The Oscars are this weekend, where the Academy will pick the best films of the year. Whether or not you’re planning to watch the four hours of festivities, grab your Milk Duds and popcorn! It’s time to cozy up for a movie (writing) night.
- Use this action movie title generator and write a narrative to match your title. Feel free to either treat your action-filled story as a parody or to tackle it sincerely—both are noble approaches.
- Motionpoems celebrates collaborations between filmmakers and poets. Write a short screenplay that could accompany one of your favorite poems. Be sure to give lots of details about your imagined action, characters, and setting.
- What would it take to boost the visuals in your prose? How can you bend reality? Write a story with extra special effects.
- Considering this list of one hundred best-reviewed classic movies, write a piece that explores a memory of watching a favorite film.
- Choose one of these Bechdel test failures and invent a scene that could change the dynamics of the movie.
- Action! Pepper your short story with filmmaking terms. You get extra points if your short story doesn’t take place on a film set or have anything to do with filmmaking. We know you can do it, best boy.
- Write a real or imagined scene about a chance meeting between two characters at a movie theater. Can they get through their dialogue without getting hushed by other patrons?
- Silver screen, technicolor, Smell-O-Vision—write a poem borrowing from the historical lexicon of film.
- Imagine your way into a movie theater and use all of your senses. Smell that buttery popcorn? Feel that scratchy seat? Build a scene or poem out of these (and more!) sensory details.
- Create a piece borrowing the aesthetics of a retro theater marquee sign.
Did you miss earlier prompts lists? Here they are.
And here’s your completely unsolicited writing tip for the week: try to write longhand every once in a while. Writing with a pen and paper actually engages your brain in a different way, and that’s never a bad thing. Also, writing in a notebook can get you away from dreaded screens and the internet. You can write wherever you want, without distraction. It might not be optimal for a novel or larger projects, but it’s perfect for writing prompts.
These exercises are just for fun and to stimulate your creativity, but every now and then, a sketch or a fun scene turns into a full-blown story or poem or song or painting or who knows what. If that’s the case, go ahead and submit. Who knows? Maybe one day they’ll make a movie out of your movie night prompt.
If you have feedback, or ideas for prompts, please get in touch.