History That Never Was

Home of Dawn Vogel: Writer, Historian, Geek

Fun for Friday: Friday Five Prompts

| March 19, 2021

I was recently looking for some new writing prompts, and I stumbled across Long and Short Reviews’ Friday Five Prompts. This lists out five word prompts for every Friday in 2021. And while we’re already part of the way through the year, there are still plenty more weeks to enjoy! I love playing with word […]

Fun for Friday: March 2021 Prompts

| February 26, 2021

It’s nearly the beginning of March, so it’s time for another month’s prompts. The words this month are all pretty random, though I suspect you could get some March or spring-inspired pieces out of what I’ve included here. There’s also a photograph of a marching band that you could work in with the other prompts […]

World-Building Recommendation: World Roulette

| February 24, 2021

One of my recent Kickstarter rewards was the World Roulette Deck from Light Grey Art Lab. It’s a deck meant to assist in world building for creative projects, with a really interesting setup on the individual cards, which are meant to be stacked and layered in interesting combinations as you’re creating a world. As the […]

Fun for Friday: AtlasObscura for Writing Prompts

| February 19, 2021

If you like weird places and things of the world, AtlasObscura is a great site that collects information about all sorts of unusual things. You can navigate it by picking a country or city, or do searches for other specifics. Their Twitter feed is also a great way to get random ideas for writing prompts, […]

Fun for Friday: Story Starters

| February 5, 2021

When I’m writing a story, I have to start at the beginning. I have to come up with a first line that I like, and then I can get started writing the rest of it. If you’re stuck on finding a first line, check out these story starters for some ideas! If you want to […]

Writing to a Title

| February 1, 2021

Many authors find that coming up with a title is considerably harder than writing the story (or book, or poem) that needs the title. However, some authors start with a title and write their story to fit that title. But first, you need a title. The good news is that there are random title generators […]

Fun for Friday: February 2021 Prompts

| January 29, 2021

For February’s writing prompts, I’ve got a collection of randomly generated words, put into a random order. Don’t feel like you need to use the specific word I’ve listed in your piece (though you can if you like). Feel free to play around with word association, or just use these words as a jumping off […]

Fun for Friday: Biopunk Ideas

| January 22, 2021

If you’re not familiar with biopunk, start with this article on biopunk and utopias. But if you’re ready to launch into some biopunk writing, check out this prompt and see what ideas it sparks in you! (darkliquid has additional prompts here on different themes. I haven’t read through all of them yet, so I’m not […]

Fun for Friday: Three Images of Renewal

| January 15, 2021

For this Friday, we’ve got three images on a renewal theme, but as you use them as inspiration for your writing, feel free to take them in different directions. (Images deleted.) The first image is thin, brightly colored curved lines that look like they could be a close-up image of a Slinky or curled tinsel. […]

Fun for Friday: Writing Prompts for a New Year!

| January 8, 2021

If you’re looking for some writing prompts that consider the beginning of a new year, check out this list! Some of these are celebratory, while others are more introspective, but while all of them are rooted in reality, they could make interesting fiction writing prompts as well!