The more, the merrier
Writing to prompts can be a lot of fun, and a great way to spark ideas. So if one prompt is good, more than one should be fantastic, right? They can be! But incorporating several prompts naturally into a story or essay takes a certain amount of finesse and attention to detail. Sure, you can shoehorn several prompts into one story, but a good story (an award-winning story) will combine each prompt into something rich and unique.
Ready, set, go
Let’s tackle some combination prompts, where you’ll incorporate two or more individual prompts into one cohesive piece. Daunted? Don’t be. Here’s how to do it.
What is this prompt and why is it here?
Any time you are asked to include two or more prompts or elements into one story or piece, that’s what we’re calling a combination prompt. Examples include:
- an action + an object (“climbing a mountain” + “a coin”)
- a first line + a genre (“It was a dark and stormy night” + “romantic comedy”)
- two genres—a YeahWrite favorite! (“science fiction” + “epistolary”)
- a word + a character (“liminal” + “a grave-digger”)
- any combination of any of the prompt types we’ve discussed this year!
Combination prompts are a favorite for competitions. Not only do they test your writing chops—how does the author link two or more seemingly disparate ideas?—but they offer a fun challenge with an extra focus on creativity. You’re more likely to find combination prompts in competitions than in anthologies, but nothing says you couldn’t submit a competition piece based on multiple prompts to an anthology looking for a story that includes only one of them. (After, of course, appropriate editing and polishing!)
How do you use it?
The short answer is: it depends. READ THE INSTRUCTIONS. Are you expected to incorporate the prompts, or just include them? Some competitions, like the YeahWrite Super Challenge, expect each prompt element to be integral to the story or essay. That is, each prompt should be important enough to your story that the plot could not happen in their absence. Other competitions are satisfied if the writer simply mentions a prompt in passing. Judges will scan the story and check off whether or not the action (or object, or word, or character, etc.) shows up.
In general:
Your biggest task (after reading the instructions) is to identify the different types of prompts in the assignment. Are you working with characters, or actions, or objects? Are you given a line in a particular voice that you need to fit into your story? Have you been assigned a genre (or two!), and if so, what are the elements of that genre? (Need a refresher on how to use a character prompt, an action, etc.? We’ve covered most of them in great detail in our earlier Navigating Prompts posts.)
For purposes of analyzing how multiple prompts fit together, it’s helpful to ask yourself at the outset, does this prompt go into the story (an action, an object, a phrase) or does it affect the whole story continuously (genre, main character, some setting prompts)? Usually you will get a mix of the two types.
Let’s be specific:
With two basic categories of prompt, there are three possible combinations (assuming you receive two prompts per story) of category. Let’s take a look at the three different styles of combination prompts: prompts with multiple “go into” elements, prompts with mixed “go into” and “affect the whole” elements, and prompts with only “affect the whole” elements (this will be familiar to any former Super Challenge finalists out there!).
Prompts with multiple “go into” elements
So now you’ve got a set of prompts. You’ve determined that none of them is the type of prompt that has to affect the entire story via writing style, themes, included elements (that is, a genre prompt means that some elements or writing style must be scattered throughout the story, as opposed to just appearing in one place), etc. Now what?
Think about how the prompts relate to (or conflict with) each other—with each additional prompt, your options are constrained in different ways. If you have been given the prompts “oak tree” and “paper airplane” you have been constrained to write a story where oak trees are known – so if you choose to set your story in space, you’ll have to get a tree there somehow. The paper airplane might not behave well in space, either. But both things can coexist rationally in a story set in, say, the Northeast United States, outside. But the story couldn’t be set before the invention of paper, even if there’s an oak tree! Add a character, say, “a cab driver,” and now you’re constrained even further to a society where individuals can pay somebody to transport them on an ad-hoc basis from Point A to a not-very-distant Point B.
Next, determine how integral each prompt must be to the story. Like we said, in some competitions the prompt just has to appear. But in most competitions your word count is limited, so while integrating the prompts may not be strictly required, it usually makes more sense to use what you’re given to further the plot rather than as a “throwaway” action (or object, or word, or character). Every word is important!
How do you know if a prompt has been successfully integrated into the story? We like to use the so-called “banana test.” In other words, could you replace the prompt with a banana without changing the story? If so, then it wasn’t integral. So if your prompt was “picking up a coin” you might write a story where the main character finds an unusual coin that ends up being bus fare to a magical place. If they had picked up a banana, that would change the whole story, right? (Even elvish bus drivers prefer exact change if you can’t use the app to pay your fare.) But if you were writing a story about a character riding a bus and they found a coin under their seat and put it in their purse and it never showed up in the story again, what would change if they found a banana instead? Nothing. One word. Meh. That’s the difference between an integrated and not-integrated prompt.
Note that not all prompts are as straightforward as “this” or “that” plus “another thing.” Consider, for example, this complex character prompt: “a night watchman who is afraid of the dark.” This prompt requires the story to include not only a specific character (the watchman), but an element of action, conflict, plot, or even genre that demonstrates the second half of the prompt. (You can read more about these complex character prompts in the Navigating Prompts: Characters post from April.) On the other hand, this still isn’t the type of prompt that must affect the whole story – maybe the main characters are able to sneak past a watchman who is afraid of the dark by using a spell or hacking the building’s light system as part of a caper. If you hadn’t had the watchman prompt you could have used a different obstacle without changing the overall plot or writing style
Prompts with multiple types of elements
So you’re looking at your prompts and you’ve identified one or more that is a “go into” style of prompt, maybe a pumpkin and an empty bottle. But then you see it: the prompt that has to affect the whole story. Maybe it’s a setting that has to be the only setting. Maybe it’s a time period. Maybe it’s a genre. But it can’t just appear at one point and vanish; it has to shape everything that goes into your story.
Again, think about how the prompts relate to (or conflict with) each other. Are object or character prompts natural to that setting or time period, or do you have to figure out a way to justify their existence? The difference is, you have to analyze all other prompts against this ongoing prompt, and they must coexist. The pumpkin could exist on a dinner table and the empty bottle in an alley, but both of them might have to be described in language appropriate to high fantasy, or maybe they have to be the type of pumpkin and bottle that were available in 17th century Spain.
Next, decide how integral each prompt should be to the story. That ongoing prompt? That’s going to be integral. It’s going to shape your whole story around it. But the object or action or character prompts that just have to go into the story? Do the same analysis we just discussed. Read the directions, see if they must be integrated or just must appear. Take that into account while writing.
Combinations that affect the whole story
What do you get when you cross science fiction and noir? You might get something like Blade Runner or Minority Report—stories that take advantage of the elements of two genres.
Genres are prompts that affect the whole story, so combining two or more can seem daunting. The good news is that this type of complex, ongoing prompt can actually narrow your story’s focus.
The hardest part of combining prompts that affect thge entire story is deciding which elements to keep, and which to forego. We use the combined genres prompt style a lot for our Super Challenge, so we’ll focus on that to give you the same advice we give our final round participants. But don’t forget: you can plug in any kind of ongoing prompt to this advice, not just genres!
- Look. Up. Your. Genres.
- Even if you know one of the genres well, even if your name is actually Ngaio Marsh and we assigned you “mystery,” it’s good to think about not only what you believe is in the genre but what your judges might be expecting to see. Both genres need to be easily identifiable, so think about which elements of the two will work together and which will not.
- Don’t go offroading with your genres. Sure, there are noir stories that don’t incorporate crime, femme fatales, or hardboiled main characters… but this isn’t the time to be trying to write one. Stick to the main tropes for your assigned genres and let the interplay between the two provide the sense of freshness and innovation you’re looking for to show off your creativity.
Remember that there are two basic genre prompt styles: element-based genres, like science fiction or romance, and style-based genres, like noir or epistolary. If you’re lucky, your combined genre prompt will contain one of each. If not, however, your best bet is to focus on the elements of one and the style of the other. (Check out the linked posts on genre prompts for some ideas.)
The big difference with a combination of “affect the whole story” prompts is that you have to be analyzing throughout your entire writing process whether you’re representing both (or all) prompts well at any given point. Unlike “go into” elements, there’s no point in your story where you can think “well, there, I’m done with science fiction, all I have to ask myself now is do I have enough horror?”
Save yourself some trouble: don’t make these common mistakes
- Double-check the instructions before you submit your story. How important should the prompts be? When in doubt, lean towards incorporating your prompts vs. just including them.
- Don’t trust your own eyes. We’ve all been guilty of focusing so hard on one prompt that we forget to include another. (Like that time I edited out the prompt word in my own story for the prompted challenge that I designed! ~ch) Give your story to a beta reader and ask them to find the prompts. If your beta can’t identify them, chances are the judges or editors won’t either.
- Unless instructed to do so, don’t highlight the prompts in your story. There’s no need to use underlines, or bold text, unless the directions tell you to. You want them to feel natural, not to stand out. Sometimes the best stories are when the prompt is so well incorporated that the judges have to look for them. (Yes, this seems to contradict the previous point, but there’s a difference between a missing prompt and a prompt that fits in so well it’s not immediately recognizable.)
Your turn!
Check out our weekly prompt posts where we’ll give you a set of prompts that must all be incorporated into your story or essay. Don’t forget to ask for help in the Coffeehouse on Facebook or Discord if you’ve got questions – you can post a link to your draft or even a snippet of your story or essay (up to 250 words) for immediate feedback. Don’t forget to use content warnings where they’re merited, so that you can get the best and most engaged readers for the words you like to write.
What’s next?
Wondering what the year has in store? Here’s a handy roadmap!
Get out your map
Here's the general flow of this year's workshop series. You don't have to follow them in order, but you may find that one builds on the next.
About the author:
Christine Hanolsy is a (primarily) science fiction and fantasy writer who simply cannot resist a love story. She joined the YeahWrite team in 2014 as the microstory editor and stepped into the role of Editor-In-Chief in 2020. Christine was a 2015 BlogHer Voices of the Year award recipient and Community Keynote speaker for her YeahWrite essay, “Rights and Privileges.” Her short fiction has been published in a number of anthologies and periodicals and her creative nonfiction at Dead Housekeeping and in the Timberline Review. Outside of YeahWrite, Christine’s past roles have included Russian language scholar, composer, interpreter, and general cat herder. Find her online at christinehanolsy.com.
About the author:
Rowan submitted exactly one piece of microfiction to YeahWrite before being consumed by the editorial darkside. She spent some time working hard as our Submissions Editor before becoming YeahWrite’s Managing Editor in 2016. She was a BlogHer Voice of the Year in 2017 for her work on intersectional feminism, but she suggests you find and follow WOC instead. In real life she’s been at various times an attorney, aerialist, professional knitter, artist, graphic designer (yes, they’re different things), editor, secretary, tailor, and martial artist. It bothers her vaguely that the preceding list isn’t alphabetized, but the Oxford comma makes up for it. She lives in Portlandia with a menagerie which includes at least one other human. She tells lies at textwall and uncomfortable truths at CrossKnit.
