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What Do I Do Now?
So you didn’t get into Alpha this year. What do you do now? First off: recover. It can be a really tense wait and all the ignoring it in the world doesn’t help if back-of-brain decides to fixate on it....
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A Week of Prompts
The Alpha application deadline is fast approaching, and that means at least a few people are panicking. Is the story good enough? I should write another– but I don’t have any ideas! Everything is...
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Writing Prompt 1: They Fight Crime!
This is not the original They Fight Crime!, but it’s still amazing. Spend a little while clicking through until you find a pair– or a solo hero, or a trio– that makes you want to write that story. You...
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Writing Prompt 2: Tell me this story.
A comet burned in the sky and snakes fell from the heavens the night of my birth. Problem is, there were another couple hundred thousand people born that night, too, and I think maybe the comet was for...
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Application Tip: Word Count Guidelines
Here at the Alpha citadel, we’ve gotten some questions about the word count guidelines for Alpha application stories–that is, the requirement that application stories must be between 2000 and 6000...
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Writing Prompt 3: Immortality
What happens when humans figure out immortality, but you can’t get younger and you can’t have kids afterward? No, really. A lot of immortality schemes involve eternal youth, but as Tithonus discovered,...
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Writing Prompt 4: The Lost City
Pick a lost or abandoned city. Set the story there, but maybe not in its last days. Atlantis, Port Royal, Pompeii, Machu Picchu, Helike, Camelot, El Dorado, Troy, Songo Mnara, Angkor, Great Zimbabwe,...
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Writing Prompt 6: Chuck Wendig
Chuck Wendig has flash prompts each week. Find one you like in the archives, or use this one. The story includes a botanical garden, fatherhood, and something talking that doesn’t normally talk. Online...
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Writing Prompt 7: The End Times
Here endeth the week of writing prompts. I hope you’ve gotten at least one idea from them. Leave a comment if you have a favorite exercise or prompt to inspire your next story. The last prompt: “No one...
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