The Spark # 3

Just add Weird and Words

Welcome Promptlings to the re-invisioned Prompt Quest: The Spark! It’s time to be weird, fantastical, daring, and deploy your creativity. Imagine monstrous beasts, conniving ghosts, and characters with mysterious motives who may also control weapons of wonder. All of this wondrous speculation originates from your imagination. The task is yours. This is The Spark!

The Rules

The rules are simple. You will be presented with a prompt. It could be a required first line, a task that will challenge your craft, elements required in your story, or a genre specific prompt. You will have two weeks to write a short story under the rules of the prompt. We’ll host a Gathering to celebrate what’s been accomplished and highlight your stories at the end of two weeks. You can share them on this thread, as well as The Pitch at the end of the month. This is an opportunity to find writers you admire, befriend, and learn from.

When sharing your creation, give us the title of your piece, genre in the form an emoji (see below), a brief teaser, and a link to your work. While most of the work will be posted on Substack, you are welcome to share work that fits the prompt that has been shared elsewhere (Wattpad, Simily, Amazon, etc.), but we do ask that the piece be available to readers for free. The Spark is an opportunity to grow in your craft and share your work with other speculative fiction writers.

Genre Emoji Index

👽- Science Fiction

🔮- Fantasy

💀- Horror

🔥- Dystopian

🍫- Magical Realism (Like Water for Chocolate, get it??)

👀- Weird Fiction

(The Gathering discussion thread will take place on Sunday, October 19th, starting at 3am PST, and will run all day.)

The Prompt

“Imagining a world creates it, if it isn’t already there. That’s the great secret of existence: it’s supersensitive to thought. Decisions, wishes, lies—that’s all you need to create a new universe.” - N.K. Jemisin The City We Became

Watch

Marble

Nightmares

You have three objects, with a Halloween twist. These objects need to be key elements in your story this month. Your story should not be able to work without these objects. Bring us your spookiest stories using the objects listed above.

Happy writing!

Good Luck Promptlings!

If you have questions or suggestions, feel free to comment or send me (Reina Cruz) a DM.