Creative nonfiction is super creative. That's why Under the Madness Magazine is offering a Power Prompt every week until December to jumpstart your creative nonfiction. Check here (blog) every Monday for a new prompt (as well as on Twitter and Instagram).
Send us your creations! When you submit your creative nonfiction, indicate that it was a happy product of one of our Power Prompts (tell us which one), and the editors will give you special consideration for one of the upcoming Issues. (Tell us in the first sentence of your email.) You will also be eligible for special feedback from Editor-in-Chief Alexandria Peary.
Our Philosophy on This Kind of Creative Writing:
Creative nonfiction is a whole different species than the five-paragraph school essay or argument paper. It doesn't have a thesis or use in-text citation or involve the abandonment of "I": that is, unless it decides to. Because this kind of writing does whatever it wishes, for the most part!
It’s nonfiction—so it always stays on the side of truth—but it uses the devices of fiction (dialog, setting, sensory detail, backstory, imagery, foreshadowing) to tell a story.
Here's the beginning of one of our favorite pieces of creative nonfiction, "Lifelike," written by Susan Orlean. She's trying to understand other people's fascination with taxidermy:
As soon as the 2003 World Taxidermy Championships opened, the heads came rolling in the door. There were foxes and moose and freeze-dried wild turkeys; mallards and buffalo and chipmunks and wolves; weasels and buffleheads and bobcats and jackdaws; big fish and little fish and razor-backed boar. The deer came in herds, in carloads, and on pallets: dozens and dozens of whitetail and roe; half-deer and whole deer and deer with deformities, sneezing and glowering and nuzzling and yawning; does chewing apples and bucks nibbling leaves. There were millions of eyes, boxes and bowls of them; some as small as a lentil and some as big as a poached egg. There were animal mannequins, blank-faced and brooding, earless and eyeless and utterly bald: ghostly gray duikers and spectral pine martens and black-bellied tree ducks from some other world. An entire exhibit hall was filled with equipment, all the gear required to bring something dead back to life: replacement noses for grizzlies, false teeth for beavers, fish-fin cream, casting clay, upholstery nails.
Here's the beginning of another piece of creative nonfiction we love, David Rakoff's "In New England, Everyone Calls You Dave": "I do not go outdoors. Not more than I have to. As far as I'm concerned, the whole point of living in New York City is indoors. You want greenery? Order the spinach."
POWER PROMPT FOR NOVEMBER 1:
Create a 750-word still life of Halloween candy. Imagine that you've dumped your Halloween trick-or-treating finds on your desk. It forms an unusual shape (not a typical mound of candy): what's that shape? Zoom in on multiple pieces of candy in the pile: what kinds of stories would each piece tell? Be as imaginative and surreal as you wish!
POWER PROMT FOR OCTOBER 24:
What is your deepest regret? From anything small, to anything big. Was there a specific moment where you wished you could return to, and fix the situation? How would things play out if you had done "the right thing"? Can you still do something about it?
POWER PROMPT FOR OCTOBER 17:
What is your most adored physical feature? Why is it your favorite? What about it stands out from your other attributes? Write a flash essay (under 750 words) exploring this idea.
POWER PROMT FOR OCTOBER 10:
Brainstorm for 3-5 metaphor phrases to the following: Emotion as Object. Examples include "Happiness is a lava lamp," "Anger is a crowbar," and "Dissatisfaction is an out-of-tune piano." Pick the metaphoric phrase which hands you the most creative energy. Write a flash essay (under 750 words) in which you tell the story you sense behind that metaphor. Include as many tangible details as possible and at least one question or italicized passage.
POWER PROMPT FOR OCTOBER 3:
Write an intensely brief essay (under 750 words) that takes the form of a list. Tell the story of someone's life (could be a pet) such that each sentence offers a new detail in that list. Let some of the details in this list receive more page time (so expand); let others be brief. Consider adding dialog in italicized phrases or sentences. End the essay on an image that appears in the opening sentence.
POWER PROMPT FOR SEPTEMBER 26:
What's a question that's been on your mind that you've never felt comfortable asking? Write an intensely brief essay (under 750 words) in which you don't provide the actual question but instead all of the side effects, ripples, aftermath, and/or responses to the question. Describe any silences, pauses, or hesitations as having a color or temperature.
"Joss Whedon quote Write it. Shoot it. Publish it. Crochet it, saute it, whatever. MAKE." by witchscribe is marked with Public Domain Mark 1.0.
