It’s about the journey, not the destination
But the destination is here regardless: it’s December and our Navigating Prompts workshop has come to an end. But don’t worry. We have a tremendously cool (do we still say that?) workshop coming in 2022 to help you polish your pieces and shine up your stories. In the meantime, let’s take a look back through 2021, when we (the editors) spent way too much time looking at competitions, calls for submissions, and prompted games to bring you the best ideas we have for how to address the most common prompt styles. Did we miss some? Yes, absolutely. You can have an image of an object, or a summary of a story (thanks, tumblr), or a scene to fit into a larger story, or the first half of an unfinished story or….
But we got through a lot, and we hope you had as much fun riding along as we did writing along.
No matter what:
Here are a few tips and tricks that apply to all prompt styles and situations across the board.
- READ. THE. INSTRUCTIONS. We can’t reiterate this enough. Read the instructions before you start to write. Read them again while you’re writing to make sure you’re on the right track. And read them before you submit your work—there’s nothing worse than putting in hours of blood, sweat, and tears, only to find that you’ve edited the prompt right out of your story.
- Understand the difference between including a prompt and intergrating or incorporating it. It’s rarely enough to just include the prompt; you need to integrate it into your work. Given a choice between a story in which the prompt just appears and a story in which the prompt is fully integrated, judges and editors will generally choose the latter.
- In general, it’s better to write to the prompt, not away from it. In other words, don’t go looking for the most creative, far-fetched interpretation of the prompt—it’s much more likely to confuse (or even irritate) the editors than impress them, and especially in a competition, it’s very risky. A safer bet is to write the more obvious interpretion of the prompt in the way only you can. That being said, if a prompt inspires you to push the boundaries, that’s great! Write that story—just don’t submit it to that particular venue. You can find a better home for it where the rules aren’t so strict.
- Always, always use a beta reader. This doesn’t have to be an official relationship. Your beta reader can be your roommate, your partner, your writing group, or even your mom. Be specific as to what you need from them. “Can you find the prompt?” is a much more useful question than “What did you think of my story?” And while it’s always tempting to get your best friend to beta read, they may be more concerned with your ongoing friendship than with making the story the best it can be–they know feedback can sting, and may shy away from giving you what you need. Your best betas will be invested in the story, not in making you feel good about yourself at the story’s expense. Your ideal beta can make you feel good about yourself while helping you fix the story. But if you have to pick one… pick the story.
Let’s take a look in the rearview mirror
As you read back through the various prompt types we’ve worked with over the course of this year, keep asking yourself “is this the type of prompt that I have to put into the story, or the type of prompt that will affect the way I approach writing the story?” That is, is this a substance or a style prompt? And remember some prompts are both.
While we’ve summarized our tips on various prompt types here, remember to click through to the full article if you’re facing down a prompt.
Word or Phrase Prompts
Word and phrase prompts are a favorite among competitions because they test a writer’s flexibility and attention to voice, nuance, and context. Judges and editors are evaluating not only whether the author has inserted the word or phrase accurately and used it correctly (substance), but also whether the author can adjust their own individual voice to match someone else’s (style). If it’s a single word, it shouldn’t stand out. If it’s a first or last line, it should flow into (or out of) your story. Also (and this sounds simple, but who hasn’t made a mistake with a homonym or misunderstood an idiom at some point in their life?): make sure you know what the word or phrase actually means. Look it up. Is there anything about it that suggests a time period, physical location, or genre? Finally, check your work again to make sure you are following any rules regarding punctuation, tense, or other limitations. Especially if you’ve used an editor or beta reader–too many folks have had their word or phrase edited right out of their story because “it didn’t sound right” rather than adjusting the rest of the story around it.
Action Prompts
Action prompts usually show up as some variation of “[verb]ing a [noun].” Read the rules carefully on this one! The action may need to be the goal of your story, or it may just need to be included (both of these are substance prompts, by the way). It may need to be undertaken by your main character, or it may be that any character can do it. Regardless, it ought to be centered in such a way that changing any part of the action would change the story. Pay attention to the connotations of the words describing the action, not just the dictionary definitions—they may provide clues as to how the action takes place as well as where or by whom. A well-incorporated action prompt can help start the plot or help resolve it—you’ve got a lot of options!
Object Prompts
Object prompts are pretty straightforward—there’s not a lot of nuance involved. Put the thing in your story (substance, right?). That being said, there are a couple things you can do to make sure you use the prompt to maximum effect. First, make sure your object is important and irreplaceable. That is, make sure the object matters. If you can replace the prompt object with any other object without changing the story, you haven’t incorporated it, and a well-incorporated prompt is much more likely to score well with judges and editors alike. Additionally, incorporating the object well will reassure judges or editors that you have in fact written the story for their specific submission, not just fished it out of your slush pile (you would never do this but some people do!) of stories with lists of objects in them.
Character Prompts
Character prompts tend to include information that falls into one (or more) of three categories: personal attributes, internal and emotional attributes, or life choices and situations. Personal attributes include characteristics that you (generally) cannot change, and that affect the way a character experiences the world. Internal and emotional attributes include things that might change over the course of the story, or even drive the story, based on how the character views the world. Life choices and situations are external to the character, but affect them nevertheless. Characters’ actions should be consistent with what you can infer from these attributes. (But don’t fall into the trap of writing stereotypes.) Oh, and obviously, this is a substance prompt. Put the character in the story.
Setting Prompts
Settings are relatively simple substance prompts but they can be a lot more than just location and/or time period. They can include elements that influence everything from characters to plot. A setting prompt can be vague or broad (a city street), or it can be very specific (“Boston” or even “Boston in 1773”). If you’re unfamiliar with the time period or location, do some research! You will want to include enough details to make the setting obvious—if you show your story to a friend, they should be able to identify and describe the setting. Some setting prompts may suggest a storyline based on a particular event or situation in the setting; don’t be afraid to lean into that!
Image Prompts: Characters and Settings
Common image prompts include pictures of places and pictures of people. They can also include objects (sorry, Super Challenge 22 writers!). But whatever’s in the image is a substance prompt: you have to put the thing in the story. We’ve addressed characters and settings in two separate articles, but you can approach all image prompts in similar ways. Analyze the photo by determining what you see: who, what, when, where, why, and how. Separate what you see from what you can infer from the photo. A picture can tell you a lot about location, time period, technology, and even society, and your own personal lived experience will inevitably influence your assumptions about a person or place in a photo. Challenge those assumptions to avoid bias in your story. Finally, don’t forget to describe what you see—and do make sure to include an actual story, not just a description!
Genre Prompts
We’ve divided genre prompts into two types: element-based (e.g., science fiction, romance) and style-based (e.g., epistolary, noir). See how this matches up with substance and style overall? Yeah, it’s just really obvious with genres that you have to think about this deliberately, because you have to pick your elements from a list. Element-based genres require the writer to include certain expected, well, elements; style-based genres are more about voice, vocabulary, and (sometimes) format. Just to make it more complicated, some genres, such as steampunk, contain aspects of both! Make sure to look up your genre to see what should be included. Some elements of a genre are mandatory (you’d be hard pressed to write high fantasy without magic, for example); others may be up to the author. Style-based genres put more emphasis on feel, but if you’re writing a story in a style-based genre, don’t focus so much on the style that you forget to include any concrete elements that are part of that genre prompt.
Retellings
Retellings allow a writer to reinterpret a familiar story by putting their own unique spin on it. This could be as simple as changing the point of view or setting it in a new time or place, or it could involve reimagining the story’s ending or beginning, adding new characters, or mashing more than one story together. No matter what, the author should take the time to get familiar with the original story, and there are always certain elements from the original that you’ll need to include in order for it to be recognized as a retelling. Use these anchor objects, situations, or events to connect the reader to the original story. Retellings are the perfect opportunity to see how far you can drift from the prompt while still making the story recognizable. Just remember to read the instructions to determine if there are any limitations!
Combination Prompts
We’ve saved the best for last: it’s a free-for-all in the land of combination prompts. Combination prompts ask you to include two or more prompts or elements into one story or piece. They’re a favorite among contest runners because they allow for a wide variety of stories and demand maximum creativity from the writers while ensuring that it would be really difficult to edit all the prompts into an existing story. Before you start, look at each prompt or element and decide whether it requires substance (an action, an object, a phrase) or whether it changes your style (genre, main character, some setting prompts). Some prompts will have multiple substantive elements, others will have mixed stylistic and substantive elements, and sometimes you may find yourself with only stylistic elements. The trickiest part is making sure none of the prompts get edited out of your story—have a beta reader help you double-check!
Ready, set, go—one more time!
There you have it: all* our advice about prompts in a handful of handy articles. We hope that this series will be a useful resource to writers of all types and experience levels, whether you are entering a competition (how about our own Super Challenge?), perusing anthology calls for submission, or just looking for ways to spark creativity. Happy writing!
* Who am I kidding? We’re never done talking about writing prompts and techniques! Let’s continue this conversation in the Coffeehouse on Facebook or Discord.
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.
