- Write a college entry essay revolving around a very memorable sandwich. What kind of sandwich was it? Where did you get it?
- Write a story that is an exchange between two individuals taking place on the "Missed Connections" section of craigslist.org. Alternately, two people who meet each other on Craigslist, only to have one of them discover a terrible secret. Write a scene in which they run into each other at Qdoba the next day.
- Write a story in which a forest fire is a good thing.
- The letter E is the most commonly used letter in the alphabet. The letters N, S, T, and R are the four most commonly used consonants. Write a story that either doesn't use E, that doesn't use N,S,T,R, or that doesn't use S,T,E,R,N.
- Chorea sancti viti is Latin for "St. Vitus' Dance." It is really a debilitating muscle disorder. Write the summary of a musical about this horrible ailment.
- Jot down a work that does not have any word with more than four...rune sets (okay, fine: no more than four letters).
- Why are stories about Richmond always so boring? Write a story about Richmond that isn't boring. You probably shouldn't include any college students, Belle Isle, or anyone at a cafe meditating on cigarette smoking, college, or Belle Isle.
- Tom Stoppard is famous for his play Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead, which revolves around two minor characters from Hamlet. Do something like that. You can't use Hamlet. And you can't use Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead, or you'll break postmodernism.
- Have you ever heard of a snowclone? Examples of snowclones as "X is the new Y," ("pink is the new black,") or "What Would X Do?" ("What Would Batman Do?") where X and Y can be replaced by a variety of things to create an instantly recognizable trope by lazy writers and journalists. Pretend you're writing an ironic piece for The New Yorker in which you give suggestions for new snowclones. Make sure this isn't boring.
- The year is 2031. Nick Hornby is 74. He is writing his 36th book. What is it?
- Write a scene showing a man and a woman arguing over the man's friendship with a former girlfriend. Do not mention the girlfriend, the man, the woman, or the argument.
- Write a story that ends with the following sentence: Debra brushed the sand from her blouse, took a last, wistful look at the now putrefying horse, and stepped into the hot-air balloon.
- Write a story that begins with a man throwing handfuls of $100 bills from a speeding car, and ends with a young girl urinating into a tin bucket.
- Your main character finds a box of scorched human hair. Whose is it? How did it get there? Write this as a short play.