Snowflake Challenge #7

[royalblue31]

In your own space, create a list of at least three things you'd love to receive, something you've wanted but were afraid to ask for - a wishlist of sorts.

As someone who has been facing some writer's block lately, I'm wishing for prompts! Quotes, situations, anything that might get these gears turning again :D

I am also wishing for recs. I've been really into short stories lately and would like to know what your favorite short story is, or the title of a short story that has kept with you. 

And fic recs! I am wishing for some fic recs for the MCU, Stranger Things, House and Gilmore Girls. I feel like I've just been reading the same 60-ish fics I've got bookmarked lol. It's time to read something new. 
 

(Updated January 16, 2025: Just want to add that I'm so thankful for all the replies and I'm working through them slowly one-by-one! Thank you so much!!!) 

Comments

[florianschild]

You've likely already read this one if you like short stories, but I love The Last Leaf by O. Henry.

I also like The Very Old Man with Enormous Wings by Gabriel Garcia Marquez.

[smallhobbit]

If you're looking for prompts you could try allbingo New challenges each month, but there's no pressure and you don't have to complete a bingo - or you can take all year to complete one bingo. Alternately, there's fan_flashworks although the challenge period is shorter, but again it might serve to provide some stimulation.

[grav_ity]

By Hugo definitions the MURDERBOT books are novellas, not short stories, but they are...uh, stories that are short (at least the first 4).

[pronker]

The Waveries by Fredric Brown is a short story close to my mind for eons now - Brown's work shines!

[catgiri]

for inspiration, i can recommend the quotes prompt meme and the 23 emotions prompt meme over at ao3!

[royalblue31]

Thank you for this! I looked both of them up and I got all excited lol

Try this ...

[ysabetwordsmith]

>> As someone who has been facing some writer's block lately, I'm wishing for prompts! Quotes, situations, anything that might get these gears turning again :D

A few fun prompts:

* What would your favorite character do with a winning lottery ticker (or other setting-apt form of windfall wealth)?

* For a fandom with characters who are just meeting up, play a get-to-know-you game. Our house favorite is Imaginiff, and if we don't have enough players, we fill in the rest of the blanks with famous people or characters like Spock or Mickey Mouse.

* Character A has been somehow blocked from speaking about a topic they wish to share with character B, but the block does not cover nonverbal modes.

* Your heroes are being chased into a room with a magical or technological transport system. The three open portals show a snowscape, a hot desert, and a jungle. Which do your heroes dive into?

Also, allbingo runs a new fest each month. Currently up is Public Domain Day Bingo and February will be Valentines which always has multiple prompt lists like Romantic, Platonic, etc. The Bingo Card Generator also has dozens of stored lists.

Earlier I made a prompt list from Nimona with quotes that generalize well, like "This is the part where you run."

If you really want to fix writer's block, and you're comfortable writing hot topics, you might ask the universe to send you ideas from books that have been burned in attempt to eradicate those ideas. You can't kill an idea, so they're just out there waiting to find a new writer.

[barbaratp]

House, prompts e contos aí vou eu...

Li uma belíssima ainda inacabada por sinal onde House é um omega que deseja ter um filho e escolhe aleatoriamente no bar alguém para isso, calha de ser Wilson na cena fora de tela em que eles originalmente se conheceram no cânone. Eles tem o bebê, mas a vida não é fácil para nenhum dos dois que ficam negando seus reais sentimentos por muito e muito tempo...

Eu tenho alguns prompts meu e uns de outrem por indicação, se desejar posso trazer futuramente até ti alguns.

Os dois contos em questão eu ainda não li, mas já tive contato com uma de suas adaptações e o outro me encantou muito que pretendo assistir o que foi feito com ele. Human Is de Philip K Dick e _All Your Zombies_ de Robert A Heinlein.

[barbaratp]

Você também pode olhar o threesentencesficathon para prompts

[forestofglory]

A few of my favorite short stories:

"Fandom for Robots" by by Vina Jie-Min Prasad

Flow by Marissa Lingen

“Monkey King, Faerie Queen” by Zen Cho

[dragonofeternal]

Random passerby also here to maybe fill wishes, and the concept of Sun Wukong going to the faerie court IMMEDIATELY has me eyezooming, so I'm gonna check that out~

[forestofglory]

Yay! I hope you like it, its such a fun concept!

[greetingsfrommaars]

not sure if you're into crossovers, but I have some for MCU fic recs:

Taste of Home by daroos, with Welcome to Night Vale

It Takes an Ocean Not to Break by kerrykhat, with Doctor Who

[cmk418]

I read "The Lottery" in high school and it has stayed with me. Good creepy fun.

[royalblue31]

I read this last year after hearing so much about it and yep, I agree, it was good creepy fun! Haunting even! Thank you for the rec!

[silveradept]

As someone else has mentioned, The Lottery by Shirley Jackson has been one of those short stories that sticks around and turns out to be prescient in so many ways as we go along.

Little Free Library was a good one to read! I liked it quite a bit.

And sophia_sol produced a rec list of 22 short stories, some of them which might be good for you to want to look after.

And if you're looking for prompts to write upon, Micro SFF Stories from O. Westin might be the springboard to something interesting, since they're all within the space of a microblog's character limit.

[kiki_eng]

Prompt: you can put the robe on the dresser

Short Story Rec: If at First You Don't Succeed, Try, Try Again by Zen Cho

3 Fic Recs:
Counterfeit and Counterpart by Frea_O
Marvel | 28,013 words | PG-13 | Maria & Natasha
Summary: Five times Maria Hill doesn’t understand Natasha Romanoff, and why she might be better off that way.

the family brooklyn by tactfulGnostalgic
Marvel | 12,874 | Miles Morales
Summary: New York is notoriously protective of its superheroes.

We are Stardust, We are Golden by idiopathicsmile
Stranger Things | 26,374 words | Steve/Eddie
Summary: It starts like this: Steve, waiting in his car to pick up Dustin and friends from a session of their Chutes and Ladders club or whatever. Waiting kind of impatiently, to be honest, even though it’s not like he has anywhere else to be because Robin’s busy tonight and, as he well knows by this point, saving the world doesn’t get you a girlfriend or glory or even a second age-appropriate friend, it just gets you another evening shift at Family Video and a long personal to-do list.

[tsuki_no_bara]

a prompt: "i grow stubborn seeing this magnificence in which i walk"

a story rec: there will come soft rains by ray bradbury (this is the most heartbreaking story i have ever read, so if you've never read it make sure you're prepared before you do)

a fic rec: friendship by wearing_tearing (stranger things, robin & steve, and discovered during snowflake last year, so there's always the possibility you've seen it already)

[peaked]

threesentenceficathon is on right now, which is an easy fest with lots and lots of prompts! (I also +1 fan_flashworks, even though I haven't participated in a long time—it helped inspire me to write a lot!)

As for prompts: walk, daydream, happily ever after, want, hidden, 5+1. Start a story with "She couldn't believe her eyes." You have to include the colour blue.

I hope you can wiggle your way out of your writer's block! ♥

[mxcatmoon]

I'm here from Snowflake, and I second the recommendation for threesentenceficathon. I was in a horrible writing slump, and participating is easy and fun. It's really kick-started my writing again!

[mekare]

I‘m glad you asked for short story recs, and I‘m seconding Zen Cho recced above.

[aadler]

I can offer a few MCU recs, but two of them are crossovers, Buffy the Vampire Slayer/MCU Avengers. “i have seen nearly every city”, by pprfaith; my own “the Song Remains the Same”; and “Let’s Stop the Time Warp (Again)”, by lettered. (That last is over 100,000 words, but well worth reading.)

[fairyniamh]

Since you're looking for quotes... https://fairyniamh.dreamwidth.org/tag/quote I have a few years of daily quotes posted.

You can also check out https://www.azquotes.com/

Good luck!

[dandelionblizzard]

A great place for prompts is rainbowlists!