quocanh

Writing Prompt: Write a story about a flashback that is completely false. --- You're dead. Your immortal soul drifts upward—or at least that's how you interpret the sensation. There is no true sight, sound, or any familiar sense, yet somehow information reaches you in ways your consciousness struggles to comprehend. A choice materializes before you—not visually, but as an undeniable presence. Heaven: everlasting paradise. Hell: infinite torment. The decision seems obvious. All you need to do is speak your preference. You attempt to voice your choice but discover you cannot. Panic floods what remains of your being. You struggle against conceptual limitations, writhing against non-existent restraints. The idea of eternal damnation terrifies you to the core. Then comes relief: Just kidding. You don't actually have to choose. A pause. I apologize for trying to make you speak—professional habit. I used to be a dentist. An awkward chuckle without form. You died in 2025, correct? Something like the shuffling of papers ripples through the void. Ah yes, the dawn of artificial intelligence. Starting from this date, all arrivals must complete a verification test. Nothing to worry about—consider it the afterlife equivalent of those CAPTCHAs we used to solve when alive. Quite simple... if you're not a robot. Somewhere in the ether, a pair of brows furrow. Confusion cascades through your consciousness. Before you can question this bizarre protocol, the formless space transforms around you. Three distinct visions materialize, each contained within its own pocket of infinity—separate universes observed through impossible windows. Within each, a memory plays with perfect clarity, not merely visible but experienced completely. Knowledge arrives in your mind with the certainty of fundamental truth: you must identify which of these three events never actually happened in your life. The test has begun. Situation 1 Situation 2 Situation 3 If 1 didn't happen: If 2 didn't happen: If 3 didn't happen: --- I came up with this idea for an opposite choose-your-own-adventure where: instead of choosing what happens next, you choose what didn't happen before. Coming up with the situations was more difficult than I had anticipated—this is a story told in the deletion of its parts. I had to rely on a concept called apophenia, which is the human tendency/ability to see patterns in randomness. I also needed to center my situations around an object (the ring) whose meaning was carved out with each story. Now I think my premise is really cool, but I'm willing to bet that someone else can come up with even better situations. If you can come up with your own, I'd love to hear your version of this.

Writing Prompt: An artist finds a way to improve or perfect the form he or she is working within, and by so doing unlocks magic. --- The puppet collapsed with a hollow clatter as the wauke fibers snapped, sending wooden limbs scattering across the floor. Lilia stared at the broken pieces, her shoulders slumping in defeat. Hours of concentration, and not even the faintest spark of magic had stirred from her fingertips. "Hey, don't worry about it." Kiana's voice carried a brittle cheerfulness. "Everyone struggles at first." She shifted her weight from foot to foot, hands fluttering between reaching out and pulling back. What had begun as enthusiastic coaching had withered into anxious hovering, making Lilia's focus scatter like the puppet's remains. Lilia exhaled slowly, pushing away the tightness in her chest. "It's just not working. Maybe I should practice alone for a while." The words came out harsher than intended, but she couldn't bear Kiana's hopeful gaze anymore. It's easier to be a failure when no one is watching, she thought, already imagining the relief of solitude. "Nuh uh, hine," Kiana said, shaking her head with the certainty of someone repeating an unquestionable truth. "The magic only flows when you share the space with another. That's how it's always been." She gestured between them with circling hands. "The elders say it's about shared energy—two spirits creating something neither can make alone." Lilia bit her lip to keep from arguing. Another tradition without explanation beyond "that's how it is." Her fingers curled into fists at her sides as she stared at the scattered puppet pieces. She wanted formulas, principles—something she could test and understand. But the memory of the elder's flushed face, her father's grip on her shoulder as he forced her to bow and apologize for "disrespect"—it all rose up like a wall between her questions and any answers she might find. She unclenched one hand to brush a strand of hair from her face, trying to hide her frustration. "Besides," Kiana continued, brushing dust from her hands, "nobody does magic alone. It doesn't even make sense." She said it with the casual certainty of someone stating that water is wet or fire burns. To create helpers makes no sense? Lilia wanted to scream. No one in the village understood why she spent sunrise to sunset tinkering with her inventions—like the water wheel that could split coconuts with the power of the river current. "Why bother when the puppets could do it for you?" they'd ask, their faces a mixture of confusion and pity. But they had missed the point entirely. The puppets she dreamed of creating wouldn't just perform simple tasks—they would build even larger, more precise devices. Tools that would work reliably and predictably. That wouldn't fail even if they were left alone. That followed rules she could understand, even if she was the only one who did. "I guess so." Lilia's words fell flat between them. What was the point in explaining? Kiana would never understand. Their conversation scattered at the sound of approaching footsteps. Two boys appeared in the doorway of the hut, one tall and muscular, walking with an exaggerated swagger that announced his presence before his shadow did. "What's up, hine?" The taller boy leaned against the doorframe, his gaze sweeping over their work area. "Oh hey, Kai!" Kiana sprang to her feet, her voice suddenly jumping two octaves higher. She smoothed her hands down her skirt. "I was just teaching Lilia how to animate the stringdolls." Kai's eyes drifted to the broken puppet on the floor, his mouth curling into a smirk. "Still at it, huh?" He looked directly at Lilia. "Hey, some people just never get it." Heat flooded Lilia's cheeks. The implication was clear—she belonged with people like old Nanoa, the hermit who muttered to himself in the sea caves on the far side of the island. The one everyone whispered about, born without the gift, forgotten by the spirits. She struggled for a comeback when the quiet boy beside Kai unexpectedly spoke up. "I think it just takes time." His voice was soft but steady. "My dad didn't even figure it out until his sixteenth year." Lilia studied this unfamiliar face. Next to Kai, he looked like a sapling beside an ancient banyan—all limbs and angles, as if a strong breeze might send him tumbling. But there was something sincere in his expression that Kai's never held. When he smiled at her—a genuine smile that reached his eyes—something fluttered beneath her ribs, a sensation that made her suddenly, acutely aware of her tangled hair and the dirt smudges on her hands from hours of practice. Kiana snorted, shattering the moment. "Lani, your dad is the Prime." She rolled her eyes. "He was too busy mastering battle forms to bother with stringdolls—everyone knows you can't do both simultaneously." She glanced sideways at Kai, chin tilting upward slightly, as if offering him proof she understood the subtleties of their island's magic. "Eh, yeah sure, hine," Kai mumbled, clearly uninterested in the details. His eyes lit up as he changed the subject. "You guys want to watch the Prime's dance? I heard he's doing something special to bless the next explorers." The mention of explorers transformed Kai's posture—shoulders back, voice animated—as if the mere thought of the celestial navigators who sailed beyond the horizon searching for new lands had awakened something in him. Lilia resisted rolling her eyes. Boys and their fascination with adventure and distant shores. She glanced at Lani and noticed his attention had shifted completely to Kai, a quiet intensity replacing his earlier gentleness. Even the Prime's son dreamed of the open ocean, it seemed. Lilia opened her mouth to refuse, but Kiana had already bounded to Kai's side, her laughter high and bright as she playfully shoved his shoulder. They disappeared through the doorway together, their voices fading into the afternoon. Lani lingered, shifting his weight from one foot to the other. "Do you want to go?" he asked, his voice softer than before. Her mind assembled a polite refusal. She needed to keep practicing. The puppet needed reassembling. Her river-wheel invention sat half-finished behind her sleeping mat. But something in his earnest gaze—expectant yet undemanding—made those thoughts scatter like leaves in a breeze. Before she realized what she was doing, she was nodding, rising to her feet, and following him into the golden afternoon light, leaving the broken pieces of her failed magic behind in the shadows of the hut. --- For this one I was immediately inspired to create a Sanderson-style magic system. I'd always wanted to do it myself and I mean: Isn't the prompt just the most wonderful meta-explanation for Cosmere magic? The introduction of a romance plot was a surprise for me. I added it partway through because I had watched Anora last night and it showed me that you really can write a romance plot that isn't just a bunch of cliches. I felt like it would've been a good surface to show Lilia's growth as the story continues and I wanted to practice the Art of Romance (Novels). I did end it early because I have to timebox these responses. I had a few ideas for her arc I would've loved to get into, like focusing on audience in your art instead of focusing on the art itself. That's something I'd been working on myself. Lilia hasn't yet mastered her art, but hey, you could argue that Lilia did find a little magic at the end

Writing Prompt: Start your book with an ending where everyone dies (and it works). --- Drogi Bolek, You told me that we'd survive this, you lying bastard. Don't you remember? Mama had stuffed us into that dusty cellar where we choked on paraffin fumes from the flickering lamp. I coughed into your shoulder as Nazi boots pounded the floorboards above our heads. I remember asking you directly—the thin lines of light filtering through the cracks illuminating your wide eyes as you nodded and pulled me close. As you whispered, "We'll make it through." Now I sit alone, writing to a ghost. I can't help but wonder when else you've lied. That summer, while helping Papa on the farm, I told you about Ruth, the milkmaid with the homespun wool dress and the wheat-gold hair. I confessed the days I'd spent extra hours helping Pa with cows just to glimpse her, the nights spent in the fields where the rustling rye whispered her name. You placed a hand over my shoulders then. "She returns your smiles," you insisted, eyes bright with certainty. When my courage failed at the harvest dance, you grabbed my hand and planted me before her like a flagpole. You gave me that reassuring nod when I choked on my words, my heart hammering against my ribs. Later, when she dismissed me with a laugh and twirled away with some dupek, you were there with a flask and understanding. "A better woman would have seen you for who you are," you told me, pressing the vodka into my trembling hands, even as I doubted I'd ever love anyone as fiercely again. I believed you. You were the one that filled us with hope. "We'll be safe in Palestine," you said. We would leave in the Spring, start a new life in a new land away from the hordes of evil men that threatened us. You kept us going with stories of orange groves and warm beaches, of freedom. After the Germans took you and Papa, Mama and I were suddenly left in a house that felt too big and too quiet. The hours stretched unbearably long in that coffin of memories. For a long time, I did not know how to dry Mama's tears. She would sit by the window, waiting, her hands folded like crumpled paper in her lap. All I could think about was the promise you broke - the one you made between your words, that you'd always be there to protect us. So I told Mama that we were going to be alright. I told her we'd find a chance to slip into the night, past the guards, beyond the checkpoints. Even if it took us weeks of watching and waiting, we would escape. The words felt hollow in my mouth, but I watched color slowly return to her sunken cheeks. Her eyes, which had been vacant for weeks, held a flicker of something I recognized -- the same spark of belief I felt when you held me in that cellar. Did you know it was hopeless then, too? Did you lie because you knew we needed it? Every day, more people are getting on trains and they don't come back. The soldiers watch us constantly now, marking our doors. So I left you this letter, hidden where only you would look, in case we're not here when you return. By the time you find these words, I want you to know that we'll have fled to a safe place. When this is all over, we will reunite. Papa will tell us his old war stories while Mama fusses over dinner, the smell of her pierogi filling the room. We'll drink, laugh, and sing like we did before. I'll sit quietly and smile while you tell us all how you broke out and survived against impossible odds. I still need to believe you. Jakub --- Hello everybody! I'm an aspiring writer and I've been trying to get better. To that end, I've been listening to the podcast (in chronological order so it's an old one!) but I figured that actually answering these prompts would be 10x better than passively absorbing information. If you have any feedback, please feel free to let me know! I'm still a new writer so I figure there will be rough edges. I'd love your help to help shave 'em off. For this one, I chose to write a self-contained story with the ending where everybody dies. Working backwards was a fascinating exercise: Knowing the ending meant that instead of leading to an event and coming up with interesting elements, I had to work backwards and focus on elements that would make the ending meaningful. Going through those motions actually made some things click for me, so I found this immensely helpful.