fantasy setting as an advertisement. Send it to an alien species. Toss it into a historical figure’s incoming correspondence. How do these characters or societies react?
- Create a character based on the characteristics that would generate this sort of spam. This character might be very similar to you, but if you’ve had your email signed up for a bunch of things that you didn’t have any interest in, this exercise could be more interesting. (I get spam from the Grand Ol’ Opry, a tool supplier, and stuff for singles ALL the time, if you’d like some random examples you could work with!)
- If you’ve got a lot of spam, snag random words or letter clusters to name a character, species, location, company, etc.
- If you write poetry, try an erasure or blackout poem with your spam!
- Write a flash fiction piece that uses the format of spam, but invent what this email is trying to sell you or get you to do!
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