Tag: Prompts

Flash: Ready, Set … Drive-In Action

Erin Penn Leave a comment

October Picture Prompt from Raconteur Press – https://raconteurpress.substack.com/p/50-words-of-horror

To celebrate publication of the Glitched Grimms Anthology: Twisted Fairy Tales with Terror ( https://www.amazon.com/Glitched-Grimm-Twisted-Raconteur-Anthologies-ebook/dp/B0FTGQS42Q ), Raconteur Press issued the following visual prompt challenge on their website: (u)sing the picture prompt …, write a story in fifty words, no more, no less. Crafting 50-word fiction helps develop concise storytelling, and focuses on essential elements of story like plot, character, and setting. Exercise your skills in succinctness, clarity, and creativity!

Here is my attempt. You can play along at the original substack post, or in the comment section below. https://raconteurpress.substack.com/p/50-words-of-horror

***

With an extinction-level asteroid discovered only thirteen-hours out, choosing how to spend our last night alive on Earth was a no-brainer: cars, popcorn, besties, my second-base girlfriend, and Megasaurous at the drive-in. Only problem, it wasn’t our night alive, although it was the last one on Earth. The asteroid lied.

(50 words; first published 10/10/2025)

Writing Exercise: Trope Writing Prompts

Erin Penn

Photo by Glen Hooper on Unsplash

Rachel Brune, a writing friend, posted a slice of life over on the book of faces a couple-few days ago, mostly about attending conventions and getting recharged for writing. Also a bit about planning and moderating panels. Wanting to change things up, she did a twist for a panel. Instead of just talking, they created. Using general writing tropes from two different alphabetical letters, the group – panel and audience – created stories around the idea.

Examples she posted (from a horror panel) included: “evil twins + Renfield” and “ghost hitchhiker + familial cannibalism surprise.”

That sounded like some premium-grade writing prompts, so I sent her a meme of monkeys stealing hubcaps saying “It’s mine now”.

WRITING EXERCISE: Using the first and last letter of your name (you choose which name), pick two tropes from “tvtropes.org” or other trope site. (Aim as always is 500 words.)

My attempt: I used allthetropes.org (Category: Tropes – All The Tropes – and the letters of “E” and “N” for Erin. “Excited Trope Name! -> Eek, a mouse!” (person mounting a table or chair because of a mouse) and “News Tropes -> News Monopoly” (Every channel is showing the same thing). I will drop the flash “Mouse Monopoly” for my Sunday 6/8/2025 post. Stick around and let me know what you think.