Writing Prompt: Molly Prentiss

On Thursday nights beginning July 7, Molly Prentiss is teaching a six-week fiction workshop designed to help writers surprise themselves during the act of writing: to make themselves laugh out loud, to turn a sentence on its head, to channel the odd and deep and new. Tricking herself into accessing this unknown is how Molly […]

On Thursday nights beginning July 7, Molly Prentiss is teaching a six-week fiction workshop designed to help writers surprise themselves during the act of writing: to make themselves laugh out loud, to turn a sentence on its head, to channel the odd and deep and new.

Tricking herself into accessing this unknown is how Molly found her way into her debut novel, Tuesday Nights in 1980, about a synesthetic art critic, a Midwestern ingenue trying to make it in the big city, and the artist who will change both of their lives. In a rave for the book, the New York Times claimed that Molly “sets an almost impertinently high bar for herself.”

We asked Molly for a prompt to shock writers into thinking in an entirely new way. We encourage you to post your responses to Molly’s prompt here on Community. We’re excited to see where the prompt leads you.

Write about a surprise party without ever using the word “surprise” or “party.”

Click here to post your response.