Our December Writing Prompt Party on Zoom for the Great Substack Prompt Celebration was as LITE as we expected. If you were unable to make it live, but still have time to write a new story and are looking for our prompt of the month, we are here to share it with you!
First, Let’s Talk World Building!
Alright Fictionistas, let’s hear about your relationship with the all important part of our craft: building fictional worlds!
Is world building something you love to do and feel particularly skilled at, or is this part of the WORK of your writing?
This month’s prompt definitely feels like one that pushes us to world build and, since we are usually using these prompts for short stories or flash fiction, we are being asked to do world build concisely! It was wonderful to hear how the writers in the call accomplished this, but how do you feel about it?
And Now: The Prompt
We were all feeling a bit “lite” this month, so we decided to emply the use of AI to get our prompt this month, asking it to provide a writing prompt with a holiday theme. Here’s the one we went with:
Imagine a world where the holidays are based on different emotions rather than specific dates. Explore the concept of a “joy day”, “sadness day”, or “courage day” and how people celebrate these emotional holidays.
What now?
Now that the party is over and the prompt has been shared, for this “lite” month, the rest is up to you. We are all off the hook for the rest of the month. If you do write a story and put it on your Substack, feel free to tag us (
and ) in Notes so we can take a peek during those lulls in this holiday season. Otherwise, we will be back next month (next year!) to start this whole thing over again!Share the Fiction Love!
Do you know a writer who is looking for this kind of inspiration and community support? Don’t forget to share this post so we can read their stories too!
I’m Heather, creator and face behind Sprinkled Inspiration. If you’re looking for more prompts, I’m your girl! I post daily prompts and Have a feature Friday where other creatives share a prompt of their own. Join Here
I’m Nicole creator of all things Stop Writing Alone including a podcast, a YouTube channel, and a Substack community hosting multiple monthly Live Zoom Events for writers seeking community. If you are ready to truly stop writing alone, join here.
i love world-building! This makes sense in that the inspiration for my main series was to bring the world of late 19th century San Francisco, especially the experience of women who worked in that world, alive for readers. But, when I shifted to a science fiction series, I discovered that I had just as much, if not more, fun creating a new world on a new planet! My biggest problem is not to overload the mystery or action adventure plots with the details of those worlds.
I love world building. Simultaneously it is my nemesis. Certain worlds build themselves. Others are the very last layer to form and gunk up the entire works, preventing me from transforming hundreds of thousands of words in snippets, scene snatches, plotlines, dialogues and concepts into fully fleshed chapters of a sparse long book series.
But when a world finally bwongs me on the head...then it is one of the funnest aspects to thread into everything. 🤓