Prompt Info
This page supplies information on Mastodon-friendly writing prompt sources.
Section links and general notes
⭑ General-purpose prompts ⭑ Poetry prompts ⭑ Genre-specific prompts ⭑ Other prompt-related accounts ⭑ Words of the day Legend: 🐘 = Mastodon-hosted. 🕸️ = Has a web site independent of Mastodon, Twitter, Facebook or Instagram where prompt words are posted and through which formal submissions can be made (if the prompt is associated with a contest, zine or publication). 🆕 = Recently added to my list within the last month or so. 💤 = Appears to be on hiatus or possibly discontinued. I typically only flag dormancy for accounts I regularly follow. Mere dormancy (or restoration) is not recorded in the change history.
Recent changes: 5.29 Added #50WordFriday (🐘general). 5.27 Added Internutter (🕸️general). 5.27 Added Darling Axe Editing, Michele Feltman Strider and Dave Dawkins (🐘accounts). 5.27 For #VisualWritingPrompt, added the Knott account as a second prompt source using the same tag for the same purpose. 5.27 Removed #FlashFictionFriday and Promptodon: discontinued. 5.27 Host and account for #microPrompt has changed. 4.27 Added The Haiku Foundation (🕸️poetry). 4.9 Added #FreeWrite (🕸️general).
General notes:
Unless otherwise stated, assume that hosts welcome both prose and poetry.
Account addresses of the form @[email protected] are Mastodon-based; addresses of the form @user (no server part) are Twitter-based (ptui!)
I don't include many genre-specific prompts. Also, I'm generally opposed to using AI-generated “artwork” as prompts. Nevertheless, with reluctance I list some prompts that use AI images,.
Please search on the tags #WritingPrompt, #WritingPrompts, #prompt and #prompts to find additional Mastodon-based prompt sources, such as those I've intentionally excluded from this list.
Syd Early (@[email protected]) aggregates selected Mastodon writing prompts, with their latest daily or weekly prompt words/images, here: https://sydneyearly.com/mastodon-prompts/
Please use mixed case in multi-part tags in a way that helps assistive programs to more properly render the tags into speech. Changing the case in tags doesn't affect tag searches, but can fix mistakes in rendering to speech. (Does it really matter? Ask #kyletherapist of #penisland.)
General-purpose prompts
🆕🐘 #50WordFriday: Weekly word prompt for stories of 50 words or fewer. Host: Margaret Sefton (@[email protected]) (Added May 29)
🇪🇸🐘 #EjerciciosDeEscrituraCreativa: Exercises in creative writing (descriptive prompts). Host: @[email protected]) Instructions are given in Spanish, though you may write in English, which Alberto also speaks.
🐘 #FridayKiss: Weekly prompt word (for any genre, not just romance). Host (on Mastodon): @[email protected]
🐘 #GriefQuill: A daily word prompt. The focus is on writing associated with grief (or recovery), but is not otherwise genre-specific. Host: @[email protected] (Added Feb 8)
🆕🕸️🐘 Internutter: Weekdaily prompt word or phrase. Website: https://peakd.com/@internutter Host: Internutter (@[email protected]) The host's Mastodon account posts include links to prompt postings on his PeakD account. There is no stable and specific tag identifying this prompt, though the host commonly uses the tag #flashfiction and includes a coded tag for each prompt. (Added May 27)
🐘 #MastoPrompt: Daily prompt word Host: Tanweer Dar (@[email protected]). Tan writes, “The poem or story can include the prompt word or be about the prompt word.”
🐘 #MicroPrompt: Daily prompt word for toot-sized works Acting host: “Faerie” (@[email protected]) Original host: C. R. Taxon (@[email protected])
🕸️ #130Story: Daily prompt word; tell a story in 130 characters or fewer. The host runs a near-daily competition with a deadline at 1:30pm UTC the following day (except weekends: the Saturday prompt deadline is 1:30pm UTC Monday). Entries may be formally submitted through the 130Story website. Formal submissions appear on the 130Story website. (One may also submit by posting on Twitter with the #130Story tag.) Host: @130Story Website: https://www.130story.com/ The 130-character limitation dates back to when tweets (including the hashtag) were limited to 140 characters.
🆕🇪🇸🕸️ #FreeWrite: Daily-ish word prompt, weekly-ish image prompt. Prompts issued in both English and Spanish. Website: https://peakd.com/@freewritehouse (Free Write House) (Added 4.9)
🕸️ #MidWeekFlash: Weekly image. Host: Miranda Kate Boers (@[email protected]) Website: https://purplequeennl.blogspot.com/ (blog main page) Miranda Kate posts the prompt images on her personal blog and posts notices/links in her Mastodon account; she has also set up a Facebook (ptui!) discussion group.
🕸️ ObjectWriting.com: A daily word, primarily intended for 10-minute object writing (see site for guidance). However, don't feel limited to this form of writing practice. I consider ObjectWriting.com one of the top sources for general-purpose prompts. Website: https://objectwriting.com/
🕸️ #vss365 Hosts change every half-month. The new prompt word appears on the main page of the official website. Website: https://vss365today.com/ Administration account: @vss365official (Do not mention in your posts, and daily prompt words do not appear here.)
🕸️ #vssCollab: Prompts meant to be used in conjunction with certain other prompt sources to construct threaded stories built in installments. Refer to the website for guidelines, which are hard to explain adequately in brief. The admins publish a zine of selected stories and host recordings of winning stories and live read-aloud events. Host account: @vssCollab Website: https://www.worldanvil.com/w/vsscollab Note: Official submission of stories is through a Google form, not simply by posting to Twitter or Mastodon.
🕸️ #YDWordPrompt: A “word of the day” writing prompt. “YD” stands for “your daily”. Website: https://onedailyprompt.wordpress.com/
Poetry prompts
🐘 #575prompt: Haiku. Word prompts. Host Aethelshane (@[email protected]). Host mentions welcome, especially if you want the host to boost your poem.
🐘 #DailyHaikuPrompt: Haiku, senryū, tanka, etc. Host account: Daily Haiku Prompt (@[email protected]). Host: C. Jean Downer (@[email protected]) “This is a place for haiku, senryu, shahai, tanka, and micropoetry poets to gather and practice their crafts.”
🆕🕸️ The Haiku Foundation: hosts weekly and monthly haiku competitions. Website: https://thehaikufoundation.org/ Monthly Kukai: competition: theme posted on the first day of each month; readers vote for their favorites to narrow to a short list from which a winner is selected. Haiku Dialogue: weekly or bi-weekly theme for haiku Renku Sessions: collaborative chained haiku New to Haiku: guidance for haiku poets (Added 4.27)
🐘 #VerseThursday No host or prompt words. Just post your poetry on Thursdays with this tag.
🕸️ #VSSPoem: Prompt use optional. Host account: @VSSPoem. Administered by Randy Gerritse (@yonar). Website: https://vsspoem.com/ The site lists the prompt words for the month as well as images to use as inspiration. Sadly, neither the words nor images are numbered for easy indexing with the day they apply to.
Genre-specific prompts
🐘 #DoodlePrompt: A daily prompt idea for doodling some artwork (optionally with backstory?) Host: @[email protected]
🐘 #SciFiPrompt: A weekly prompt word or phrase for writing science fiction. Host: Gus (@[email protected])
🐘 #StrokeOfScience: fortnightly word prompt for science-inspired artwork. Host: @[email protected]
🐘 #VisualWritingPrompt: AI-generated images for writing toot-length sci-fi stories. Both hosts posts promp images daily, but different ones. Host: @[email protected] (E.W. Doc Parris) Host: @[email protected] (Wyatt H Knott) (Added Knott account 5.27)
🇫🇷🐘 #writever: Daily prompt for sci-fi, “fantastic” (paranormal?) or fantasy stories. A list of the prompts for the month, in French and English, is issued in graphics at the beginning of the month. Host: @[email protected] (Ketty Steward) with others, in conjunction with the Plurality University Network (Paris).
Other prompt-related accounts
🐘 @[email protected] (T.L. Ford) Daily image prompts, no specific tag.
🆕🐘 @[email protected] (Darling Axe Editing). Posts prompt scenarios, writing tips and writing-related quotes daily. (Added May 27)
🆕🐘 @[email protected] (Dave Dawkins) [noisy] Posts prompt ideas occasionally. (Added May 27)
🐘 @[email protected] (Cendrine Marrouat) Periodic prompt words, ideas and images, mostly based on her artwork. Website/blog: https://creativeramblings.com/
🐘 @[email protected] (Julia F. Green) Periodic prompt ideas.
🐘🕸️ @[email protected] (Alexis M. Collazo) Once a week (on Wednesday?) Lex posts several scenarios and questions to use as writing prompts. She posts only notices on Mastodon, linking to her Ko-Fi pages where the actual prompts are provided. Webpages: https://ko-fi.com/lexc13
🐘🕸️ @[email protected] (Meg Pokrass) Posts prompt ideas and writing exercises on her Substack blog, occasionally in Mastodon posts. Substack: https://pokrassprompts.substack.com/
🆕🐘 @[email protected] (Michele Feltman Strider). Posts prompt ideas occasionally. (Added May 27)
🐘 @[email protected] (The Muse of Last Resort) Frequent prompt ideas. Admin: @[email protected] His blog: https://lordmatt.co.uk/
🐘 @[email protected] (Arnie Bernstein) Periodic writing exercises or prompt ideas.
🐘🕸️ The Daily Create (@[email protected]) A daily project for artists, writers and other creatives. Appears to be aimed at K–12 classrooms. Notices and links are posted on Mastodon, but the project descriptions are posted on an external website. The tag for posting work changes daily with the project: #tdcNNNN, where NNNN is a sequence number.
🐘 @[email protected] (Purnima) See her series of #30WritingPrompts (exercises)
🕸️ Writers Write: A blog about writing. It hosts both daily thematic prompts and, monthly, a list of daily prompt words for that month (do your own daily tracking). The best way to jump to the pertinent articles may be to search on the tag “writing prompts”: https://www.writerswrite.co.za/tag/writing-prompts/ Alternatively, you can sign up for a daily email which includes several links and the daily thematic prompt. The daily email includes another word of the day, usually recycling the Merriam-Webster word of the day from a few days previous—tsk, tsk.
🐘 #WritingWonders: Daily questions to answer about one of your works in progress (WIPs). The questions appear to be issued as a monthly list contained in a single graphic. Hosts: @[email protected] @[email protected] @[email protected]
Words of the day (or week)
For a number of reasons, most words from “word of the day” sources, interesting as they may be, serve badly as writing prompts. That said, WOTD sources can provide nicely colorful words that work quite well to kick-start your writing—as long as you use them selectively. Of the sources I list here, I've found that, for prompt suitability, the best are Thesaurus.com, New York Times and Merriam-Webster.
IMPORTANT: Please, do not use the tags #WOTD or #WordOfTheDay when posting your pieces inspired by WOTD sources. People search on these tags to find word providers and new words (only). Instead, start separate tags that will be used for only creative writing (or for only particular types of pieces). For instance, one tag gaining traction is WOTDHaiku; other possibilities might be WOTDVSS, WOTDStory, WOTDFlash or WOTDPoem. You could even narrow the tag to a particular source, for instance, MWWotdVss (Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day Very Short Story).
🕸️ 1Word1Day (on LiveJournal) Actually, the host now posts not daily but only two or three times a week. Webpage: https://1word1day.livejournal.com/
🕸️ Collins Dictionary Word of the Day Webpage: https://www.collinsdictionary.com/us/word-of-the-day
🕸️ Dictionary.com Word of the Day Webpage: https://www.dictionary.com/e/word-of-the-day/
🕸️ Merriam-Webster Word of the Day Webpage: https://www.merriam-webster.com/word-of-the-day
🕸️ New York Times Word of the Day Webpage (links): https://www.nytimes.com/column/learning-word-of-the-day These words are taken from NYT articles and thus tend to be
🕸️ Oxford English Dictionary Word of the Day (listed on the site's homepage) Webpage: https://www.oed.com/
🕸️ Thesaurus.com Synonym of the Day Webpage: https://www.thesaurus.com/ A sister site to Dictionary.com. Scroll down the home page to the Synonym of the Day section, which is set up as a one-question multiple-choice quiz for students. Consider as prompts not only the featured word but each of the three proposed answer options (two of which will label other concepts). Given the target audience, the words selected are seldom too abstruse to serve as prompts.
Cheers! ☕✍