Puppy Prompts
We made a special, special quiz just for you guys: The puppy prompt quiz. For your viewing pleasure, we present puppies of many breeds and types. They are all beautiful in their own way, but we know there’s a couple calling you in particular. Pick the puppy, get a story prompt! Pretty straightforward, really.
Let us know if you like this quiz! (And what result you get!) If you guys enjoy it, we’ll do more like this leading up to the conference!
Also there might already be a kitten version in the works…
Shoutout to Carey for the idea and Alyssa for collecting the puppies and writing the prompts! Our team really is the sweet spot between creative and insane. … Maybe more of the latter, if we’re being honest.
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Stuck on your story? Wanting a new angle? Pick a puppy and get a prompt!
Puppy Prompts
A Brisk (But Disastrous) Autumn Walk
A stand-up gentleman leaves his flat on a brisk autumn morning. That was the second mistake. But the first, which would prove far more terrible, was this: He forgot his hat.
Puppy Prompts
Skateboard Scramble
A street-rollin' thug, she'd been working the underground world for years. But when she skated around this corner, she ran right into the last person she ever expected to meet.
Puppy Prompts
Chosen of Ice and Prophecy
From the moment her eyes first opened, her people knew: She was the chosen one, the one prophesied to have eyes bluer than cobalt. They checked her shade against some handy cobalt, just to be sure. "It's true," sobbed her father. As it would turn out, that was the happiest birthday of her life.
Puppy Prompts
Street Prince
He was a rabble-rouser, a troublemaker, always a piece of hay in his mouth even though he was a city boy through and through. But one encounter with a certain baker would set him running for the straight and narrow.
Puppy Prompts
A Song of Giants and Fire
His song could make giants weep. Most called it a gift--but it would be his undoing.
Puppy Prompts
Brothers and Bones
They had been brothers, once. That felt like years ago now. Everything went wrong at the grand opening of their father's museum--and it just got worse from there.
Puppy Prompts
A Shiver of Mist and Wave
Her father was a Breton boatman. Her mother, a poet. But then, one perfectly sunny day, they both went to sea. And they didn't come back. Donning her homemade sweater, she's ready to go where the rescue crews dare not paddle--and if she's lucky, she might just live to tell the tale.
Puppy Prompts
Within the Frozen Heartwood
He was an explorer at heart, but not very good at it. Neighbors joked that he got lost in his own backyard (which, to be fair, was a forested mountain). But he'd prove them wrong. All had had to do was uncover the heartwood of the oldest tree in the coldest forest in the quietest glen. And not freeze to death or get eaten by something or, you know, get lost. How hard could it be?
Puppy Prompts
Ruin and Walls
She had always lived like this, confined within the walls. But there was hidden spot where she could get a view of the Beyond. One Tuesday, after a particularly doleful walk along the walls, she decided enough was enough--she was going to break free.
Puppy Prompts
The Absolutely True Story of a Part-Time Palace Guard
He was right out of training, the greenest one on the field--even greener than the grass. Months of training had gone into this, but sitting there on his butt, off-balance and dazed, he realized for the first time: He had no idea what he was doing.
Puppy Prompts
The Scarlet Dame and the Silver Spy
The dame was a looker, and she knew it. Not like those ones always being all "I'm so normal and plainnnn". Nope, not her. She was blue eyes sparkling over summer lakes and hair the burning tint of late fall and a smile that made everyone around forget what they were saying. This dame was the stuff. And though she said she needed my help, I had a secret suspicion it was the other way around.
Puppy Prompts
Woven of Thread and Web
She knotted the blanket around her neck like a cloak. Enough was enough. If the others wouldn't act, she'd take on this journey, haunted woods be darned. After all, wasn't she the weaver's daughter? She would be right at home with the spiders. Assuming they didn't eat her alive first.
Puppy Prompts
The Not-Secret-Anymore Secret Supers
It was happening! At last, her powers were beginning to manifest! It started with the breeze around her ears, whispering strands of her hair back. But then it grew under her feet, a solid force of air propelling her up. After years of wishing and waiting and trying, she was finally going to join the secret elite, the class of supers no one else knew about--Then her classmate walked around the corner and shrieked. So much for secret.
Puppy Prompts
The Princess and the Hound
She clutched the small stuffed dog to her chest, staring out over a sight she never expected, a world she no longer understood. For who is to say that the world is green when all around you is gray and dying? She would go forward--she had to. But she didn't like the look of it.
Puppy Prompts
The Academy of Dolies and Tea Parties
This was the most awkward day of her life, and that was saying something. She didn't even want to be part of the "secret" rebellion. But she'd opened her big mouth and now they wouldn't stop talking to her, trying to recruit her the way a telemarketer tries to sell you insurance. Maybe if she just stayed still, they'd forget and all this "Chosen One" nonsense could be over.
Puppy Prompts
A Great and Terrible Wild
In the Wildlands, you didn't live long if you weren't clever about it. And he was Very Clever. He could vanish into a shadow at will, blend into the very ground if he tried. But there was no denying it anymore--someone was on his trail. And if she caught up, no about of clever would save him.
Puppy Prompts
The Intrepid Detective
Would these insipid idiots ever catch on? He was the best of the best, and he didn't need cases like this. "Ooh, my cat's missing! Ooh, I misplaced my glove!" Boo. Hoo. What he needed was a puzzle, a challenge, a person who's name wasn't some variation of "Katherine." So when a Cathrynne came to report a crime, he definitely rolled his eyes. But even he could have never predicted where he'd end up by sunset that fateful day.
Puppy Prompts
A Spirit of Gold and Glimmer
She was the last of her kind, golden and unblemished, ever young and courageous. Long had she lived beyond the dwellings of man, in the lands of lavender and lilies. But the time had come. If she wanted to save the little left of her home, she must leave it to find help. And, rather foolishly, given mankind's reputation, she decided to start looking at the nearest human city.
Puppy Prompts
The Princess of Fourth Period
She sat at her desk the way some people might have sat on a throne--effortlessly elegant, somehow both alert and bored at once. She had no idea I was about to ask her out. But then, neither did I--not until it was too late, the words bumbling free like tribute at her feet, and her staring with one eyebrow 1/4 an inch higher than the other. But I never expected what happened next.
Puppy Prompts
An Ambush of Fire and Fury
Even at his young age, he was a master of all 300 types of combat. Watching him launch into a fight--feet hardly grazing the ground, body fluid with deadly grace--was like watching gasoline spill into a puddle: Beautiful and dangerous. I never wanted to attract his attention. Which is why it is unfortunate I'm his next opponent.
Puppy Prompts
Lord of the Lost Spring
A hush fell over the room. He looked from one face to the next--all turned away, dismayed, fearful. This was his fault. He'd unleashed the evil. And he was the only one could could fix it. Rising on unsteady legs, he covered the compass with his hand. "I'll find it."
