Ever since joining a small club of Cohost writers, I've come to really appreciate just how cool the microfiction scene is here. With the financials of Cohost ever looming like the dark clouds of an approaching storm, I wanted to mention here that I like reading and writing quick fiction. Something fucks hard about being able to take a few hundred words, weave a compelling idea, and then cash that idea in with a reveal or twist or conclusion or whatever. It can be about whatever you want, you can scoot pieces around your little chessboard or throw action figures at each other so hard the plastic melts and they fuse together.
Especially with the Cohost Writer's Block (my joke, defacto leadership of this merry band chose Salon for the title like we have any form of class), there's such a tight band of diverse and queer voices and it's a treat to just occupy that space. We have a small fledgling little discord server that right now is a pretty exclusive club (admittedly good reason to stay small as the writing-types often spook easily from crowds). I think we could use more voices and it seems members of the Guild think so as well.
I want to encourage people who follow me to give some attention to a few accounts I think are just great (and the people behind them are great too, most have their main accounts listed in the bio). Also if you know of other prompt accounts I should have in my feed, do let me know as I've not nearly enough. I hallucinate that I write decently enough to pass the low bar set for internet fiction, so these exercises really help me improve as a writer. I can really see how older works just SUCK and are EMBARRASSING, and that's great I want to cringe at my own work, it means I've improved. I hope.
Here's a scatter of Prompt Accounts that I follow, plus an honorable mention:
- Making Up Monsters: Easily my favorite to look at prompts for, as even the ones that don't land for me often make for interesting material to think about. I'm cringe and write SCP-themed stuff for this sometimes, it's the kind of crap that I'd never dare try to post on its main website lol.
- Making up Mech Pilots: You could argue this is sort-of the progenitor of a lot of the prompt-focused writing exercises on Cohost. If you like mecha, you'll really appreciate all of the jokes and references too.
- Making up Adventurers: This account is what prompted me to start work on Ratgirl Isekai, and I think I have like five or six posts earmarked for later entries just from this account alone. Despite how big D&D and other tabletop fiction universes are, there's often not much thought given to making them have much well written fiction. Tabletop gaming is often a performative art, especially if you only see it in podcasts or youtube highlights. Makes for great territory to put short stories into.
- Make up a Criminal: This one just makes me horny for dystopias and cyberpunk 99% of the time.
- Make up a Wizard: A relatively new account that needs some more writers. I've started a small semi-contiguous series I called The Towers recently about the more academic drama of wizarding. It's fun to just go off the reservation with nonsense magic theory.
- Impressions of Detail: Extremely underrated, but the prompts aren't as easy or fandom-themed so I get why it's not got as many writers. Sometimes for fun I just read the prompts by themselves, this really is what it says on the tin and can be incredibly thought provoking without more than a few lines.
- Dungeon Junk: An Honorable Mention, this isn't a prompt account but if you can't find something weird to write about in this pile of vendor trash, you haven't looked. I swear they produce these items that just call to me with a narrative, and that's kind of the point! Good item descriptions tell a story. Great item descriptions are just the tip of the iceberg.
OKAY! Go out there and start reading and writing.