Writing Prompt of the Week Guidelines

Writing Prompt of the Week Guidelines

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Once a week, we will post a new topic with a prompt.

Here’s how it works:

TIMELINE:

Prompts are posted on Mondays at 12am CST. You have until Friday at 11:59pm CST to post a submission. Then, the post closes and the weekend is reserved SOLELY for voting. Winners are announced and badges awarded sometime the following Monday.

[center][/center]VOTING:

Please use the :white_heart: icon to vote for your favorite submissions (you can vote for more than one). The submission with the most votes each week will win one of our fancy new Writing Prompt badges! You can win them more than once, and they are tiered. As we gauge popularity and interest, more prizes may be added at a later date.

An extra caveat: Mods are not required to participate, but if one of your submissions catches their eye and they vote for your submission, you get an extra FIVE POINTS added to your submission’s score! Using a voting system tends to lean into “popularity contest” territory, and we want to highlight really good submissions and this will help offset that.

[center][/center]GENRES:

Each week will rotate through four general “themes.” Fantasy/Sci-Fi, Dystopian/Thriller/Horror/Mystery, “No Fantasy” Fiction, and Miscellaneous. The “Dark” theme and “Miscellaneous” theme can include elements of fantasy, but the “No Fantasy” theme cannot. The “Miscellaneous” category includes everything from poetry submissions to “two sentence prompts.” We’ve intentionally kept the themes VERY VERY broad, so if you feel like writing something across genres (adding a romance element to a prompt, for example), this gives you room to do so.

[center][/center]CONTENT LIMITATIONS:

Please keep your submissions PG-13 friendly (no explicit sex, etc). Some cursing or violence is acceptable within reason depending on the prompt. Feel free to interpret the prompt in ways other than “literally.” Word count is not limited, though we would suggest something below 3,000 words.

[center][/center]PROMPT DETAILS:

Some of these have been borrowed from other sites (Pinterest etc.) while some are original prompts submitted by the team. If you happen to have come across a prompt you’ve already written a short story for, we encourage you to write a new one. We want you to test the limits of your creative writing abilities.

[center][/center]LEGAL STUFF:

As always on Wacky Writers, your work and your submissions are YOURS. We will never repost, republish, or sell your work without your explicit permission in writing. You retain all copyrights and can remove your submission at any time, if you wish.

[center][/center]DISCUSSION:

The chat feature will be enabled for the category (not individual topics). Please keep any extraneous conversation about the prompt, submissions, etc in the chat channel. We’d like to keep the topics clean and for submissions ONLY.

If you’ve got more questions, please ask in the Writing Prompts chat channel (tag CJ or the mods).

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Writing Prompt of the Week: June 26-July 2 (Dark, Dreadful, & Dystopian)
Writing Prompt of the Week: November 7-13 (Fantasy & Sci-FI (Speculative Fiction))
Writing Prompt of the Week: January 30-February 5 (Fantasy & Sci-Fi (Speculative Fiction))
Writing Prompt of the Week: October 3-9 (Miscellaneous)
Writing Prompt of the Week: December 19-25 (Non-Speculative "No Fantasy" Fiction)
Writing Prompt of the Week: January 2-8 (Fantasy & Sci-Fi (Speculative Fiction))
Writing Prompt of the Week: January 9-15 (Dark, Dreadful, & Dystopian)
Writing Prompt of the Week: November 28-December 4 (Miscellaneous)
Writing Prompt of the Week: December 12-18 (Dark, Dreadful, & Dystopian)
Writing Prompt of the Week: February 6-12 (Dark, Dreadful, & Dystopian)
Writing Prompt of the Week: October 17-23 (Non-Speculative "No Fantasy" Fiction)
Writing Prompt of the Week: October 24-30 (Dark, Dreadful, & Dystopian)
Writing Prompt of the Week: November 21-27 (Non-Speculative "No Fantasy" Fiction)
Writing Prompt of the Week: January 16-22 (Non-Speculative "No Fantasy" Fiction)
Writing Prompt of the Week: October 31-November 6 (Miscellaneous)
Writing Prompt of the Week: December 26-January 1 (Miscellaneous)
Writing Prompt of the Week: February 13-19 (Non-Speculative "No Fantasy" Fiction)
Writing Prompt of the Week: February 20-26 (Miscellaneous)
Writing Prompt of the Week: June 5-11 (Non-Speculative "No Fantasy" Fiction)
Writing Prompt of the Week: April 24-30 (Fantasy & Sci-Fi (Speculative Fiction))
Writing Prompt of the Week: May 1-7 (Dark, Dreadful, & Dystopian)
Writing Prompt of the Week: May 8-14 (Non-Speculative "No Fantasy" Fiction)
Writing Prompt of the Week: May 22-28 (Fantasy & Sci-Fi (Speculative Fiction))
Writing Prompt of the Week: June 12-18 (Miscellaneous)
Writing Prompt of the Week: February 27-March 5 (Fantasy & Sci-Fi (Speculative Fiction))
Writing Prompt of the Week: March 20-26 (Miscellaneous)
Writing Prompt of the Week: March 27-April 2 (Fantasy & Sci-Fi (Speculative Fiction))
Writing Prompt of the Week: May 29-June 4 (Dark, Dreadful, & Dystopian)
Writing Prompt of the Week: March 6-12 (Dark, Dreadful, & Dystopian)
Writing Prompt of the Week: March 13-19 (Non-Speculative "No Fantasy" Fiction)
Writing Prompt of the Week: April 3-9 (Dark, Dreadful, & Dystopian)
Writing Prompt of the Week: April 10-16 (Non-Speculative "No Fantasy" Fiction)
Writing Prompt of the Week: April 17-23 (Miscellaneous)
Writing Prompt of the Week: May 15-21 (Miscellaneous)
Writing Prompt of the Week: July 4-10 (Non-Speculative "No Fantasy" Fiction)
Writing Prompt of the Week: July 18-24 (Fantasy/Sci-Fi)
Writing Prompt of the Week: July 24-31 (Dark, Dreadful & Dystopian)
Writing Prompt of the Week: August 1-7 (Non-Speculative "No Fantasy" Fiction)
Writing Prompt of the Week: September 12-18 (Fantasy & Sci-Fi (Speculative Fiction))
Writing Prompt of the Week: September 19-25 (Dark, Dreadful, & Dystopian)
Writing Prompt of the Week: June 19-25 (Fantasy & Sci-Fi (Speculative Fiction))
Writing Prompt of the Week: July 10-16 (Miscellaneous)
Writing Prompt of the Week: July 24-30(Dark, Dreadful, & Dystopian)
Writing Prompt of the Week: July 17-23 (Fantasy & Sci-Fi (Speculative Fiction))
Writing Prompt of the Week: July 3-9 (Non-Speculative “No Fantasy” Fiction)
Writing Prompt of the Week: September 26-October 2 (Non-Speculative "No Fantasy" Fiction)