Welcome to the Reverse Prompts challenge!
It’s a writing challenge – with a twist!
4 times a year, this blog will put out a prompt for you to write for. That’ll be three months between each prompt. While there’s no deadline to finish your story, the three months is a blog marker for us and that’s when we’ll make a master list of entries for the last prompt before we put up the next one.
Wait – how’s that different than any other prompt blog? There’s only 4 prompts? All year? What the heck? Why should I follow this blog or participate in this challenge?
Aha! That’s the twist! The prompt is an art prompt.
No, we’re not asking you to draw something. That’s a different blog (Drawing Prompts) or this one (Road So Far Archive). What’s different here is that a piece of art will be posted – and that’s the prompt! What does that art inspire in you?
Frequency: If this becomes popular, and people want us too, we may upgrade this to a monthly thing, but the art is going to all be made new for each month and I’m only one (starving) artist right now. I’m always open to volunteers if we want to get a few different art styles in here and a more frequent challenge post.
But even if we do update more frequently, the point of this challenge is to be low key, no deadlines. Just tag us so we can put you in the collections and on the master lists 😀
Rules: Okay, we don’t have very many. There’s no deadline, no match ups. Just write if you feel inspired. We’re looking at 500 words minimum please, and if you post on tumblr, please be sure to put the longer stories behind a read more.
Any rating is acceptable, but please use appropriate tags and warnings and if posting to tumblr, if the fic is NSFW, please tag it as such and put the NSFW stuff under the read more 😀
Please tag us when you post it and feel free to add your story in to the AO3 collection: (TBD – Aka, as soon as I figure out how)
Also, make sure to tag the artist whose art was the prompt you used. We want to make sure credit is given where credit is due!
What fandoms are allowed? Any fandom you want! Even original works too (though be wary about posting those on AO3) except as precluded by whatever art prompt was given as the artist may have put something specific in the image.
So, for instance, if it’s very clearly the Impala or the Enterprise, or the Tardis or a particular character or set of characters, then the story has to involve them somehow – otherwise, free rein! (And yes, in those cases, crossovers are allowed! We said any fandom and we meant it – you just need to keep in mind what’s actually in the artwork provided as well.)
Of course, depending on the art, even that is still open to interpretation. If the art has a dirty blonde/brown haired guy with a grumpy brunette and they’re in casual clothes and there’s no tech/identifying paraphernalia, than which fandom couple is it? McKirk? Destiel? Merlin/Arthur? You get to take your pick!
Is there an age restriction? Nope! All ages can join. Of course, for that reason, please observe the few rules we have in play.
I’m a writer! How do I sign up? No official signups! But if you’d like to be put on a tag list for every new prompt that’s put out, we can do that. You are not obligated in any way to write a particular prompt when it posts. Write the ones that inspire you. And if you suddenly feel inspired for one three prompts back? Go for it!
I’m an artist! How can I contribute? You are? You are a lifesaver! I can’t carry this myself, I swear, as much fun as it is. Just message me and let me know you’re interested. We’ll figure out a schedule if need be. The art will be hosted wherever you want to host it, and then we’ll blog it here with a link back to you! Credit where credit is due!
What kind of art can I make for this? Ah…this took some thinking because we don’t want to limit your creativity but we do have to keep in account that people of all ages will be participating in this challenge. This is not to say nudity can’t be done – but there’s a difference between drawing sex and drawing tasteful nudity.
I mean, if you draw 2 guys naked from the waist up, with the lower halves of their bodies going off the page, you leave so much more to the writer’s imagination. They could be wearing anything. Could be pants, shorts, swimwear, hula skirts or absolutely nothing – and then the possibilities become endless.
So where’d this idea come from?
Well, to be honest, a bunch of different things.
I’ve seen daily prompt blogs, or been part of groups that send out a challenge prompt once every three months or so, and I liked how… low key those were. Something fun you could join in on when you had the time.
Reverse Bangs are pretty neat, because the art comes first and it’s so much fun to see how a story can take shape around it. I’ve participated in those several times because I’m fascinated to see what happens next.
SPN Coldest Hits – if you don’t know what that is, check it out. But it’s a unique take on a challenge and it’s pretty fun. And the very first one I entered had a prompt opening sentence.
EVERY STORY had to start with the same sentence (and also had to have the same title) and I found it very fun and very interesting to see how many different directions that particular months challenge went. I haven’t seen one like it since.
The winner of a coldest hit challenge gets to pick the theme for the next one. And I know I’ll never ‘win’ because I don’t play to win. I play to have fun. (That very first one I did was bookmarked with the following words “Crack taken seriously” and I’m pretty proud of that.)
Lastly, but not least, I’ve seen art that gets posted on tumblr occasionally spawning random fics or ficlets for it. And it’s a wonderful thing to see!
And so it hit me… what if we did a challenge where everyone starts with the same inspiration and then just… goes with it? What kinds of stories can the same prompt create with different peoples visions? I love things like that, and I hope you do too!
How’d you come up with the name?
Names are the hardest part, honestly. I wanted to use the word Reverse, somehow, since it’s related in style to the Reverse Bangs – except instead of multiple artists making multiple pieces of art to be claimed, there’s only one piece.
I wanted something catchy too, but I wanted it to have something related to what we’re doing so people would instantly think of it. I mean, it’s the same process pretty much everyone else goes through, except that by making this open to any fandoms, I took away any of the easy ways to come up with a title. All the Reverse Bangs are never just called “Reverse Bang” but “Xfandom/Xship Reverse Bang”.
I even enlisted help but this challenge just refused to be easily categorized.
Remember, if you have any questions or a rule/not rule is a little too vague, just send an ask and we’ll do our best to answer in a timely manner
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