dawn.vogel | October 18, 2024
The photo on this post, which reads “The Snail in Gothic Marginal Warfare, by Lilian M. C. Randall, 1962” (and has closed captioning reading “But Randall connected them to historical stereotypes”), is one I took while Jeremy and I were watching a YouTube video about snails in medieval manuscript illuminations. I haven’t tracked down this […]
dawn.vogel | September 13, 2024
Do you know the difference between a malapropism and an eggcorn? Sometimes, they overlap, but this article explains the difference between the two things. If you’re a word nerd, you might just enjoy reading the article. But if you want to use this as a writing prompt, I think you could have some fun with either […]
dawn.vogel | August 23, 2024
As we reach the end of the summer (for students, at least), I thought an interesting fiction writing prompt might be one of the questions that younger students often write about early in the school year: what did you do on your summer vacation? However, for this, make it fictional! Pick a character you’re writing […]
dawn.vogel | March 22, 2024
Have you ever misheard or misunderstood the lyrics to a song? If so, you’re not alone. In fact, there’s a website devoted to this, called KissThisGuy (after a mishearing of a Jimi Hendrix song). I think misheard lyrics could make a great prompt for a story. Whether you use one of your own or one […]
dawn.vogel | September 22, 2023
In connection with Monday’s post about seasons in worldbuilding, I’m thinking about seasons as characters. How would you write a character based on spring? Which elements of that season would you emphasize? You could write a character who’s all joy and rebirth and growing things, or you could write a character who’s like torrential downpours […]
dawn.vogel | July 21, 2023
If you’re looking for a different sort of writing prompt, check out this list of random facts from Cosmo UK. Some of them may be things you already know, while others may be new to you! (I did not know that the Eiffel Tower is not always the same height–not something the French nuns taught […]
dawn.vogel | May 19, 2023
Sometimes, even non-fiction writing prompts can be a good source of inspiration if you look at them from a fictional lens. For example, the writing prompts offered here are meant to be more of journaling exercises. But you could also use them to stretch your fiction writing skills by writing them from the perspective of […]
dawn.vogel | May 5, 2023
If you like writing sci-fi, the Smithsonian Museum of Air and Space has prepared a writing prompt based on objects in their collection, originally for a Sci-Fi Family Day. If the images of Smithsonian artifacts in that document don’t spark any ideas, you can also search their multimedia gallery to see if something there works […]
dawn.vogel | February 17, 2023
If you’re looking for a potentially very quick writing prompt, check out this idea to write a micro story by filling in the blanks with an excuse. It may seem a little silly at first, but if you read through the post, it links to another post that explains this exercise and how it works […]
dawn.vogel | April 15, 2022
Have you ever gotten a plot or character from a song? I certainly have, many times over. Drawfee recently gave their artists a challenge to create a character based on the first three songs that came up on shuffle. I think this would be a fun idea to inspire either a character or a plot […]
