What makes a good fic prompt?

[lunabee34]

I've been thinking about fic inspiration since I began the Great Prompting of Aught Six. Only one person that I know of took me up on the first prompt (*waves at Trekgirl*) and at least one person expressed confusion as to how answering the prompt would even work.

This led me to wonder what makes a good fic prompt? My initial prompt (Choose a character you don't like in one of your fandoms and write a fic (drabble, ficlet, epic length novel) exploring why you don't like that character--just what it is about that character that squicks you, gets on your nerves, pisses you off, or makes you uncomfortable. I don't mean a character bashing fic; I mean one in which you really thoughtfully examine the elements of the character you don't like.) could be answered in any fandom with any pairing.

So....do prompts have to be fandom-specific, or even character-specific to really function well as prompts? Do you think the nonfandom/nonpairing-specific prompt can work? Does a pairing plus an adjective, a color, and a noun work for you? Or do prompts in the form of song lyrics or lines of poetry inspire you? For you as a fic writer, what kinds of prompts really get you to writing?

Commenting with examples especially appreciated. :)

[And here, I'm not asking what inspires you in your every day life (like a song you hear on the metro), but what kinds of prompts that other people have given you that have yielded good results.]

Comments

[executrix.livejournal.com]

I cheated...didn't that count for anything?

A lot of prompts have worked very well cross-fandom. I think that a good prompt has to be not-too-specific but also slightly out of the ordinary--something that's too On the Nose won't work--Mal/Jayne: cinnamon toast would be better than Mal/Jayne: grenades, f'rex. So in theory I think promptsomeslash is a fabulous idea, but most of the actual prompts are too literal. It's also good if the prompt could be more than one part of speech--"rasp" would be good, say.

I'm on the record as a known sap for songfics, so I can be OK with song lyric prompts. (Mosca has a multifandom free verse challenge open now BTW.)

[lunabee34.livejournal.com]

Oh, honey. It counts for everything. *g*

I think that a good prompt has to be not-too-specific but also slightly out of the ordinary

*nods*

So is the goal of the prompt to get the writer thinking outside the canon box? Toast, which we never see, vs. grenades, which Jayne apparently leaves under his pillow for the toothfairy?

I saw that challenge. I was very intrigued. Can't wait to see what comes out of it.

[executrix.livejournal.com]

I think the point of the challenge is to make our imaginations do a bit of aerobics, but not get a hernia. So trying to figure out where grenades come in for House/Wilson (was there a terrorist attack on the hospital? are they visiting a WWI museum? and smooching in the corridor?) is more helpful than tooth fairy chow.

[mosca.livejournal.com]

I tend to prefer the more abstract prompts: poetry, song lyrics, "three things you'd like to see in this fic," etc. It helps to have something to start with, an image or even just a rhythm or tone. But for me it's more of a Zen thing, a way of meditating on something simple or "pure" until I can pull an idea out of it. Often, when I write based on a prompt, the outcome is pretty far away from the literal text of the prompt, to the point where I wind up apologizing for ficathon entries because yeah, the pairing's right there, all of the requests are present and accounted for, but maybe not in the way that my recipient expected.

A prompt like yours, I would almost always skip, mostly because my fics aren't essays. If I want to write about what I don't like about a character, I'll post something nonfiction to my LJ. My fic does usually end up saying something (and sometimes a lot of things) but I very seldom expect to say those things when I sit down to write. When I try to write fic with a clear didactic purpose, it fails -- I can't think of an exception to that.

In the case of your specific prompt example, my other hangup is that, like, that's every story I write. I tend to write about characters I have problems with, and I try to be honest about what bugs me about them. But I also have this instinct to be fair to characters, so that usually doesn't come out as a judgment. Either the character is aware of the flaw and wishes to change, in which case it comes off as angst/character arc, or the character likes it about himself even though I don't, in which case other characters might make fun of him for it but my scorn probably won't come across so strongly. So, like, Jayne's talkent for making himself unlovable? Character arc. Jayne's extraordinary greed and materialism? I may not approve, but he ain't gonna change for me. But that goes into everything I write, so I don't really find it useful to go back and write fic that's only about that.

Or, actually. One of the skating epics featured a character behaving as badly as possible, all his really unpleasant traits coming right to the surface, parade of awful decisions. So maybe I have written that story, even though I didn't set out to.

[lunabee34.livejournal.com]

Often, when I write based on a prompt, the outcome is pretty far away from the literal text of the prompt

Which I think is perfectly fine. The point of a prompt is not a gift for the prompter, but as a source of inspiration for the promptee. Plus, I can't tell you how many times something I'm writing seems to have a life of its own. It ends up in a place I never envisioned to start with. So the prompt got it going, but then the piece runs on its own momentum.

mostly because my fics aren't essays

LOL It was a rather meta-y prompt, wasn't it? I think that you and Exec (and a handful of others I can think of) are in the minority of people who write thoughtful fanfic about characters they don't particularly like or find problematic in ways. I think when the vast majority of fanficcers write about characters they don't like, it's "Buffy doesn't understand my true love with Spike! I, Xander, call her Bitch. For she is. Stupid vanilla-smelling, sunshiny hair Slayer-Whore!" LOL Which I might find amusing at times, but for the most part want to avoid. So I think that was the impetus for the prompt, but I don't think it functions very well as one.

[executrix.livejournal.com]

Usually the characters I don't like are big fan favorites, and I'm such a h0r that I probably ease up on them just to suck up to their fans. And how can you resist the "how did he get to be so screwed up?" fic?

One of the first fanfics I ever wrote was a first-person Travis (about a one-night stand with Avon as it happens) and since then I've felt rather sympathetic to Miserable Closet Case!Travis. Although writing first-person Blake didn't cause anywhere near as great a change in my attitude toward him.

You're still a season away from encountering Tarrant, but I must say I detested him rather less in stories where he basically got his ass kicked to the curb--once by Avon and once by Servalan.

[lunabee34.livejournal.com]

*nods*

I had the same experience with Angel. I didn't loathe his character or anything, but I really didn't like it when I was watching BtVS the first go round. After reading fanfic, I began to be much more sympathetic to the character and now, I truly like Angel. The things that annoyed me before (like his horrible line delivery in the pilot) make me giggle. Also, watching Ats helped.

I really don't like Willow's character all that much, and I've written a drabble set and then another single drabble about her, but none of the drabbles focused on the reasons I don't like her. So I don't guess I've ever answered my own prompt. LOL

[executrix.livejournal.com]

When it comes to TV or movies, a complicating factor is that subjectively, things tend to become "about" the best actor. This can be a real problem if the best actor is billed 15th. I always liked Spike better than Angel not because I could endorse him as morally better--quite the opposite--but because JM is a much more interesting performer than DB. It would be hard for anyone to keep the character of Angel--an infinitely dense gloom magnet--from sucking up all the fun from several galaxies, but DB certainly couldn't do it. And Alyson Hannigan kept playing the one note of wistful puppyishness, so Willow couldn't have the stature she needed.

[shannon730.livejournal.com]

When I'm taking prompts I'm more likely to come up with a fic or drabble to something non-specific. Same with challenges. I find it harder to answer anything that is too specific. I like to have room to be creative on it. But I've written for all kinds of prompts from pairings to poetry and lyrics. I may be inspired by just a pairing or a song lyric. Other times I may get nothing from the same things. It really depends on my mood at the time.

Was any of that coherent?

[lunabee34.livejournal.com]

No. That was definitely coherent.

I think probably most people work from a variety of prompts.