Brooklyn Speculative Fiction Writers

Are you a #pantser? Are you a #plotter? Or do you just sacrifice a chicken to the God of Story Structure? #WritingCommunity

And now, it's your turn to share. What’s your favorite random generator? What’s your favorite way to use random generators? Did one of these methods generate an awesome prompt you want to share? Let us know by replying here, or tweet with the tag #BSFWPrompts. Happy writing!

Instead of using more than one generator, you can also use single generators that give you multiple pieces of information. For example, the setting generator on the Writing Exercises website gives you four pieces of information - each of which can be its own prompt.

An example for Option 4: Three prompts generated from Writing Exercises: Random first line: They found his diary under his bed Random job: Chimney Sweep Random dialogue: “You were meant to be watching him!” Choose two of these. Then, start writing.

Option 4: Pick Three, Use Two: This time, you’ll also be combining things, but now, you have a bit more wiggle room. Choose the two that spark something and let the third one go.

An example for Option 3: Here’s a prompt from Seventh Sanctum’s Quick Character Generator: The strong, mean-spirited poet. And here’s a line of dialogue from Writing Exercises: “What do you mean, he’s escaped?” Now, put both in the same story.

Option 3: Mix and Match Sometimes, the best ideas come from combining two unrelated things. So use two generators, and combine the results.

An example for Option 2: I used the Title Generator on the Writing Exercises website. I allowed myself three clicks. My results: 1) The Magic Bed 2) The Endangered Slippers 3) The Mysterious Cellar Which of these titles would you choose as your prompt?

Option 2: Multiple Choice Are you worried the first click won’t give you a useful prompt? Allow yourself to click a set number of times. Then, choose one of them.

Option 1: Keep it Simple Choose a generator and use it. Whatever results it gives you the first time you click the button, that’s what goes in your story. For example, I clicked on Storygen’s conflict generator. My results: A rescue of a captured friend. So that’s the prompt.

So now, you have a list of random generators. How can you use them to jumpstart your writing? Here are a few ideas:

Resource #3: Chaotic Shiny http://www.chaoticshiny.com/index.php  has a large selection of generators. You can use it for anything from random laws to art objects. (A lot of them are VERY specific.) You can also let the website choose a random generator for you.

Resource #2: Story Genesis http://storygen.weebly.com  has generators split up by category, including plot, character, setting, items, and worlds.

Resource #1: Writing Exercises https://writingexercises.co.uk/index.php  has a great list of generators including character, line of dialogue, and take three nouns - where they give you three random nouns to work with.

Sometimes, when you don’t know what to write about, a random word or phrase is exactly what you need. Follow along for links to some great random generators, along with some different ways to use them.