Fionagreywrites

Odd Prompts, Version 2.025: Week 21

Howdy, y’all! Nother Mike is kicking off a miniseries with some bits on stimulating creativity. Let’s dive right in!
Creativity fan part one – the stimulus!

So the tools I’m going to be talking about — frankly, you’re more likely to use them in a mixture. Let me ask you to think about an old propeller with three blades. In the middle, there’s a hub. We’ll talk about each blade in turn, and then look at the hub. But just like that old propeller, this set of creative tools, the creative fan really does best when it’s spinning, so that the blades seem to be running into each other. Just remember that old propeller, and you’ll have a good mental picture of the creative fan you will be spinning.

Let’s start with one of the blades that I think can be a lot of fun. I’m going to call this the stimulus blade. This set of tools really looks at adding things, giving our brains something extra to work with. Now, there are various kinds of stimuli that you can use.

One of the easy ones is metaphors or analogies. For example, I like to keep this list handy:

— Journey

— Game

— War

— Machine

— Organism

— Society

That’s a list from 1989 of categories of fundamental business metaphors that people use. When people are talking about things that they are doing in business, they tend to use metaphors from one of these six categories. They talk about their career as a journey. Or maybe they talk about their business in terms of baseball, basketball, or football. Comparing what we are doing to fighting a war, or perhaps running a machine, or even some kind of pet? Finally, we often compare things to social groups.

Now you can easily make this list much more concrete. Stop and think about what kind of a journey you want to use, from where to where. Or what about a specific type of game? Which part of war seems to fit? What kind of a machine? Plant or animal, and which one? What kind of a social group or interaction?

You might want to add three common metaphors found in information system discussions:

— Family

— Jungle

— Zoo

But in any case, think about your questions in terms of metaphors. Just adding that bit of an idea often prompts more ideas. How is your character like a panther? How is their character arc like a plane trip to Europe? Is the plot more like a game of chess, poker, or soccer? Go ahead, walk through those categories of metaphor and analogy, and think about how your story elements fit into those frameworks.

Which brings us to a second method of stimulation that should be familiar to every writer. Often, changing the point of view does the trick. You might think of it as reframing the situation. Looking at a scene through another character’s eyes, or perhaps through a different genre or setting, can be very helpful. This can be just the stimulus you need to shake an idea free. Move things around and see what happens.

Third, still on the stimulation blade, you might want to consider random stimulation. Take a walk, look through a collection of pictures, visit a toy store or museum or maybe just the local mall, do something to add some random stimulus and see what connections your brain comes up with. Or, if you prefer a more sedentary approach, get a dictionary and pick random words. Or try visiting Wikipedia or other websites and hitting random article a few times. See if the bits that turn up make your neurons jump.

All right? So on the stimulus blade, we’ve got metaphors, changing point of view, and random stimulus.

And you’ve been very patient, so here’s your prompts!

PuppeteersStringsPuppets
Leigh KimmelThe storms kept coming and comingBecky Jones
Parrish BakerThe plant they discovered on the expedition didn’t appear in any book, and it seemed to be watching them.nother Mike
nother MikeSomeone filled his desk drawer with scorpions…Padre
Becky JonesRather unusually for a Tuesday afternoon, the coffee shop was filled with groups of chattering gnomes.Leigh Kimmel
PadreHe left the pile of incident reports on the corner of the desk for his replacement.Fiona Grey
Fiona GreyA whiskey-colored horse emerged from the emerald sea and…AC Young
AC Young“Your father’s mistake was to write a love letter and leave it lying around. His flatmate found it, and posted it to me.”Parrish Baker

And here are your spares:

The white flag was a new and concerning development.
“Two projects down, two more to go!” she said cheerfully. “No,” came a sharp reply. “Stop. Now.”
Deadwood’s biker gang had a suspicious fashion trend – fangs.
“But it’s a charity zombie prom.”
She could go out into the wide world without anyone knowing who she was, until she said anything, at which point all knew she was [character from radio series].
Buffalo gal, won’t you come out tonight, and dance by the light of the moon…

Will he come home again?

Your extra challenge for the week: STEADFAST.

Do you write young adult or middle grade horror? Graveside Press has a call for Gradeside (get it?) short stories, open until filled. Find out more here.

Images generated by Fiona Grey using Midjourney.

17 comments

  6. Parrish Baker opened the exchange with…

    The plant they discovered on the expedition didn’t appear in any book, and it seemed to be watching them.

    [so, we’re on an expedition and there’s a plant that seems to have an eye on us? Hum…]

    Kelly focused the camera on yet another example of the strange plant they had found. As the fourth expedition up the big river in the main continent on their new planet, they expected to find some new things, but… most of the plants and animals were already well known and documented. This one, though… it looked a bit like an overgrown fern, except the tips of the branches seemed to have eyes on them! And he could swear that they watched the expedition members move around them! In fact, as he focused the camera, at least one of those darned eyes winked at him!

    [Blah! Okay, let’s see…]

    Henry chuckled when George pointed at the odd looking plant hovering at the edge of the river, waving near the canoe they were in.

    “Henry, I swear, I saw that one in an old Addams Family rerun! Morticia was growing it in her garden.”

    Of course that was when the plant suddenly leaned forward and bit the front of the canoe. They also could see the eye on top, a bulbous white growth that seemed to be leering at them.

    [nah, that’s silly…]

    [sorry, I’m not coming up with much of a story to go with this one! Maybe next time!]

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  7. All right, WordPress is being – well, WordPress. Here’s my offering (thanks, Padre!) while I go kick the tires.

    “I can’t believe you’re finally doing it.” Kara had shed her blazer and left her holster exposed. A mug of oilslick coffee matched her expression. “Retirement.” She pronounced it like a dirty word. “Who’d have seen this coming?”

    “Well, you,” Darren said lightly. He shoved the desk chair – one wheel broken, with the seat showing a distinct indent – and left a pile of incident reports on the corner of his desk in a neat pile. “Being my partner all these years.”

    “And yet you’re leaving me with the paperwork,” she groused.

    “No.”

    Something in his voice made her look him dead in the eyes.

    “You’ll know a lot about my replacement when you see how those are handled.”

    Kara nodded, slowly. “I’m gonna miss you, old man.”

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