This week: Prompts and Ideas Edited by: Leger~  
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This newsletter aims to help the Writing.com short story author hone their craft and improve their skills. I would also like to inform, advocate, and create new, fresh ideas for the short story author. Write to me if you have an idea you would like presented.
This week's Short Story Editor
Leger~
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Prompts and Ideas
Last month I covered an idea for inspiration, people watching. I hope everyone was observing more during the holidays. I don't know about you, but I'm tired. For me, the holidays are very draining. Being an ambivert, it's time for me to recharge. January isn't the time to start the gym membership, or start some diet food. One, they're more expensive in January, and two...I'm tired!
So how do I call up some prompts for story ideas? Writing.com has this really nifty tools, called...you guessed it "Writing Prompts". If you click Writing.Com in the left navigation panel, then choose  Writing Prompts, a page will load with a prompt! Reload the page and you'll see another one. You can even submit new prompts.
Another cool tool below the Writing Prompts link is Ideanary. Put in a common word, like "green" and Ideanary will give you possible alternative ideas like: exploitable, gullible, naive, ivy, olive, verdant, vernal, and bombastic! Sometimes reading over the list can get the muse back in gear. Plus, some of the suggestions get me chuckling.
I really believe that a person can have a drought or a block writing a particular story, it's happened to me. But sources for ideas are right at our fingertips.
Take a look, and Write On!
This month's question: Do you use the Writing Prompts or Ideanary? Send in your answer below!  Editors love feedback!
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An elevator pitch is a short and compelling summary of an idea that can be delivered in the time it would normally take to ride an elevator. The goal is to hook interest quickly and leave those being pitched to wanting to know more. Each round you'll be supplied with prompt elements to fashion your very own elevator pitch for a story. If you're successful, you win. If you're unsuccessful, well, security is waiting to escort you out of the building on the next floor.
This contest uses only spoken words or internal dialogue!
Win the exclusive "I Write " Open in new Window. in 2025 Merit Badge by writing 25 contest entries here on Writing.Com and review the fellow author who posted an entry in this forum right before you. At least one entry has to be entered in September for a contest linked on "Writing.Com Party Central 2025!"
Excerpt: All those years. All those tears. All those bad rhymes...
I digress. Eggy had a point (so as not to roll away). I... had puns and wit and little talent. Gravedigger? At least they put the dead to rest instead of carrying the ghosts around in their pocket (along with a pen and a notebook. Not smart, a ghost with a pen leaves horrible ink stains... what a nightmare).
Excerpt: Someday, someday soon, after the electroconvulsive therapy is over and the doctors have perfected my cocktail of drugs, I will tell her.
Excerpt: Signs are everywhere; sometimes I heed the warnings. With the impending snowstorm, I couldn't wait to dig out my old sled and get it ready to go and spiral down the hill I've been on hundreds of times.
Excerpt: So long, you ungrateful nincompoops.
Excerpt: She was carrying a folded blanket as if it were a newborn cradled in her arms and rubbing it to soothe the child.
Excerpt: Harold sat in his son-in-law’s La-Z-Boy with his feet up. He said, “Get rid of all the searching history records, that’s all I ask.”
“It’s called Search History, Gramps.
Excerpt: This was a trip she had talked about taking for years. She wanted us to travel together, so she could show me what Hamburg was like. This was the city of her childhood; where she went to school, where she worked, and where she and my dad met so many years ago.
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This month's question: Do you use the Writing Prompts or Ideanary? Send in your answer below! Editors love feedback!
Last month's "Short Stories Newsletter (December 4, 2024)" question: How do you refresh the 'imagination bank'?
Samuel Max  : Sometimes when I am at a shopping center or at the mall, I also like to watch the people who are nearby to see what they are doing or what they are possibly saying. I like your ideas about people watching at the holiday party you wrote above is and I will also consider using notes when out in public the next time I go.
Elisa: Snowman Stik  : ...I need a bigger imagination bank. The deposits keep rollin' in!
Ichabod Crane  : I hope mine don't go bankrupt! Seems inspiration can be anywhere if you think about it. One line I read few weeks ago inspired a short story here.
Humble Poet PNG  : I generally "refresh" my imagination bank by hanging a few fish (which have been deceased for at least a week) about the place. They can't possibly smell any worse than anything else in there.
oldgreywolf on wheels  : Easily.
Observations, perceptions, news, comedy, barely remembered fragments of dreams, et al, all become input.
Output's a tad slower.
tj in a winter wonderland  : I don't know, but mine's overdrawn!
Jolly Jingle Jtpete  : I am having great difficulty opening that account.
TheBusmanPoet  : Meditation.
Dave's trying to catch up  : Look out my window.
Pa-pogina-tato!  : Read poems, watch TV, learn from history, take a walk, play an RPG. Any of those activities seem to help in most cases....unless there's a subconscious block in my head.
Ann72  : I close my eyes and simply imagine and feel.
keyisfake : Reading and watching movies.
Bob : Read what you do not know.
Jaycin Alexis : Watching anime and reading honestly.
Thanks to everyone for your responses! L~
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Short Stories: January 01, 2025 Issue [#12919]
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