History That Never Was

Home of Dawn Vogel: Writer, Historian, Geek

Fun for Friday: A Tongue-in-Cheek Genre-Fiction Generator

| March 18, 2022

If you’d like to generate some story ideas while having a little fun at the same time, check out Wondermark’s Electro-Plasma Hydrocephalic Genre-Fiction Generator 2000. While it can give you a perfectly reasonable story idea, you can also pick and choose to come up with the most ridiculous possible idea if you like. Alternately, most […]

Fun for Friday: A Trio of Images

| March 11, 2022

It’s time for more image prompts! The first image is a partial view of a cat’s paw. The cat is orange and white, and the paw pads are pink. There’s a blue blanket or towel covering part of the cat’s paw. The second image is a hilly terrain covered with fog and trees, primarily conifers. […]

Fun for Friday: Monthly Art Challenges for Writing Prompts

| March 4, 2022

If you’re looking for more writing prompts, Brush Warriors has compiled this list of monthly art challenges. They often revolve around a theme, like MerMay or Drawlloween, which are two of my personal favorites. But there are lists for every month of the year, and some months give you several choices. For example, March is […]

Fun for Friday: March 2022 Writing Prompts

| February 25, 2022

We’re reaching the end of February; as the shortest month, it almost always seems to fly past. In the Northern Hemisphere, it also means we’re gradually escaping the cold and gloom of the winter months, as we approach the beginning of spring in late March. March is also exciting to me because it’s my birthday […]

Fun for Friday: Wordle as Writing Prompts?

| February 18, 2022

If you’ve somehow missed the phenomenon that is Wordle, I’m impressed. The small white (or black), yellow, and green boxes are everywhere as people guess the word of the day. For me, it’s a nice way to start my morning and get my brain in gear. If you play Wordle regularly, and you’re looking for […]

Fun for Friday: Dragon Images

| February 11, 2022

This week, I’m using the awesome search on Unsplash to find Creative Commons licensed images for inspiration. I decided to see what sort of options they had for dragons, and the options did not disappoint! The first dragon is a white dragon with blue eyes. The whole of the dragon is not visible, but the […]

Fun for Friday: Finish the Story Game

| February 4, 2022

While this Finish the Story Game is meant for grade-school aged kids, there’s something to be said for starting with a simple prompt, like the ones provided here, and turning it into a story. You might use them as more of an inspiration than a starting line, or one of them may really grab you […]

Fun for Friday: February 2022 Writing Prompts

| January 28, 2022

It’s nearly February, so it’s time for some new writing prompts! This month, I’ve separated out each column to be a person, a place, and a thing, as inspired by a recent “Poetry Thunderdome” event I took place in, where those categories were sourced from the audience, and then we wrote poems very quickly based […]

Fun for Friday: Sci-Fi and Post-Apocalyptic Images

| January 21, 2022

This week’s Fun for Friday is sci-fi and post-apocalyptic images! The first image is an illustration from the mid-twentieth century speculating on what space travel would be like. It depicts three men, two of whom are seated at a table and one of whom is floating horizontally toward the table. They appear to be engaged […]

Fun for Friday: Steampunk Plot Generator!

| January 14, 2022

Steampunk may have had its big moment in the sun and moved on, but if you’re a fan, check out this steampunk plot generator! In addition to using a spreadsheet populated with some realistic Victorian-era data, it also gives you the plot in the Save the Cat! format, which means it pretty much walks you through […]