Writing Prompts Can Be Your Ticket To Success!

We use writing prompts quite often in our writing club at school. They are a fun way to stretch yourself beyond your comfort zone. Think about it. You like writing about zombies, but a prompt asks you to write about your first love. 
As much as you might gag at the idea, it will stretch your skills. That's always a good thing as a writer. And, you never know. A story you create with a prompt might become a reader favorite that spawns your publishing success. So, here are a few suggestions. Give them a try, let me know how it goes.

• Write a story that includes a historical figure as one of the main characters. Writers in my club do this regularly, but the figures tend to turn into serial killers, vampires and the like.
• With pen and paper, visit a bookstore, coffee shop, etc. Sit for awhile. Write down all the dialogue you hear, then build a short story out of it. Our club did this, too. Once again, the characters in our story ended up dying.
• Write an alternate version of a fairy or folk tale. Modernize it, even. Yep, you guessed it. Club did this one and we focused on tales where some dark force unleashed evil on the world and it was doomsday. I think our club has issues.
• Look up 10 random words in the dictionary. The key here is random. Now write a short story using those words. Our club had fun with this one. One of the words we had to use was 'homunculus.' Of course our homunculi (plural??) were evil.

So there you go. Give those a try. You never know where it might take you. My Mall Demons Urban Fantasy Serial started with one short story using the writing prompt to 'Write an alternate version of a fairy or folk tale'. Now I am on Part 6, and it's on its way to becoming a full-length novel I'm publishing in December.