Inspiration
The Effect of the Green Socks. First Place in Writers Challenge. Top Story - August 2023.
She preferred to be called THE Rankin instead of Mrs. Rankin. It seemed odd to us in her eighth-grade gifted class to be called by just her surname, but she also wasn’t your average caffeinated teacher. She was assuredly one of those souls so far outside the box she wasn’t even in the same state as the box. Her honey-sweet Alabama accent made our small class feel like home. Best class ever.
By Barb Dukeman3 years ago in Writers
Biscuits and Blood: the first story I ever wrote
After earning my associates degree at Guilford Technical Community College in 2019 I transferred to the University of North Carolina in Greensboro in 2020 where I majored in media studies. One of the first classes I took in my first semester was screenwriting. We only had one assignment for the whole semester and that was to write a 30 minute long screenplay. Every week we would work on part of our scripts and then go over what needed to modified to make the script a suitable end product.
By Joe Patterson3 years ago in Writers
Rescued by Friendship: A Tale of Rediscovering Hope
In the big city of Horizonville, there lived a man named Alex. He felt really sad and lost hope in life. Even though he looked up ways to deal with feeling alone on the internet, he still felt really lonely inside.
By aman dolui3 years ago in Writers
Want to Feel Special. Read This
Author's preface: A comment on a recent story published here (thanks Kendall DeFoe) triggered something in me which caused me to recall a story I had written many years ago, way back in 2016. That article was published on a different web publishing platform, which I will not name, but rhymes with tedium, from which I have since been twice suspended and (apparently) permanently banned. It was written as part of my 1000 page view up all night write-athon which was some stupid thing I thought to try and do after I finally hit 1000 page views. I had started publishing there in early 2015 so it took me a solid year to hit the 1000 mark with close to 200 stories published in that first year. I was quite prolific back in those days and, exactly like today, I was not very popular, as those dismal stats clearly indicate. That said I was very proud of the achievement, and decided I would try a stunt where I stayed up all night (5pm until 8am the next day) and try and write and publish as many articles as I could in that time span. I conceived of the idea the day I hit 1000, and initiated the challenge the following evening so I did not have time to think much about how difficult a thing that actually could be. Also, exactly like today, I did not tend to think very much in advance about stuff, and figured it would just work itself out in the end. This other unnamed platform did not have a ludicrous and absurd minimum word count requirement like Vocal, nor did it have a roving censor brigade, and one could get away with just about anything in those early days on the site. As per my typical MO, I tended to take a very laissez-faire attitude with respect to the "rules" which obviously ended up hurting me fairly badly many years later when I got my first suspension, and then again a year after that when I was suspended a second time. This was about two years ago and that suspension has yet to be rescinded, despite several petitions, so amounts to a permanent ban. In any event I can't actually recall how many stories I banged out, but think I got close to fifteen. Below is just one of them which surprisingly holds up even today both in terms of its truth value (I am still an almost never read writer) and its overall quality (fair to middlin at best). Crazy how the computer references seem so dated and ancient. It really was not that long ago. lol! Enjoy!
By Everyday Junglist3 years ago in Writers
Clone Agent: The Story that convinced me to write.
The first story I remember writing was from back when I was 9 or 10. It was a very well thought out and invested piece, with carefully crafted characters and settings... that I'd "borrowed" from other pieces of ficiton.
By Malcolm Roach3 years ago in Writers
The Importance of Using Writing Prompts
What is a Writing Prompt? A writing prompt is a short statement or question that gives a writer a starting point for their work. It can be used to spark creativity, generate ideas, or help writers overcome writer's block.
By Timothy A Rowland3 years ago in Writers
her
I'm sure that in my childhood years I wrote many stories, crafted many tales. But the first one that really meant something to me was the Luke Hemmings short story fanfiction. If you're unfamiliar, Luke Hemmings is the lead singer of the pop-rock band 5 Seconds of Summer. And if you're unfamiliar with the term or the inner-workings of fanfiction, well, then, maybe this article isn't for you. Fanfiction has always been (and will likely always be) a staple in fandom culture, but I feel like it had a true resurgence in the early 2010s, specifically 2013-2016, years that some affectionately don The Tumblr Era. One Direction were at the peak of their fame, YouTube was forming into an entirely new beast, and K-pop was on the rise. The opportunity for fandom and fanfiction was greater than ever. So, as a young teen obsessed with both One Direction and 5 Seconds of Summer, I thought I would try my hand as a writer on the infamous app/website Wattpad.
By Raine Neal3 years ago in Writers
