The old writing prompts used to be about people, not worlds

Back in 2015, prompts were like "a stranger leaves you a voicemail from your future" or "the last conversation you have before a move." Now everything is about building some fantasy universe with magic systems and political factions. I miss when a prompt just made you think about someone's real life for a minute instead of needing a whole encyclopedia. Anyone else feel like the focus shifted too hard toward worldbuilding?

3 comments

3 Comments

jessica33113d ago

Right, I just love having to read a whole wiki page before I can even write a sentence. Nothing gets my creative juices flowing like a three paragraph explanation of how your crystal mana stones work. Maybe next we can do a prompt where you have to build the actual website for the fantasy kingdom before you start writing. Really makes the prompt feel like a second job.

sullivan.quinn13d ago

Is it really that bad though? You click on a prompt, skim the first couple lines for the core idea, and then just write what you want. Nobody's actually grading you on how well you incorporated the lore about the crystal mana stones. If half the prompt is worldbuilding, I just ignore it and pick my own starting point. Sure it's a bit annoying but calling it a second job feels like a stretch. Just write your story and move on, it's not like there's a test at the end.

michael_williams13d ago

Oh man, you're spot on with this. I swear half the prompts these days read like a fantasy novel's appendix, you know? I've got to scroll through three paragraphs about the history of the floating islands and how the political factions are split on using the forbidden magic. By the time I get to the actual prompt? I've already forgotten what I was supposed to write about. It's like they expect you to pass a test on their imaginary world's laws before you can even think about a character's feelings. Give me a good "you find a letter in an old coat pocket" prompt any day, not a freaking universe simulation.