This book began as a writing experiment when I joined The Fabulous Spec-Fic Smack Down by @LayethTheSmackDown on Wattpad, which required me to write Speculative Fiction flash fiction, short stories, drabbles, and poetry based on prompts. That was a huge stretch for me, but I enjoyed it so much that I continued following the prompts after I was eliminated. And I’m keeping it going as long as I can by joining other prompt-based contests.
I decided from the beginning to use the same characters and world throughout the book, so while I write each chapter as a standalone short story, there is continuity between chapters, and an underlying storyline is emerging. My goal is to keep that going. It’s an odd balance I’m trying to strike here, especially since I typically write novels, not short stories.
Since this is a prompt-based book, it has quite a few quirks. The first is perspective. Lily, the protagonist in chapter one, is the entire book’s protagonist. However, she is not the central character in each chapter. I write her chapters in the first person and all other chapters in the third person.
The second quirk is chapter length. Many prompts provide word count restrictions; some do not. Currently, the shortest chapter is 100 words long, and the longest is just under 5,000 words. Most of them are somewhere in the middle.
The third quirk is genre. Speculative Fiction is typically a blend of Fantasy, Science Fiction, and Horror, often with alternate universes and timelines, but really, anything goes. The original contest was a Speculative Fiction contest, and I am a scaredy cat, so this is mostly a blend of Fantasy and Science Fiction thus far. I’m sure that will change, because I go where the prompts take me. But with Speculative Fiction, it’s fine if I take a jaunt into Chicklit land for a chapter or two, so it’s all good.
And that brings us to the fourth quirk: me. I don’t plan this. I can’t plan it. The prompts can change everything. I’ve learned to leave certain details vague on purpose, because that gives me wiggle room to pivot if the next prompt takes things in a different direction. When I get a new prompt, I read it, let it simmer in the back of my mind for a week or so, reread and revisit again when I feel like it, and I get some basic idea of how I at least want to start the next chapter and maybe what I want to happen.
Then I sit down to write. And anything can happen.
I write most of these chapters in one sitting, and I often surprise myself. This has become my writing sandbox. It’s where I go to play and let loose every wild idea that comes into my mind, and I love it. I hope you enjoy it, too.
At the bottom of each chapter, I list the date of creation, word count, prompt information, and a link to the original prompt, if I have it. I sometimes come back to tweak things here or there, and I have a list of editing/feedback suggestions from others that I intend to work through eventually. When that happens, I may leave a note about it, but I’m not changing the date and word count. That’s the original stamp, and I want to keep it there for my records.
Word count varies with the application used. All the word counts here come from Google Docs.
Content/trigger warnings: anxiety, depression, loss of a loved one, murder, PTSD, sexual references, strangulation, violence. I try to remember to update as needed when new problematic material arises, but if I miss something, please let me know.
Credit goes to @AprilJester for talking me into joining the original contest, @BookLover3062 for stealing my title and making me come up with a new one, and @Dove-Writes for designing the new cover (still pending).
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