At the surface, I'm bored. My mind is bored and I need to stretch it. So, I want prompts.
Underneath that is something more murky.
In my opinion, the goal of a good prompt is to target a weak point in the writing of most without stating the weak point you're targeting. If you're forthright, you risk giving away what you're seeking to get and coming out with nothing but a pandering audience. If you're too subtle the writers will miss the exercise and write what they feel - usually comfortable territory.
Give me a good prompt and I'll return the favor with one that's been brewing for a while.
1. A new element is discovered, with dangerous properties. 2. Smut. Let's write a tawdry porno book. 3. Computers have been watching us this whole time. 4. Time is slowing down and you are the only one who has noticed. 5. Coffee has been completely wiped off the planet by a disease of the plant. 6. Every sticker you put on has 24 hours to be pulled off or it becomes a tattoo. 7. We all live for exactly 30,000 days barring physical injury. 8. Prominent figure is a serial killer. 9. Intelligence is represented by a physical feature. 10. Life is fair.
Vonnegut did this so incredibly well with Harrison Bergeron.10. Life is fair.
Totally agree. However, when I was thinking of the premise it was more along the lines of fairness and karma. What if everything really did come around, and bad people got what they deserved. I think people would be a lot less impressed with it than they would like to imagine. But I also believe most people do a lot of harm. There are people in the world who hit their wife and then go to their good paying job and have respect and admiration from their peers. There are people who volunteer at the soup kitchen to feed the needy who get shot in the street. Life isn't fair by any stretch. Criminals get away with it, heroes are nothing. But what if it was and there was some cosmic tracker. What would ethics mean then?
You were right - there is a monster under your bed. Tell me about your first encounter.
"What?" I asked the darkness, and for a long moment the darkness did not respond. I would like to say that I didn't expect it to, but I know what I heard. "I..." it hissed out to me, as though the wind that seeped through the cracks in the walls had managed to learn the language, "...hear... you..." The voice covered the room like a winter's chill settles over a forest. The world became silent and still. The thousand chirping insects seeking mates in the safety of the night fell quiet or left. I swallowed my breath and calmed my heart, every inch of me straining to silent it's noise in an attempt to listen. Even the old house, whose constant settling through groans and moans, sat still and waiting. "Every night..." it continued, "... I hear you. I hear your pining and your whining, your worries and your woes. I hear the secret sounds of your lonely and longing heart. I hear it breaks in the times you realize you're alone. I hear it as it races in the times you try to fill it back up with digital lust. "I hear your mind churn as you plan and plot your ways to become a person of power. I hear the smugness of your smile as you lull yourself to sleep with assurances of cleverness, and I hear the sound of your dark doubts that wake you back up at night. "I hear your want for friendship. You desperate pleas that someone see you, that someone know you, that someone help you. I hear your subtle shocked fears when you realize the true weight another person can put on your heart. I hear when you shut them out. "I hear all of these things and so much more. For years I have heard them, every night when you think you are alone. I hear your shallow frets and fears. I hear you nurture them, feed them, grow them. I hear you listen to them too, I hear you make them bigger than they are, and I hear you hide behind them, using them as an excuse. "Your mind turns cotton strings into iron chains and you tell yourself that you are trapped here, weighed down by the weight of your own noise. A noise that you create. A sound that you bottle up throughout the day, worried that someone will hear it wrongly and take offense. Your own personal roar that wants so badly to escape that it leaks out of you at every opportunity. A noise that keeps me up at night. "This cannot continue. You must see your shackles for the strings they are and break yourself free. You must make the noises that come naturally to you and not fear the false futures that keep you placated. If you don't, you will come to find there are far worse things than the meager imagined musings natured in your mind." The voice trailed off into the dark and while I didn't have the will to say it outloud I knew he could hear me asking, "what things?" The pause was long and in its length I realized how much the fear had taxed me. I began to drift into a silent sleep but before it took me I heard, "...me."
Nice! Very spooky :D I love reading a person's primal fears, those murky parts of the id. The word murky in your post made me think of it ;)