A New Year’s Offering of Bizarre Fiction-Writing Prompts

By Lauren Garretson

From Bustle’s 18 Writing Prompts Pulled from Bizarre Celebrity Tweets:

1. Create a character who has a snake fetish but won’t admit it to himself. What happens when he has to take his estranged wife’s moody nephew to the zoo?
2. Write a story in list form detailing everything a woman ate during an uneventful day spent alone.
3. Dream up a world in which not having a social media account is fiercely illegal. What happens to those who dare to “unplug”?

Flash-Fiction Challenges from Writer Chuck Wendig’s Blog, Terrible Minds:

1. Click this link for a following phrase and use the phrase inside a flash-fiction piece.
2. Write in the voice of a broken coffee-mug.
3. Go to Google Images and type in the words “strange photos.” Pick one and use it as an inspiration for a piece of flash-fiction.

From “Free Creative Writing Prompts #6: Dark, Disturbing and Weird” on Build Creative Writing:

1. You wake up to find yourself in your five-year-old body and back in time. How do you spend your first 24 hours in this situation?
2. Everybody in the world has disappeared except for you. Describe your next 24 hours.
3. You answer your doorbell and you are surprised to see your grandfather standing in the doorway. Mostly because he’s dead. He says, “I have some important things to tell you.” Talk about your reaction and what happens next.