Welcome Promptlings to 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, March 22nd, starting at 3am PST, and will run all day.)
The Prompt
“A problem isn’t finished just because you’ve found the right answer.”― Yōko Ogawa, The Housekeeper and the Professor
YI have enjoyed all I’ve read by Yōko Ogawa. She is one author that I would like to read more of, books that are waiting patiently in my neverending dusty tbr pile. This quote reminds me to dig deeper when it comes to my own writing. Our first “right answer” is not always the most original and it is rarely our best. Just as authors write a shitty first draft, our story brainstorms and story ideas also go through a shitty first “right answer.” Take these three objects for example:
Truck
Photo Album
Candle
You have three objects. These objects need to be key elements in your story this month. Your story should not be able to work without these objects. Take some time. How are you going to incorporate these objects. If your first answer the “right answer”? Did you need to go through several iterations of “answers” before finding the right combination? For today’s Spark prompt, bring us your most speculative of 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.
Forgive Me, Grace 👀(I'm actually not sure where this story fits. This emoji seemed the closest).
Old Moss has probably seen some things, but it all began the summer she turned 18 and got a job at the bookseller's. Link: https://lisadsrogers.substack.com/p/forgive-me-grace.
Cal has committed a terrible crime. But what it was he cannot remember.
https://douglasmcclenaghan.substack.com/p/born-again
🔥