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The Park Bench Method To Writing
(Just the article - no prompt lists - go HERE if you want to older page that had the 10k writing prompts listed.)
(A weird writing method I invented for myself several years ago, and is how every volume of The Quaraun series is written.)
The Park Bench Method of Writing Rapid Release Fiction without Burning Out

NOTE: this article is OVER A DECADE OLD and I have not checked if the links to other websites are still active or not in nearly as long. The links to other sites were correct at the time this page was published, but the internet and websites on it have changed a lot in the last ten years, so the links to other websites may or may not still work.

| The Park Bench Method of Writing Rapid Release Fiction without Burning Out, by Wendy Christine Allen |

By Wendy C Allen

f you are here looking for aliens, ufos, demons, cryptids, haunted cars, curses, Etiole, the wild man of old orchard beach, the goldeneagle car, the white monkey, or any of that other weird bullshit, you want this video:

...and after that video, you want these ones:

@eelkat #etiole #homelesspeople #homelessness #homelessinmaine #homeless #oldorchardbeach #maine #forest #leanto #homelesslivesmatter #homelessman #den #hermit #mainehermit #mainemountainman #mountainmen #mainelife #mainelifestyle #mainehomeless #homelesscommunity #homelesscrisis #homelessveteran #homelessveteranawareness #homelessawareness #homelesselder #homelesselderly ♬ original sound - Wendy C Allen | 📚 Author

@eelkat 1964 #Dodge 330 that people call "Goldeneagle" or "world's most haunted car" #maine #artcar #volvo #antiquecars ♬ original sound - Wendy C Allen | 📚 Author

Wendy Christine Allen, 2019, able to sit up in a chair for the first time in years, and able to raise up my arm and wiggle fingers. This was when I started playing Witcher 3 on Twitch as part of my physical therapy to regain finger movement. Playing Witcher 3 daily from 2016 to 2019, is how I regained the use of my thumb and two for fingers on my right hand... it is also why I stopped playing Witcher 3 in 2019, once I had strengthen my two forefingers enough to start typing again. Wendy Christine Allen, Old Orchard Beach's Autistic Author, Artist, Illustrator, & Art Car Designer Counting Down to the September 23, 2028 50th Anniversary of my first published book (September 23, 1978) If you are here looking for The Twighlight Manor series, The Crystonite Wars series, The Wild Years series, The White Rock Asylum for the Criminally Insane series, The Twisted Tales series, the Captured By a MerMan series, The Space Dock 13 series, The Kats of Planet Ptarmagin series, the stories about Miss Citten the Eel-Kat, or the stories about Etiole... ALL of those series were combined and consolidated into The Adventures of Quaraun the Insane Pink Necromancer series in 2014, so ALL the different series, are now under one series title. List of the published titles still in print: The Index of over three thousand stories in The Pink Necromancer series What the series is about, for those new here: The introduction to The Pink Necromancer Series.

If you want some stories to get you started in The Pink Necromancer series, reading these first will give you a good introduction to the 3 main characters: BoomFuzzy's Chowder Dilemma If your ass ain’t freezing or your brains ain’t scrambled, you’re ain’t really trying A Very Important Clump of Grass The Washer Woman & The Fae Absinthe Slushies: An Ode to Frozen Green Fairy Wine Bone Dice Excited For The New Baby Zwodder: A Drowsy Stupid State of Mind Pink Sheep, Cheesy Burritos, and The Grim Reality of Zombies Open Grave The Phooka's Dragon School The Moon Goddess Laughs From The Rooftops The Jar of Pickled Toes The Book Burning Maggots, a You Can't Spell Hatred Without Red Hats A Day In The Life of a Bumbling Necromancer The Three-Seventeen Pee Expedition

My Elves Are JellyFish...and I asked Google AI and ChatGPT 5.6 what they thought of this.

As requested, my daily writing prompt series is now available print paperback editions on Amazon.

365 Cozy Writing Prompts For Fantasy Writers Vol.1: Daily Writing Prompts Series For Writers of Serial Pulp Fiction

365 Cozy Writing Prompts For Fantasy Writers Vol.2: Daily Writing Prompts Series For Writers of Serial Pulp Fiction

365 Cozy Writing Prompts For Fantasy Writers Vol.3: Daily Writing Prompts Series For Writers of Serial Pulp Fiction

365 Cozy Writing Prompts For Fantasy Writers Vol.4: Daily Writing Prompts Series For Writers of Serial Pulp Fiction

365 Cozy Writing Prompts For Fantasy Writers Vol.5: Daily Writing Prompts Series For Writers of Serial Pulp Fiction

There are 20 volumes of this writing prompt series currently planned and in varying stages of finishing, hopefully all 20 will be published by the end of 2026. I likely will do a 2nd series of writing prompt books in 2027.

Coming soon (Nov/Dec 2026)... patterns for my slow stitched embroidery:

The first of the Visual Novels/Video Games for The Adventures of Quaraun the Inane/The Pink Necromancer series is published and available on Itch.io, there are 3 more planned for release in 2026, 6 more planned for release in 2027, and the big 60-hour 80k word 150 page one (Quaraun Goes To the Fair) is planned for a 2028 release.

There is a Pink Necromancer card game and a Pink Necromancer board game, as well as a Pink Necromancer table top RPG supliment for Dungeons and Dragons, all in the works, and to be released over the next couple of years as well.

I shouldn't have to say this, but people keep contacting me, so apparently I do:

• No, I do not believe in aliens. Stop contacting me to ask for alien information. If you believe in aliens, I think you are insane, retarded, or both.

• No, my car is not haunted. I've debunked that rumour many times now. . Stop contacting me to ask for haunted car information. If you believe in haunted cars, I think you are insane, retarded, or both.

• No, I am not connected to Stephen King. I didn't even know who he was until you idiots started contacting me asking about him. I had to look him up on Google to find out what you were even talking about! If you have questions about Stephen King, go contact him and ask him. I'm not him. I don't know him. I know nothing about him. I've never read one of his books. I've never seen one of his movies. I can't figure out why you people are even coming to me to ask about him in the first place!

1. If someone told you I believe in aliens, if someone told you my car was haunted, if someone told you I was connected to Stephen King, you NEED to contact the FBI agent in charge of my son's murder investigation and TELL HIM WHO it was who told ou, exactly WHAT it was they said, HOW they contacted you, WHERE they contacted you... because it is a KNOWN FACT that my son's murderer is the one who started all these slanderous alien, haunted car, Stephen King rumours, and the FBI is trying to catch her.

If you have any information about my son’s murderer, please give it to FBI Agent Andy Drewer at 207–774–9322 of the Portland, Maine FBI office.

Do you know who this woman is?

On August 8, 2013 she drove a backhoe over my house. On November 14, 2013 she arrived at Southern Maine Community College and crippled me with a golf club and murdered my son. One June 24, 2016, days after my first attempts to walk again, she attacked me with a shopping cart at Scarborough, Walmart, reinjuring the Nov 14, 2013 injury.

She crippled me when I was 8 months pregnant, a woman with a golf club, severed my spine and bashed my baby's head in, I spent 9 years relearning to walk, and the FBI is 13 years into the murder investigation and not yet id-ed the attacker who crippled me and killed my baby, both violently with a golf club.

Complete details of EVERYTHING she did is on this page here.

The golf club woman who called herself Clair as she looked November 14, 2013. Her hair is a weird chin leangth pageboy (very Medival style cut) platinum blonde with wide brown/black dyed stripes in it (like a reverse of Lily Munster, but the stripes are several, almost like a zebra). I am 5'6" and she was a LOT taller then me, like closer to the height of a man; she had thin lips like a man, and large nose like a man... she COULD have been a man disguised as a woman, given the ease with which she severed my spine....she's is a LOT stronger then is typical for a woman). She was wearing a chambre blue denim "blazer jacket over shirt" and a button up mens shirt (possibly flannel) and blue jeans. The bulk of her yelling was focused on accusing me of being transgender, even while ripping my baby out of my 8 month pregnant belly and bashing his head in with a golf club.

The Claire woman as she looked during her shoping cart attack at Scarborough WalMart June 2016, the attack with left me paralyzed and in a wheelchair. Her hair was dyed dark red, and she drove away in a gold Volvo 240 Station Wagon of a late 1980s/early1990s model, with a "458" on the lisnce plate.... If you have any information about the woman who crippled me with a golf club, please give it to FBI Agent Andy Drewer at 207–774–9322 of the Portland, Maine FBI office.

@eelkat part 9 of 10 #dogwalk around the block (Maine st, Elm st, South street, Bradbury st) #Biddeford #Maine #night #fbiinvestigation #truecrimetiktok ♬ original sound - Wendy C Allen | 📚 Author

If you have any information about the woman who crippled me with a golf club, please give it to FBI Agent Andy Drewer at 207–774–9322 of the Portland, Maine FBI office.

Good god! We just found out about yet another slanderous rumour this woman has been spreading? When does it end? How many more of these things are out there?

Video explains what else she's done ...

If you have any information about the woman who crippled me with a golf club, please give it to FBI Agent Andy Drewer at 207–774–9322 of the Portland, Maine FBI office.

If you encounter anyone claiming my car is haunted, demon possessed, or somehow connected to Stephen King please give the information of who, when, where/location to FBI Agent Andy Drewer at 207–774–9322 of the Portland, Maine FBI office. @eelkat part 7 of 10 #dogwalk around the block (Maine st, Elm st, St Mary's, Dunkin, South street, Bradbury st) #Biddeford #Maine #night #plannedparenthood ♬ original sound - Wendy C Allen | 📚 Author If you encounter anyone claiming I believe in aliens or was an alien abducttee, please give the information of who, when, where/location to FBI Agent Andy Drewer at 207–774–9322 of the Portland, Maine FBI office.

@eelkat part 4 of 10 #dogwalk around the block (Maine st, Elm st, St Mary's, Dunkin, South street, Bradbury st) #Biddeford #Maine #night #library ♬ original sound - Wendy C Allen | 📚 Author If you know who drove this backhoe over my house at 146 Portland Ave, Old Orchard Beach, Maine 04064-1520 on August 8, 2013 please give the information of who it is to FBI Agent Andy Drewer at 207–774–9322 of the Portland, Maine FBI office. If you know who drove this backhoe over my house at 146 Portland Ave, Old Orchard Beach, Maine 04064-1520 on August 8, 2013 please give the information of who it is to FBI Agent Andy Drewer at 207–774–9322 of the Portland, Maine FBI office.

I am sick and tired of people not giving a shit that my son was murdered!

I am sick and tired of jackasses making up rumours and lies about me and my car, calling me an alien abductee and my car haunted, just to try to cover up my son's murder!

Below, is an answer I wrote for a question on Reddit, but it took me several hours to write it and by the time I went to post the answer the OP had deleted the thread.... sooooo, I do not have the link to the original question in full, and only have the parts of the question, which were in the quotes, so not all of their question is here, but basically, the question was asking for advice on how to use writing prompts as a way to teach themselves to writing shorter stories then epic novels.

Here is what little I have of their question, followed by my answer:

>>>How do I write a simplistic and small scale story, Cause all my previous projects have been too ambitious and I wanna try something new now….

>>>So basically pretty much every story of mine before this has been too large scale and complex, but I feel like I should try to make a simple and small scale one this time, as I think this would certainly make me and others believe that I am a capable writer and not just someone who makes too ambitious stuff……

>>>I don’t know what to write about to practice and improve my writing.

>>>I actually wanna how can I make it simplistic, yet not boring or stereotypical in any shape or form, and it still generates interset among the readers.

>I don’t know what to write about to practice and improve my writing.

Anything.

Everything.

Look at your local news and write opinion commentary blog posts on why you agree or disagree with the situation. Then, write a second one from the point of view of the opposing side.

Write fiction and nonfiction both, so that you get practice with each.

Write 1k word shorts, 10k word shorts, 30k word novellas.

Write in different genres.

Write something every day.

Strive to finish every piece you start.

Strive for each piece to be 500 words longer than the piece you wrote the day before.

I am completely the opposite of you. I simply can't write long stories, complex multi-faceted plots, large ensemble casts, finely woven multi-sub-plots, or ambitious stories. And there was a time when this frustrated me, because, I had gotten it into my head that in order to be "*a REAL writer*" I had to write big, epic, complex novels. I got this into my head, because I loved short stories, and I read tons of them.

While I also read a lot of novels (I go through Harlequin Romance novels and Star Trek novels like they were candy, reading 1 to 3 a week), my main reading is short stories in the 10k to 15k word range. I'll read 10+ short stories in a day. I subscribe to dozens of literary print magazines, I buy every anthology and collection I can get my hands on-with no concern for who the writer is at all-I just can't get enough short stories. It's kind of an addition-a big one-reading short stories takes up the bulk of my non-writing time. Most of my days are spent either reading or writing short stories because I rabidly love doing both.

My writing short stories fall into one of those categories where writing is like breathing, for me, and I just can’t not do it. While I do publish some of my work, the vast bulk of my writing never gets published because I write mostly for the fun of the physical act of writing, and not everything I write ends up publishable or even something I want to try to edit to make it publishable.

In 1978, 44 years ago, I started publishing short stories in little literary magazines, and readers liked those and so I wrote more. And I just kept writing more short stories and print magazines kept publishing them, and after a few years, it occurred to me, I don't need to write novels, because I don't want to write novels. I like writing short stories. The *”real writers, write novels”* mindset drifted away and I just dove head first into writing short stories for print mags as my full time career.

And as the years went by, I fell into this "formulae" or "structure" that just became my default normal "template" to go to to write all my stories by. It works for me and the series I write, because each story is usually 7k to 15k words long, some shorter, some longer, but most are in the 10k to 12k range.

The thing I like to do, that might help you (or not, who knows?), is to write little quick one scene stories revolving around just a quick 15min to half hour space of time in a person's (character's) life.

I developed this weird “man on the bench” method of writing, which became the norm for the bulk of my stories. The idea is to take a man (or woman or child or elf or whatever you are writing about)... take a man, sit him on a bench, and just start writing. Who is he? Where is the bench? Why is he sitting on the bench? What can he see from this bench? What can he smell? What can he taste? What can he touch? What does he feel physically? What does he feel emotionally? What is he thinking about? And just write the answers to these and other similar questions until you reach around 10k words, and then, stop writing. The end.

I believe, in Literary Genre terms, most people would call this “a character study”? But I’m not sure. I was told once that this is what I was doing, that my short stories were all character studies, rather than actual plotted stories.

Now, I will point out that my writing falls far from the action-filled, fast paced norm. There are no fights or wars or kings or factions or sex or car chases or sword play or heroes on quests or adventure parties or hero journey’s or saving damsels or any other sort of action type thing that you would normally see in most novels, or any short stories with plots. My stories ARE extremely character driven on the deep-end of the bell curve extremes, to the point of often containing no plot at all, and literally just being a character sitting and thinking, and taking in the surrounding scenery. And there is not a lot of demand for this sort of thing either, so know that if you do end up writing this sort of thing and wanting to publish it. 

Most of my stories follow this same format of starting out with a character sitting somewhere, reflecting to himself or talking with a companion. Not always a bench. Sometimes it’s a table in a tavern, a bar in a pub, a log by a campfire, a pile of pillows in a tent, a rock by a mountain stream…any place a character can sit and relax, sit and think, sit and chat with a friend, that’s where I start.

I don't outline or pre plan before I write. I'm what most people call a pantser, I think. Though I think "improv writing" probably better describes what I do. Perhaps the snowball method (not snowflake method) best describes what I do? I don’t know. I don’t follow any sort of method/template created by anyone, I just kind of do my own thing, and figure out what works for me, and I’m not sure if any of the “methods” out there actually match fully what I do or not.

My method is, I take a character and I put them in a location, and then I just start writing and see what happens. For example I take a man, sit him on a park bench and start writing.

I sit my character on a bench (if in a city) or a log (if in the forest) or at a table (if in a building) and just write a scene of the character talking to himself about what he sees.

The idea is simple: take a man sitting on a bench, and write about him and only him, for the next half hour. Why is he there? What is he doing? What is he thinking? Where is the bench?

Start the story at the point where he sits down, end the story at the point when he stands up again.

Never tell anything about what happened before he sat down.

Never tell anything that happens after he stands up.

Don’t plot.

Don’t plan.

Just start writing and see what happens.

I like to ask "What if" questions and just write the answer right into the draft. It'll be something totally random, I never know ahead of time what I will write.

Using the man on the bench as the basis, I could ask questions like:

• What if the park borders a river and the MC witnesses a child running too close to the edge, slipping, and falling into the raging rapids below? What do the MC do? Does he try to save the child? Does he call for help? What if he can't swim?

I would now write that scene. Write the MC sitting, listening to the sparrows twittering in the rose bushes along the riverside, smile upon hearing a child run by, look up in time to see the banking give way under the child's feet, and write his reaction.

Now maybe the scene doesn't match the story, but I will write it anyway because it'll be character building practice that will help me get inside his head and see what type of person he is, based on how he responds to this situation.

• What if it's not the MC who sees the child fall? What if it's the evil super villain of the story? Rescuing the child could show the reader that he has a caring side, while ignoring the child could show the reader how pure evil his heart really is.

Let's go back to the pack bench. There is no river. There is no child.

• This time it's a city park, surrounded by lots of tall buildings. People and pigeons scurrying through, going about their day. The MC is sitting on the bench feeding pigeons and watching people buying hotdogs from a food cart, when suddenly a speeding car veers off the road, careening out of control across the grass heading straight for the hotdog cart. What does the MC do?

See how What If? changed the story?

• Let's say the park is in a tourist town and a carnival is setting up rides and games and food trucks, while craftsmen set up booths to sell their wares. What does the MC do this time?

Or how about this:

• What if while sitting on the park bench, the MC is reminded of his wife? He misses her. Why? Is she dead? If so, how did she die? Are they divorced? If so, is it because of something he did and he feels guilty about now? Did he cheat on her and get caught? Did she cheat on him and he caught her? Maybe she's sick, in the hospital dying with cancer and this park is outside the hospital and he came out here to get away from the sounds of the beeping hospital equipment that is counting down the hours to her death. Lots of ways this can go, depending on why he's thinking of his wife and where she is right now.

Or maybe this:

• What if the park is a dog park and he's watching his dog play with the other dogs? What type of dog does he have? How did he get it? How long has he had it.

• What if it's not a park, but a beach on the ocean? He's listening to the sound of the waves, smelling the salt ocean, watching sandpipers run back and forth with the waves snatching up periwinkles, watching the seagulls fight over a lone crab, watching terns skim the water, smelling the rockweed at low tide, watching the lighthouse keeper on his ladder repainting the lighthouse, feeling the warm sun on his face, the gritty sand between his toes. Why is he here on the beach today of all days? Is it a good day, and he's here with his family, watching his children build sand castles? Is it a bad day, his child has been kidnapped and this is the drop-off point for the ransom money? Was there just a hurricane and he was part of the clean up crew that's pulling a dead whale off the beach? Is it the frigid cold of winter of the Atlantic north and he's watching an iceberg slowly float offshore while digging for clams? Is it a blazing hot heat wave in Florida's south and he's sweltering hot and thinking about where to buy a cold drink?

Let's change it up again:

• What if it's not a park bench, but a bus station bench? Is he picking someone up? Who? Why? Is he leaving somewhere? Where? Why? Is he homeless and waiting for the next round of buses, in hopes someone will toss a half eaten sandwich in the trash?

Do you see how many ways it could go, if your next scene just tosses a park bench into the scene and your MC is sitting on it?

You now have to answer where the bench is, why the MC is sitting on it, what the MC sees, hears, says, thinks, and feels as he sits there, and how he responds to those things.

And there are hundreds of places that have benches, so hundreds of places your MC could be, thousands of things he might see.

And you can do this with any genre.

1. A bench in Romance, maybe this is where he and his lover first meet.
2. A bench in a Western, maybe he's the town sheriff watching the saloon waiting for a fight to break out.
3. A bench in a Fantasy, maybe its a bench in front of the blacksmith and he's waiting for his new sword to be finished.
4. A bench in a SciFi, maybe it's outside of a space terminal and he's waiting for a shuttle craft to arrive so he can go to his new job on the starship.
5. A bench in a Horror, maybe that creepy guy on the next bench over is about to follow him home.
6. A bench in an Urban Contemporary, maybe the bench is in front of the bike shop and he's taking a break from repairing a customer's hog.
7. A bench in a Zombie Apocalypse, maybe he's considering using the bench as part of a barricade to keep the undead out of his campsite.

But I could just as easily use the example of an MC walking his dog down the sidewalk. Or the MC enters a store or a library or walks past the high school football field.

Maybe your MC is hungry so you send him to a restaurant or tavern or bar or McDonald's.

Think about who the character is now. Right now. Here on this bench. Don't think about his past. Just think about his now.

What does he do? What does he feel? What does he say? What does he think but leaves unsaid? Why is he here? What is he likely to do? Why is he like this?

Is he bitter? Cynical? Depressed? Pessimistic? Optimistic? Opportunistic? Why? What made him this way?

Rich? Poor? Homeless? Jobless? Eating on his lunch break? Happy? Angry? Sad? Content with life? Stressed out? Suicidal? Why? How did he get like this?

If they know a lot about a specific subject - why that subject and how did they come by that knowledge?

What relationships are important to them now - could that be explained by relationships they had in the past?

For example, if they had an absent parent, that could explain why they're so attached to a mentor-type character now.

Where did they start?

Where are they now?

What logical path can you draw between the two?

I explore why he is sitting on the bench.

• Is he a dog walker at a dog park, sitting with other dog walkers while their dogs play? Is he a single dad taking his toddler on a picnic? Is he an elderly man, sitting and watching the sunset while thinking of his youth? Is he a homeless man claiming this bench as his bed for the night? Is it a bus stop bench and he's waiting for the bus? Is he a trail hiker and this is a bench on the Eastern Trail?

So many possibilities.

I can (and do) take this same writing prompt, a man on the bench, and write it every day and have 365 completely different stories about 365 completely different men in 365 completely different settings after a year. And do it year after year after year, and always come up with something different because the possibilities are just endless. And this is why I am able to write so many stories, so fast. I write 5 to 10 stories a week and publish 1 to 3 a week.

And you are not limited to one genre. Regardless of genre, format, or theme. Horror, Fantasy, Romance, SciFi, Bizarro, Absurdism, Dystopian, Westerns, and every other genre I write (I write short stories under 15 pennames, one for each of 15 different genres) if ever happen to read my work, you will quickly notice that every story I write starts with a man sitting somewhere.

In a tavern.

In a church.

On a beach.

By the lake.

On a boat.

On a log in the forest, by a campfire.

On a bed in a motel.

In a car behind the wheel, parked in a remote alley.

There are so many places to sit and think.

So many locations those sitting spots can be.

So many reasons your character might be there.

And the story always starts with him commenting on something he sees or hears or smells or tastes.

Then someone else is there and he starts talking to them.

Then the conversation leads to them getting up and going somewhere and doing something.

And the story snowballs from there.

I usually get ideas for what to write next by going outside, walking my dog around the town and just looking at things going on, and asking "What if my MC saw that in the next scene?" And when I get back home, I write the answer to that what if. And usually while I'm writing I think of more scenes to write and write those, and before I know it I'm back on track making the start of my story connect to the end of my story.

Almost everything I write finds basis in something I saw, smelt, felt, or heard while I was walking my dog that morning.

What works for me (though may or may not work for you as everyone is different) is to simply NOT think about my ideas at all. Instead just write the story down.

When I get a new idea, I just write it down immediately, exactly the way it came to me.

If an idea is that "Rapunzel lives in a lighthouse not a tower", I simply write down Rapunzel living in a lighthouse. I will describe Rapunzel and her lighthouse. I describe a scene of her in the lighthouse and what she is doing. This will usually take around 300 words. Most of my ideas, when I write them down, are 300 to 500 words.

Now if I'm working on another project this idea will be put in my idea file and I will finish the project I'm working on before starting this one.

When the current project is finished, now I look at my idea file and ask, which of these ideas should I work on? Which has potential to be a good story? I may take one and work just with that.. or I may take 2 or 3 that sound like they could work together and combine them into one. Let's grab Rapunzel's lighthouse and the man on the bench and see what we can do with that.

The first thing I would do is open a new LibreOffice file, and copy each of the two 300 word ideas into it. Now I have to decide who is the main character, the man on the bench or Rapunzel in her lighthouse. I also have to decide: Who is this man? Why is he on this bench on the beach in view of Rapunzel's lighthouse? Why is Rapunzel in a lighthouse? Do they know each other?

And I write down my answer for each immediately, directly into the story.

And if you know the Quaraun series, you know where this is heading. Quaraun has 12 foot long hair and he lives in a lighthouse. Yep.

And I keep asking more questions. In this instance I'm thinking of:

Is he a prince trying to save her? What if she doesn't need saving? What if her being imprisoned is just a rumor started by small minded jealous people who are jealous that she seems to have an easy life, and so they started the rumors of her needing rescue just so they could sit back and laugh at her frustration of trying to drive out horny princes? What if she isn't even a she? What if she is actually a man who just has really long hair? But why does he have long hair? What if he's a wizard who refuses to cut his hair because he believes he gets his magic powers from his hair? What if the lighthouse isn't a lighthouse, but is actually a wizard's tower, but wizardry is banned so he casts an illusion to make his tower look like a lighthouse and he pretends to be a lighthouse keeper so no one will know he's a wizard and he's majorly pissed at the endless line of princes who won't stop trying to rescue him, because they risk ruining his cover?

Do you see how the idea snowballed just now?

Yes. Yes this is how I created Quaraun.

Well, if I was writing this as a story instead of a Reddit post, I would answer each of those questions in story format directly in the story. Within the next 4 hours I will have a 10k word story, written down and done. Just needing to be edited and rewritten into publishable format, which will take another 4 hours to do. By the end of the day, after about 8 to 12 hours of writing and editing, I will publish this 10k word story.

The next day it's back to the idea file to start a new story.

So can you see what I'm saying?

You really don't need to start with a big idea, some magnificent plot line, a grand character arc… nothing like that at all. All you need is to take one character, toss them in a seat, and just start answering what if questions about who they are and why they are there, and within a few hours, you will have a story completely written from doing absolutely nothing other than answering what if questions about that one character.

So, you see, backstories, plots, outlines, acts, arcs, lore, beats, none of that stuff ever come into play. It's just not something I actively sit down and think about.

But, backstories can be picked up on when reading my work. Like one character who shows up frequently, was a black street gang leader in his youth, a former drug dealer who went to prison for murder. That is his backstory. In the stories he's elderly, been out of prison for a couple of decades, but his past prevents him from getting a job, getting housing, or even making friends. He's homeless and jobless, because no one gives him a chance to even try to prove he's reformed. And so, with this character, you see his backstory of having gone to prison for murder mentioned a lot, because characters around him bring it up. He tries to get a job and the interviewer points out they don't want to risk hiring someone with a felony. He tries to get an apartment and young white mothers in the building protest a black ex-con living in their flat where their children play. In the case of this character his past is ACTUALLY important to his present plot points, so it gets brought up throughout the story.

I emphasize ACTUALLY IMPORTANT here, because this sub is filled with hundreds of threads and discussions on backstory and you frequently see writers 100% the backstory is important, and rarely is it.

And I bring this up because, often, when someone says they are writing big, ambitious novels, often, what they mean is they can’t stop adding more lore, more world building, more character backstory… more info the reader NEEDS to know about this minor one shot barmaid that they are only going to see on one page of the novel, but the author thinks they have to write 20 pages of her history of how she came to work at the bar… no! You don’t even need to give her a name to describe her clothes or features. Just say: *The barmaid served their drinks.* BOOM! Done! The reader only NEEDS to know the MC and his buddy got the drinks they ordered, they don’t need to know the name of the barmaid, what she looks like, what she wore, where she lives, what dark past drove her to work at this particular bar.. I see so many writers, write 200k word novels, and a good 150k words of it is nothing but pointless side character backstory that doesn’t mean shit, doesn’t move the story forward, and has nothing to do with the MC.

I used to be a slush reader for a lit mag a few years back, and the magazine only accepted up to 10k word long stories, but dam, you could begin to imagine how many writers would send in a 75k word story and claim they couldn’t cut a thing because all the side character backstory and world building lore was NEEDED, even though none of it was needed.
UGH! I hated that job. Quit after 2 years. I love reading, but damn! I never knew how much mind-numbing crap agents and publishing houses had to sift through to find stuff worth publishing. Good god! 90% of the slush pile is stuff that could easily have 75% of the total words and 100% of the side character backstory and worldbuilding lore removed, without changing the plot or affecting the story at all.

So, yeah, that’s why I mention back story, as a thing to watch out for and not get caught up in because it seems to be the big place where a lot of writers get stuck. Most who say they are writing too long, usually it’s because they don’t stick their full focus on the main character, and instead try to flesh out the story by adding interesting side character backstories ad world lore, when instead they should just put on the blinders and focus 100% on the main character ONLY.

And well, that’s what this whole Man on a Bench method does. It strips out everything except the main character. Removes all side characters and lore and backstory and lets you just focus 100% on only the main character and tell only his story. And if you need a back story, well, it’s JUST HIS backstory only and you weave it in as you write.

For example: Is it important the reader knows your character's parents were divorced? Unlikely, unless the character is getting a divorce himself and asking his mom what divorce lawyer she used. In which case we learn the backstory of the parents being divorced when he calls his mom, says he's filing for a divorce and asks the name of the lawyer she used. There is no big info dump flashback of his childhood or the parents divorce. There is just one scene of him calling his mom and asking that question. His childhood backstory in one sentence. No need to write about the childhood itself.

99.99% of the time there is no need for an info dump, flashback, exposition backstory to be written in any story of any genre. They are rarely ACTUALLY IMPORTANT to the plot. In most cases they just come off as pointless filler that screams "Look at me! I can create characters! Yay!"

If character backstory is ACTUALLY needed, just write a sentence or two of it when it is required to be mentioned, make it part of the story, like the guy calling his mom in the example above, then keep on going.

Chances are very high, your stories will get too long and convoluted because you get hung up on lore and backstory, instead of focusing on just the one and only main character. And chances are also high your readers won't give a rat's ass what your character's childhood/past/backstory was like or what the world’s before times/magic history/creation of the gods/how the apocalypse happened/ect was and will just skip/not even read any backstory info dumps you write, because let's face it, there's nothing more boring to read than an info dump, which is why no one reads them.

And the same with worldbuilding.

Worldbuilding gets convoluted when you lose sight of the main character and what he can see. That’s why this bench method works so well for me. It reels in my worldbuilding (because I get hung up on detailing the entire planet) and reminds me to ONLY include the world building that can be seen from this one bench.

If the MC can not see it from this bench, then it’s world building that is not needed for the story.

Early in my fiction writing career, I got hit by the world building bug. I started filling up 3ring binders with notes and charts and graphs and maps and drawings. It was loads of fun and it lasted for about 10 years, most of the 1970s and into the 1980s. Today I have a bookshelf that is 21 feet long, 12 feet tall and has 750 of those 3 ring binders on it. Yes seven hundred and fifty 3 ring binders of world building brick a brach.

Was it a waste of time? Yes and no.

Today I know every country of every planet of three solar systems, have dozens of plants and animal species created, and 3 fictional languages fully fleshed out and 5 others partly started. There is one city mapped out to such extremes that not only is every street listed, but so too is every house and every name on every mailbox. A few of the main characters' houses are drawn out on actual blue print papers complete with electrical and plumbing charts. One house has a room by room list of every single item the MC owns. And while all of this is great for helping me visualize the world, none of any of the stuff I just listed here has ever appeared in any of my novels and probably never will be used for any future novels either. And so technically all the many hours, weeks, years, I spent on making those things was a complete waste of time.

Do I regret doing it? No. Because I did have loads of fun doing it. World building was and still is a wonderful hobby for me. But it was largely a hobby that in the grand scheme of my novels, didn't have that much bearing on my novels at all.

So while I recommend large scale world building as a very relaxing hobby, I also caution against deluding yourself into thinking of world building as writing. Because it isn't.

It can help your writing and it can make your writing better, but it can also be a massive procrastination time sink that prevents you from actually writing.

Do I use my 750 3-ring binders as reference when writing? Yes, I do. But not as much as you'd expect.

While the entire world and all its continents and countries and oceans and rivers and forests and cities -thousands of cities- are all fully mapped out and named, the bulk of the series takes place in a cold north region along the coast, an area about 500 miles long and 3 miles wide, with the MC being a merchant who lives at the north point of that area, and has a lover who lives at the south point of that area, and so all 138 novels and 2,000+ short stories published for the series since 1978, take place in the few dozen towns that exist along that one stretch of coastline, as the merchant MC travels that stretch back and forth to visit his lover and, the entire rest of the world never gets used at all, so only 5 of my hundreds of 3ring binders get used as reference, because they are the ones that chart out this tiny stretch of coastline, the forests around it, the tundra at the top, and the little fishing villages the merchant MC visits.

Three solar systems full of inhabited planets and mapped out civilizations, never get used or even mentioned in the actual published works. And this hasn't stopped me from world building. My world continues to expand and maps and charts continue to be made, even though I am fully aware that 99.99% of the world building I do will never appear in the published works. Like I said I find world building to be a relaxing hobby, so I go into it aware most of it is not going to have any impact on my novels at all.

So my advice to you is world build if you want to world build for the fun of world building.

But if you think you must world build in order to write, you should be aware that chances are high you probably don't need to do much if any world building at all. Even when writing Fantasy or Science Fiction. Often all you need is a generic town.

Most Fantasy, for example, can be slapped into any random generic Medieval style village and the lack of world building does not have any effect on the plot at all. Most magic systems, really aren't unique and don't need explaining.

Cosmology, technology, governments, religion, cultures, while nice, and were loads of fun for me to create, are going to be of little interest or use to my readers and so I just don’t include that stuff. I write the lore and backstories for me, and I write the interesting story stuff for my readers.

What I have learned from decades of large scale world building is that, usually you don't need to do any world building ahead of time. Usually you can build a world as you write.

For example, say your MC has been walking all day, he's tired and just wants to find a bed to sleep in for the night. So, you world build to describe that he sees a village ahead. You world build description of the village, telling what the MC sees as he walks down the street looking for a boarding house. If it's winter you describe the snow, if it's spring you describe the flowers. When he finds a room to rent he describes the wallpaper and carpet or lack thereof.

If he needs to cast a spell, you just write him casting the spell. Show him mixing his potions, waving his wand, chanting his spells, or whatever other method he uses. The spell works and the reader accepts that it works and the story continues on. No need to write the history of how the world discovered magic and why magic works.

Do you see? Large scale world building is not needed for the actual story. When writing the actual story the MC only sees what is immediately around him. A single room. A single street. A single town. And the world at large, is meaningless for the story. This is why most world building is pointless when it actually comes time to write the story.

Even in something like Game of Thrones you don't need much world building. You can write a 1,000 word description of 5 kingdoms fighting to rule the world and be done with it. Because the story itself takes place in generic dime a dozen castles and generic dime a dozen battlefields and generic dime a dozen dungeons and generic dime a dozen bedrooms. You only need to describe the room the characters are standing in. No need to actually build an entire planet.

In mine, I have this massive magic system built (the MC is a Psion/Necromancer, and his lovers are an Illusionist/Alchemist and a Portal Master/Sorcerer/Pyromancer, and there are several minor characters who are different types of mages) but, when it comes to writing, the magic system itself is never written out. Never. In a series with 138 novels and 2,000+ short stories published since 1978 - not once is the magic system spelled out or explained to the readers.

Why?

Well, because I personally don't like reading magic system info in novels. I as a reader don't give a shit about the laws and rules of magic. I don't read novels expecting to read a text book on the hows and whys of the world, it's magic, it's governments, or anything else. As a reader, I find all that stuff boring as shit. So, when it comes to my own writing, I just don't do it.

So, why build a detailed magic system at all (which in my case fills 5 notebooks/3-ring binders of charts and graphs and drawings and diagrams and backstory and rules and lore.) if I'm not going to put that info in the novels?

Because, I as an author, need to know how magic works, so that my mages can do consistent magic things. I the author, need to remember that mage A can't cast spell B because of reason C, so that I don't accidently writing him doing B 2 chapters after he tells another character he can't do it.

So, for me, it's a personal preference thing. The reader SEES 800 year old mage A doing X and 2,000 year old mage B doing Y and there's no reason for either of them to step back and say: I can do X because blah, blah, blah.

If it's not important to the plot, you have no need to include it. And when it comes to world building, magic systems, and governments, I've yet to read a novel where those things were actually important to the plot.

This includes magic systems. Look at the magic in Lord of the Rings. We see magic happen. We are never told the rules of magic or why magic works, because we readers don't need to know that stuff. Magic is real and this character knows how to work it, that's all you need to write. The reader has no need to know the rules. The rules don’t matter to the reader.

When it comes right down to it, you really only need to build in the 10 foot radius around where your main character is standing. Chart out every place your MC is going to stand, and build an area 10 feet in diameter around each of those spots, because that really is all you'll actually end up using when you write the story.

The same applies for cultures and technology as well. I built vast cultures for several societies and the world has future science that includes time travel and genetic manipulation. But in the actual published works, the MC lives off grid backpacking in a tent in old growth forests. And while the series is set in 2525 and 1978, most readers assume it is set in 1400s or 1800s due to the MCs off grid lifestyle and the fact that he encounters modern tech or even things like electricity so rarely.

The MC and his personal story, just doesn't often cross paths with the world's society as a whole, making most of the world building in the culture and technology pointless when it comes to the actual plots of the novels themselves.

The MC is a person living their life and just like real people, all they really know about their world is the little local it they’ve experienced personally, and so nothing beyond the MCs front door even needs to be built, and no part of the magic system that the reader doesn't see, ever needs to be mentioned.

Like I said, I am one to get lost in the details and spend way too much time on world building and magic systems and character backstories, and that was why I created the man on the park bench method of improv writing. I didn't design this to be something for others to use. I designed is very specifically to meet my own needs and to help keep me focused on just writing the story and not getting sidetracked with all the oooh shiny details.

And because I designed this specifically for me and my series, I'm not sure how well this would work for others and their books. It works for me, but it may or may not work for you.

Now, I will point out one thing here: I don’t start out with a character I don’t know or a world I don’t know. I am writing a series about an established set of characters who live in an established world, and I did do mega amounts of worldbuilding and character creation before writing the series. And so, I’m not taking a faceless, nameless character and throwing him into the void on a bench in the middle of nowhere.

So, I’m uncertain, how well my method would work if you didn’t fist have a fully fleshed out character you knew really well, and a fully mapped out world you also knew really well.

See, I don’t write plots or create outlines or plan out the individual stories on a story by story basis, but I did plot out the world and the characters before hand.

My primary focus is on one big series of short stories, that is one MC and his two lovers/spouses (he’s a polygamist, so all 3 live together), in one world, where he travels a lot and is kind of a tourist type character just strolling around the world taking in the landscape with his family. I spent 10 years building the world with no intention of writing stories for it. Worldbuilding is a hobby of mine. Well, I reached a point of mostly finishing the world and wanted to live there and explore it, so I created a character to live there so that I could write about him exploring the world.

And with that in mind, most of my writing sessions involve me writing a full story all in one go, all in one session. I just grab my MC, drop him on some location in the map, grab some weird ass writing prompt off r/WritingPrompts throw that at him, and then write how he deals with the situation the prompt flung in his way, while exploring the location of the world I threw him in.

It's also Absurdism Time Travel-Portal Fantasy, so when I say I drop him into a location - I mean that literally too - he literally falls out of a whole/portal in the sky and lands in a location that he has never seen before and has no clue how he came to be falling out of the sky to get there either. Him falling out of the sky is the start of a large portion of the stories.

Flinging a writing prompt at him is literal as well. Chances are high the prompt will be written in a brick that also fell out of the sky and hit him on the head. I'm not joking when I say I throw the writing prompts at this guy. The readers actually see the prompt flung at him in the story.

The Absurdism/Kitchen Sink/Bizarro genre is a place where you can get away with stuff like that, because anything goes in Absurdist fiction, which also explains why I can take any genre from r/WritingPrompts no matter what the prompt is and make it work.

So, for me, I have a character whom I write lots of stories about. So for me, I always start with him. He has family, friends, relatives, lovers, acquaintances, and enemies. Usually my next step is to pick a couple of them to be in the story as well.

• * Create a character, whom you can write hundreds of stories about.
• * Create a world you can set hundreds of stories in.
• * Create or find a formula (beat sheet) that works for your genre, and use it for every story. (I use Lester Dent's for mine: https://mysteriouspress.com/blog/the-lester-dent-pulp-fiction-formula.asp It's designed for people who write 5k to 15k word short stories. I write 20k to 35k shorts, publishing one about every 10 days and so this formula works well for me.)
• * Then just drop that character into that world, slap the beat sheet formulae on him, and start writing. Writing a complete story, beginning, middle, and end, without any character arc, without the story being connected to any other story you ever wrote. Edit. Publish. Repeat.

Keep using the same one character in every story. Keep never connecting the new story to any of the old stories. Keep refusing to allow the character to change or grow, keep him consistently the same every time so readers know what to expect from him.

This really is the secret to success, when it comes to the fast release method of self publishing on Amazon.

Readers love a character whom they can return to over and over again. Readers love a character who DOES NOT change. Readers love the comfort of knowing this character is who he is, come hell or high water.

Because worldbuilding is a huge hobby for me and I spent 10 years building his world, my next step is to pick where in his world I want to write about today.

Once I pick a location (city, state, country, etc.) then I pick the location within the location (haunted house, city park, tavern, grocery store, etc.).

Then I ask myself what he is doing at the start (eating, sleeping, talking with friends, etc.).

Then I decide what is going to interrupt him to get the ball rolling and start the story (a drunk spills his drink, a thief steals a spoon, a loud noise crashes outside, etc.)

Then I go to r/WritingPrompts and grab whatever the newest one posted was, no matter what it is and figure out how that connects to my character, his friends, his world, and where he is right now.

Then I start asking “What if?” questions. “What if xyz happens, what will my mc do/say? After mc does/says that, what does his friend do/say?”

And I just keep going that way, improv style, until I reach the end of the story. I never know what the end will be until I get there, because I also never know what the story will be until I write it.

If I get stuck for what to write next, I grab my Rory Story Cube Dice (I have the entire set which is about 100 dice total), grab 3 of them out of my dice bag at random without looking to see which dice I've grabbed, roll the dice out, and whatever pictures land up, those are the 3 items I add to the next scene and start writing from there with more “What ifs?” again.

Also, I'm heavily making use of writing prompts with this and a lot of writers find writing prompts not that helpful. I think a lot depends on how you use them.

Like, a lot of prompts are super specific and are more intended as a challenge then a prompt, but for some reason, a lot of writers think they can't change the prompt and have to use it exactly as is. What I mean is, some prompts you find on Reddit are intended for fellow Reddit users to each write a 500 word story using the specifics in the prompt. Well, if you are writing to post in the challenge thread on Reddit, yeah, you need to stick with the rules and not change the prompt. But if you are NOT posting the result on Reddit, and are writing for your own story, then you are perfectly okay to change the details of the prompt. I will never understand why so many writers are so unimaginative that they can't even change something as simple as a prompt, but damn, if you read some of the complaints people make on the writing prompt challenges, you'd think that in order to write you had to delete imagination out of your mind first. Yie!

I mean, the prompt will say something like: "Your MC took their dog to the vet. While there they saw Superman fly by." And there will be comments bitching saying: "But my MC has a cat not a dog!"... uhm... so, you are telling me you can't change the prompt to be: "Your MC took their cat to the vet. While there they saw Superman fly by."

And then they'll be, "But, I'm not writing superheroes, it's real not fantasy!".... uhm... so, you are telling me you can't change the prompt to: "Your MC took their cat to the vet. While there they saw a red tailed hawk fly by."

Prompts CAN and SHOULD be altered to match your story, and when I see people saying they can't write from a prompt because it's too specific, my reaction is to think, they got bigger problems to worry about, because if their creative imagination is so dry that they can't even altar a one sentence writing prompt, then they sure as hell don't have enough imagination to write a full novel, where they have to think of hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of sentences.

I like to search inktober art prompts, to use as writing prompts. The prompts have nothing to do with writing at all and usually are just one word or phrase. They look like this usually:

Day 1: Rain

Day 2: A yellow flower.

Day 3: Something soft and fluffy.

Day 4: Lemonade

…and so on for a list of 31 days.

The goal of inktober, is for artist to take the day's Prompt and draw or paint something inspired by it.

Well, I take those prompts and every day I write a short story instead.

So, for example, using the list above, on day 1, I'd probably write about how the rain makes my character feel, and showing him walking home from the store, and have it start raining, causing him to think about rain and his feelings surrounding rain, and how being wet makes him feel.

Then on day 2, I'd write that same character, now it's the day after the rain of the previous story, and he sees a yellow flower, maybe a daffodil, on his front lawn, so he starts thinking about childhood and Easter because his grandmother used to hide Easter eggs in her daffodil bed.

On day 3, I'd take that same character, and now it's two days after the rain, and wouldn't you know it, he's sick in bed because of walking home in the rain two days ago, so now he's snuggled up in a soft fluffy minkie blanket, while drinking tea and hating sniffles.

On day 4, it's the same character, and now he's drinking or making lemonade for some reason…

…and so one, for the next 31 days of writing 31 short stories, each one following a new day in one character's life, each day's story inspired by the one word or phrase Prompt of that day.

And this is why I like inktober prompts for artists, better them those long detailed prompts for writers found on r/WritingPrompts Yes, r/WritingPrompts and similar are great and I do use them often, but a lot of times the prompts aimed at writers are too specific, too detailed, too boxed in for my personal needs, and so the one word daily list prompts of inktober are just far better suited to my writing style, particularly since I am writing Slice of Life.

I write Slice of Life Gay Harem Romance short stories set in the 40th century dystopian post post apocalypse future earth,, and the bulk of my stories follows the everyday mundane life of merchant as he and his poly family travel between settlements selling supplies to survivors, trading for supplies to sell to other settlements, etc. Each story is usually between 12k to 35k words long, and rarely spans more than a single hour of time passage in their lives. Because of this, the inktober one word daily writing prompts are perfect for me.

You see, Slice of Life, is about a character just sitting on his ass, doing a simple task (eating, sewing, drinking tea, knitting, etc) while thinking about life, and so, it's super easy to take the prompt "a yellow flower" and write about him sitting, drinking tea, looking at a yellow flower, and reminiscing about the days of his childhood before the apocalypse hit, back when granny hid Easter eggs in the daffodil beds.

And because this is how every writer I know uses prompts and how I myself use prompts, I do find myself a bit confused by how you've described prompts and am left wondering what in the heck, exactly is it you are looking for, because. .. eh… I really don't think "prompt" fits the description of what it is you are calling a prompt.

A writing Prompt is literally just taking a single word or phrase and using it to bounce ideas off of.

For example I could have taken "a yellow flower" and had an old women knitting a sweater with a yellow flower pattern on it, or I could have written about a hippie in the 1970s Painting yellow flowers on his Volkswagen Bus, or I could have written a sad story about a child who dies from a goldenrod allergy (golden rod being a yellow flower), … there are a million ideas which can result from "a yellow flower".

A prompt isn't an outline intended to take you step by step through the process of the story, and it sounds like that is what you are looking for.

I'm thinking the term you might be searching for is "beat sheet" not "writing prompt". Because what you are describing sounds more like you are looking for a beat sheet, which is an outline of story beats for you to lay out events around.

But, that said, I also think too, that the Reddit/Twitter/TikTok hive mind of writing prompts is very, very, very, very, VERY niche and does NOT represent the kind of writing prompts typically used for novel writing.

Compare this kind of prompt:

• * You're a retired villian. You've been enjoying your peaceful life, but now a bunch of new villains are terrorising your land, and the heroes seem powerless against them. So you take up the mantle once again. After all, if you want someone properly killed, do it yourself. [source](https://www.reddit.com/r/WritingPrompts/comments/uqbdzi/wp_youre_a_retired_villian_youve_been_enjoying/)

or

• * You are an ancient, sentient cursed sword known for corrupting even the most valiant and well-intentioned of heroes. However, you cannot corrupt the most recent hero whose hands you have fallen into - not because of their purity of heart, but because of their incorruptible cynicism. [source](https://www.reddit.com/r/WritingPrompts/comments/ud6zhg/wp_you_are_an_ancient_sentient_cursed_sword_known/)

or

• * It's the first week of Magic theory class. You've finally gotten to the basics of the subject. As your professor talks you notice something bothering you. You raise your hand and ask the proffesor about it. They blink and look at the board, then back at you. They ask you to stay after class. [source](https://www.reddit.com/r/WritingPrompts/comments/u2zch1/wp_its_the_first_week_of_magic_theory_class_youve/)

To this kind of prompt...

Most professional writers who say they use writing prompts, use this kind of writing prompt:

• * Write for at least 3 minutes about a painting, and a cloak. Focus on describing unusual details.
• * Write for at least 200 words about a search, a teacher, and a locket.

[source](http://chaoticshiny.com/wegen.php)

• * There is a sudden earthquake. What does your MC do next?
• * Because of a natural disaster, the antagonist is revealed to have an irrational fear.
• * A character suddenly reveals a dishonest side.

[source](https://www.seventhsanctum.com/generate.php?Genname=plottwist)

• * A character becomes furious.
• * During the story, there is a terrible misunderstanding.
• * The story must involve an earring in it.

[source](https://www.seventhsanctum.com/generate.php?Genname=writechallenge)

Can you see the difference?

Which as you can see is VASTLY different from the fanfiction psychobabble Reddit/Twitter/TikTok hive mind style writing prompts.

I can see writing prompts as both good or bad, depending on a lot of variables including the writer's personality, the type of story they want to write, and the type of prompt they try to use.

Also, prompts are just going to be harder to use in a novel. They work better with short stories.

Now me, I come at writing from improv AND I'm writing short stories, not novels. So for me writing prompts are great. I have tried working with outlines and pre planned plots and I can never finish anything I start that way. But improv writing, I always finish. It's a me-thing, that has a lot to do with I have (all, actual medical diagnoses) Kenner's Syndrome, Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD is often misdiagnosed as ADHD because they have overlapping symptoms, so I have similar symptoms as a person with ADHD), and it's difficult for me to sit on one place long, because every shadow or sound causes me to be jumpy (PTSD symptom) and so, this also affects how long I can write too. I can't refocus on a story once I get up, so I MUST write the entire 1st draft in one single sitting. If I don't write beginning to end the entire 1st draft in one sitting, it won't get finished. This is why I write short stories, and why I write a different story every single day. Keep in mind a lot of my writing is PTSD therapy writing as well, so I am coming at this from a different perspective then say someone who writes as a hobby.

Anyways... Writing prompts tend to work best for writers who do improv writing. If you are a plotter/planner/outliner, then writing prompts will probably not work for you at all.

I wanted to be a stage actor when I was younger. I love live theatre. When I was a teenager, I used to take Edgar Allan Poe stories and practice improv, by acting out "after the story ended" Ray Terry style "And the rest of the story". I actually started writing, because of this. My very earliest stuff from childhood/teen years, was me writing out these improv seasons, so that I had things like Part 2 of Fall of House of Usher, Part 2 of The Raven, etc.

But this early stage acting improv practice got me hooked on improv writing and that's just been my method of writing for the past forty-four years.

Now if writing novels, improv writing might not work so well, but me, I'm writing short stories, mostly in the 12k word per story range, some longer, some shorter, but I try to write a new story daily (usually I get out 3 to 5 written each week) and I have a steady flow of submissions going out constantly to so many publications/print mags, that usually I've got a new story being published every week. So I'm publishing 50+/- short stories a year and have been doing this since 1978, and so, for me, improv writing with writing prompts is just fantastic. It helps me to be steadily with new material, so I've always got new work to be querying.

I would imagine that if writing novels, improv might not work so well, but if doing lots of short stories, then improv is going to be hugely helpful for writing.

If you find that online writing prompts are too specific, and I often find that they are, I would recommend Rory's Story Cubes https://www.storycubes.com/en/

They are dice with pictures on them. And they make over 100 different dice, so there are over six hundred different writing prompts if you buy the whole set and just use one die at a time.

What you do is, you grab 3 or 4 or 10 or 12 or whatever number of dice, at random, and roll them out. Then whatever pictures they land on, that's what you write about. There are literally millions of combinations and they make for endless writing prompts without you having to go to the internet.

Rory's Story Cubes are awesome! I own every single version they make. I use them all the time. These are just like the most amazing things for story writing. Whenever I get stuck, I'll reach into the dice bag, grab 3 or 4 Rory dice and see what rolls out and whatever it is, that's the next scene I write. Awesomtastic on so many levels.

I also have those scenario card packs that Pathfinder made a few years ago. Gamemastery Plot Twist Deck. Gamemastery Critical Hit Deck. Etc. They made 5 or 6 decks, each with 52 cards. Some decks had one thing per card. Other decks had a list of 20 things per card and you roll a d20 to see which to choose. Damn are they good for writing. The cards are for Dungeon Masters to improv game sessions within the game, so each card says something like: "character runs around a corner and falls headfirst into a horse cart" or "a sudden storm knocks a tree across the road, your character has to seek an alternate road". Simple things like that trip up your character and make you have to think up a way out of the situation to get back on track.

Anyways, yes, I use writing prompts all the time. Daily. Have for years. Love them. Highly recommend them.

There is a book called something like "The Writer's Book of Matches" and it's 1,001 writing prompts that are fantastic.

I love using Dreamily ( https://dreamily.ai/#/ ) for writing prompts too. What I do is, if I'm writing, and I get stuck, I can't think of what to write next. I take my past 3 or 4 sentences, and paste them into Dreamily, and it's a novel writing ai program that spits out some of the most hilarious gibberish. I love it. Well, it takes what I wrote, and it gives me three "next paragraphs" to choose from. Usually it'll be some totally ridiculous thing, but, usually, it'll get me thinking about my scene in a new direction and suddenly I'm just able to write onward.

*(UPDATE ETA: This Reddit post was written in October 2021, back when Dreamily was free. I stopped using it in September 2022, when they started charging $14.99 for every 20k words it writes. As I was only using it for writing writing prompts it was pointless for me to pay for it to write them.)*

Also AiDungeon is good for this as well. ( https://play.aidungeon.io/main/home )

There are three websites online, where I get the bulk of the writing prompts I use. They are:

Seventh Sanctum: there is a long list of writing prompt generators on this page: https://www.seventhsanctum.com/index-writ.php but be sure to check out the other types of generators as well. There are more then 500 generators on this site, you can be there for weeks and not test them all. One of my best selling stories started out as a result from this generator: https://www.seventhsanctum.com/generate.php?Genname=tavernname it spit out the name of a tavern, and I was like damn that's a great tavern name, I want to write a story about a tavern named that, and I did, and it was published a few weeks later, and it sold 300k copies, making it my 2nd highest selling story I ever wrote, and the whole thing was mad dash improv written based off the name of a tavern this generator gave me.

Chaotic Shiny: http://chaoticshiny.com/ all those links in the sidebar-each link is a prompt generator. There are around 150 generators on this site. This one is the one I use most of all: http://chaoticshiny.com/wegen.php I just opened it and it gave me this:

• >>>Write for at least 1000 words about a runaway, a painting, and a priest. Focus on describing unusual details.

So, you can see the type of stuff it gives you. This one is great because you can use it in any genre and any time period and any plot. It always gives 3 random items, a word count, and a focus. I've used this for dozens of stories I've published.

The Writing Prompts subReddit: r/WritingPrompts is a mix bag. You never know what will be here. It's user submitted and some of them are just off the wall weird. The way most people use the sub is to take a prompt, write a story in 10k CHARACTERS/LETTERS or less (about 1k WORDS usually) and post it in the replies of the prompt itself.

HOWEVER... as I am a career writer, and I publish first rights to print mags, I thus do not post my stories on the sub. And they are usually a lot longer, usually around 12k words. And I also remove anything that is copyrighted.

Like for example, if the writing prompt says something like: "BatMan knocks on your door and tells you Robin has been injured and you are his replacement for the night..." the intention is for people to write BatMan fanfiction in the comments, but as I'm writing to publish, I will change the prompt to something like this instead: "A caped crusader knocks on your door and tells you his masked side-kick has been injured and you are his replacement for the night..."

I try to do at least one story a week from the writing prompt sub reddit, and often do more then that.

And as I write a lot of "holiday special" tales for my series (like for Christmas my MC meets Santa Claus) I am prone to be heavily active on lurking the writing prompts subreddit during holidays, because the holiday writing prompts are some of the most fun to write.

What's good too, is no matter what the prompt is, I can always change it to fit my series. Like if a prompt says: "You meet a friend from high school, whom you've not seen in ten years..." well, my MC didn't go to high school, due to the setting he is in, plus I'm not writing in first person or second person; but, I can easily change the prompt to say: "My MC meets a friend from his youth, whom he's not seen since he was a teenager..." and it still works.

I try to visit that sub daily, and just grab whatever the newest prompt submitted is, no matter what it is, and see if I can write my series MC and my series setting, with that prompt,, and usually, I can.

But some of the prompts are just so screwball off the wall bonkers, that making them actually fit my series, my genre, my setting, and my MC can be quite the challenge, but I love the mental workout of meeting that challenge so I have loads of fun with it.

So, yeah Seventh Sanctum, Chaotic Shiny, and the Writing Prompt sub are really good places to get some super random prompts. If you've not checked them out, definitely do so. All three are invaluable sources of endless writing prompts.

So, no, I kind of don’t really do any planning at all. I never have a story idea. I never have a plot. I never know ahead of time what I'll write. I write a new story this way every day. Most are 7k to 15k long.

I did spend 10 years building the world and creating the characters, but that was fifty years ago, and I’ve published more than 2,000 short stories for the series since 1978. I’ve kind of reached a point where I just know everything there is to know about this character, so I don’t even have to think about anything before I write any more. I just automatically know what he is going to do and say, no matter what situation I toss at him.

Yeah, just start writing and see what happens is pretty much my method.

So, not a lot of planning today, no, but it did have intensive world building at the start, and I’ve been writing this for forty-four years now, so it’s kind of become second nature for me and planning is not really needed any more. Plus the whole it being absurdism/Kitchen Sink/Bizarro genre means I can get away with a lot more randomness then most genres, and thus less planning is needed. If you were writing a more serious, less comedy, less satire genre, or are focused on novels instead of short stories, my scatterbrained writing method might not work so well.

But anyways, yeah… that’s kind of the full step by step writing method I use, for writing a high output of short stories and being able to write enough short stories, often enough, consistently, to a sort-of formulae that allows me to write short stories as a full time career as well.

And my stories tend to be very simple, not much “meat” in their bones. I’m not someone who uses big words, or makes use of thesaurus often. I have a few words which I know I use way too much (was, have, has, could, that, and about a dozen others similar.) They are lazy, passive words that I know I can change to make the scene better. So I keep a list of those specific words and I search for those during editing. And I change them out with better words/phrases. But even then it’s just general, simply everyday words.

I think I use fewer unique words than the average person does. Heck, half the words people use on this sub, I'm left asking what they mean because I never heard them before. English is a second language for me and I didn't learn it until I was 37 and where I live (we are in the pine forests a few miles south the tundra line , we get snow all year, and only 3 hours of sunlight in winter, my town only has 3k residents and there are a mile or more between houses, so it can be weeks between seeing someone to talk to them, and most people up here speak French-Quebec French which is quite different from France French-so it's rare to have English speakers to talk to) and I think that contributes to my having a smaller than average vocabulary.

I slowly try to learn new words and study vocabulary books but I rarely seem to pick up new words in my everyday use, and since my writing tends to be very simplistic because of it.

According to the Hemingway app, my writing ranks at 3rd grade level and I think it's because I use simple 3rd grade level words and don't have any high school level words in my vocabulary.

Well, that means my stories don’t use any purple prose or pretentious verbology, like I see used in the writing of a LOT of posts on this sub. I sometimes feel a lot of the OPs use the biggest words they know to ask their questions, just to try to make it look like they are high brow literary writers, but it just comes off looking like they are arrogant, because they are using words that are so very difficult to read or understand. It’s hy I reply to so few threads on this sub, because I often can’t make heads or tails what the OP is asking because their questions look like they grabbed a thesaurus and just throw words at random at Reddit.

I also don’t write with themes or metaphors or similes or morals or messages. (I only just heard of metaphors and similies for the first time, last summer when I saw a thread on this sub asking how to incorporate them and my reply to that thread was to ask what the fuck they even were because I never heard of them before.) And it seems like from what I see a lot of new writers say on this sub, that trying to write around those things, starting with one of those things, is a reason why their books get so big and ambitious.

So, with that in mind, I would add here, to try to NOT think about purple prose, big words, using a thesaurus, or using themes/metaphors/similes/messages/morals in your story. Just write about the main character doing one task: sitting and thinking and watching the world he lives in. And see if that helps you to write shorter, less ambitious works.

Like I said, I don’t know if any of this will help you or not. It works for me and the series I write, but I don’t know how well it would apply to other writers and their stories, so no clue if it’d work as well for you as it does for me or not.

Hope that helps!

| ©2025 Wendy Christine Allen | All Rights Reserved |

Want to see The Park Bench Method of Writing Rapid Release Fiction without Burning Out, in action? Each of the stories linked below, used it:

• The Bandits and the Pink Necromancer

• BoomFuzzy

• BoomFuzzy's Chowder Dilemma

• Comet Fall Snow Day Blitz

• Feed the Fucking Pigeons

• If your ass ain’t freezing or your brains ain’t scrambled, you’re ain’t really trying

• Morning Sickness at The Shattered Stein (TW: MPreg Yaoi)

• The Moth Garden

• The Night of The Screaming Unicorn

• Readers vs Readers, What Really Makes a Reader, a Reader?

• The Screaming Contest

Writing Prompts I Use When Writing this series:

• 🍄 30 Cozy Fantasy Writing Prompts 🍵 - June 2025 - A 30 Day Writing Challenge For Lovers of Warm Fuzzy Slice of Life Tales

• 30 Cozy Fantasy Writing Prompts, Queer Throuples/Polycules Slice of Life Edition

• 30 "TRUE COZY" Cozy Fantasy Writing Prompts

• 🫖 30 More Cozy Fantasy Writing Prompts - June 2005

This page was written by Wendy Christine Allen of 146 Portland Ave, Old Orchard Beach, Maine.

All Rights Reserved.

Note: there are likely spelling errors on this site, and I am unlikely to see the ... I fix them when I find them, but, there are many issues here...

Note: English is not my first language, Shetlean Scottish is my native language, there are likly spelling and grammar errors, as I do not know American English and am attempting to write it by sounding words out.

Many times that Americans think a word on my site is misspelled, often it is not misspelled, it is just I mixed up languages and wrote it in Scottish without realizing I mixed the Scottish in with the English. Also our grammar is somewhat reversed from English grammar so words that are seeming in the wrong order for American English, is usually because they are in the correct order for Scottish and I either put English words in Scottish order by mistake or was unaware English put them in a different order then Scottish does.

For those unaware, Scottish Shetlean looks like this:

American English to Scottish:

a bit (piece) = a party --- EXAMPLE: "And some know a bit of Latin " > "And somme kan of latyn a party "

a long distance from = A piece fae

a piece of = the bit --- EXAMPLE: "The duck ate a piece of bread " > "The deuk ett the bit breid "

about the banks (on the shore/at the beach) = aboot da banks

accomplishments = kunnandi

After = Back o --- EXAMPLE: " After Halloween" > "Back o Hallomas "

alive (living) = kvikr

Always on the move = Never aff o da go

am I not = amn't I --- EXAMPLE: "Am I not invited? " > "I amn't invited? or Amn't I invited?"

are = is --- EXAMPLE: "Are you going soon?" > "Is ya to be going soon?"

autumn = dah haihst

belong to = fylgja

best = bettah moost

betray (verb) = svíkja

bewildered = villhyggjandi

building = biggin up --- EXAMPLE: "building confidence in everyday use " > " biggin up confidence in ivvryday øs "

built = builded --- EXAMPLE: "He built a new porch." > "Hims builded a new porch."

cast a spell = hoodooed

cat = kat (sounds like "caught") --- EXAMPLE: "Is it an orange cat?" > "Be he a o'jinn kat?"

child = bairn

church = kirk

color = colour

danger = hœttr

daren't = darena

daring = djarfr

dark = dökk

dark elf = Dökkálfr

dark-elves = Døkkálfar

darker = dökká

do you agree = ,eh? --- EXAMPLE: "That's a fine looking woman, do you agree?" > "Dair's ah right bonnie lass, eh?"

do you want to come too = ,eh? --- EXAMPLE: "I'm going to the store, do you want to come with me?" > "Me go to shope, eh?"

each = eche --- EXAMPLE: "Which each person can understand " > "That kan eche man understonde "

educated = lered --- EXAMPLE: "Both among the educated and the uneducated " > "As wel among lered as lewed "

elf = Alfr

Elf = Álfr

Elf Home = Álfheimr

Elf World = Álfheimr

elf-advice = Ælfred

elf-beautiful = ælfscyne

elf-friend = Ælfwine

elf-guardian (female) = Ælfwaru

elf-guardian (male) = Ælfweard

elf-powerful = Ælfric

everyday = ivvryday

eyelids = eye ledes --- EXAMPLE: "He closed his eyelids." > "Hims did shut hims eye ledes"

fair = faire --- EXAMPLE: "Going to the fair." > "Done gone went to the faire."

feild = felde --- EXAMPLE: "Standing in the feild." > "Stoodt in thems felde."

further = ferther --- EXAMPLE: "I looked further." > "I dids lokid ferther."

green = grene --- EXAMPLE: "Look at the green hedges and woods." > "Look see at thems heigges and holtz so grene."

handsome = braw --- EXAMPLE: "He is very handsome " > "Him wicked braw "

have faith = trúa

Have no doubts about our doing it = Nae faer o wis

Have no liking for this. = Hae nae brou o this.

have not = ain't

He knows how many beans make five. = He kens the laid frae the croun o the causey.

He knows which side his bread is buttered on. = He kens whilk side his bannock's buttert on.

Head for = Mak wye for

head rope in fishing nets and lines = baak

head to head = Be at the knag and the widdie

horse fly = klegsie

I = Me

I Think = Me thinks --- EXAMPLE: "I think we're late. " > "Me thinks that we is late. "

I wish you well for the future = Lang may yer lum reek (translation: Long may your chimney smoke)

idiot = eejit --- EXAMPLE: "You idiot." > "Ya eejit."

idiot = numpty

if = iffy or yif--- EXAMPLE: "If you don't mind..." > "Iffy yas does no care mind...."; "If you'll stay with me long enough = "Yif ye so longe with me wil dwelle". "

I'll be even with you = A'll see day aboot wi ye

know = ken

looked = lokid

looked = lokid --- EXAMPLE: "I looked up." > "I lifte up me eye ledes and lokid ferther."

magic = hoodoo

naked = nøkkviðr

needle = bodkin

neither = nouther --- EXAMPLE: "Who know neither Latin nor French " > "That kan nouther latyn ne frensch "

No = Nay --- EXAMPLE: "No, I don't think so. " > "Nay, me thinks not. "

Nobody knew = not-knew nobody

Noontide = Da heicht o da day

NOTE: Extra words are often added. --- EXAMPLE: "Did you meet the new family next door?" > "Dids ya gets a chance to stop by and meets with thems new folk that move-ed in down yawn there next doors to ya, eh?"

NOTE: Extra words are often added. --- EXAMPLE: "He went to Rite-Aid to pick up his prescription" > "Hims did go to that yawn there new fangled store the new folks call that Rite Aid place, to gets himself some of thems there pills what the doctor gone and tells him to take each morning, a-yep, hims did."

old = olde --- EXAMPLE: "But educated and uneducated, old and young " > "Bot lered and lewed olde and yonge "

orange = o'jinn

out = oot --- EXAMPLE: "The cat wants to go out." > "The kat he do wants oot."

outside = oot dair

people = fokk --- EXAMPLE: "the people of Shetland " > "Shetland fokk "

people = folke --- EXAMPLE: "Look at all those people." > "Lookie at all thems folke."

poorly = febelly --- EXAMPLE: "Who know French very poorly " > "That kan frensch ful febelly "

Recognising = Recognisin --- EXAMPLE: "Recognising the bilingual nature of Shaetlan speakers " > "Recognisin da wye at Shaetlan spaekers is bilingual "

shield = skjoldr

Since = For --- EXAMPLE: "Since that is your native language " > "For that is youre kynde langage "

tell = telle --- EXAMPLE: "I'll tell you in English " > "In englysch tonge I schal you telle "

the = da, de, or is not used at all --- EXAMPLE: "I went to the store" > "Me goes to da shoppe" or "Me goes to da shoppe" or "Me goes to shoppe"

them = dem, dem dair --- EXAMPLE: "I went with them" > "Me goes wit dem dair"

there = dair --- EXAMPLE: "I want those potatoes" > "Me be wanting dem dair tatetas."

they = dey

To where = whither --- EXAMPLE: ""Where you go, I will go." " > ""Whither thou goest, I'll go."

understand = understonde

understand = understonden --- EXAMPLE: "Some understand English " > "And somme understonden englysch "

very = wicked --- EXAMPLE: "very good" > "wicked good"; "very bad" > "wicked bad"; "very cold" > "wicked cold"

Where = Whither --- EXAMPLE: "Where is the restroom? " > "Whither is the privy?"

Yes = Yea or Aye --- EXAMPLE: "Yes, I think so. " > "Yea, me thinks so. " or "Aye, me thinks so. "

For anyone actually interested in learning my native language, the Scottish government has THIS listed as the official dictionary of our people:  https://static1.squarespace.com/static/61d7352954b7fd1c9dbdfef4/t/65ddb2749d5e0541a01009c0/1709027964496/Spaektionary_2024feb.pdf  

The Scottish government provides this document to show our language in use: https://www.shetland.uhi.ac.uk/t4-media/one-web/uhi-shetland-images-and-documents/documents-/shaetlan/Shaetlan-Language-Plan-2022-Shaetlan.pdf 

More information about our language can be found on this website:  https://www.iheardee.com  which is written in my native language.

However, there is also other reasons why words might be misspelled, or why I might not understand someone when they speak to me.

My grandmother Helen Ricker Allen, was from Unst, Shetland, Scotland, and she the one who raised me. She taught me to read and write, but it was Shetlain that she taught me. She died when I was 8 years old, and I was locked in a woodshed after her furneral, I escaped the woodshed 27 years later at age 31, and have been trying to learn how to speak and write English since then.

It is a very great struggle.

At age 37 I took remidial reading and speaking classes at Southern Maine Community College, but we are Gypsies and Gypsy men do not allow us Gypsy women to have education, and so, while at college, on November 14, 2013, I was beaten with a golf club, while I was 8 months pregnet, breaking my spine, hips, and knees, killing my baby and leaving me quardepaleic since.

Now my primary focus these past 13 years has been on relearning to use my hand so I could type... as of 2023, I have regained the use of my right thumb, and first two right fingers, and after 10 years offline, I am back online due to I can use three finguers.

I never went to school, so I do not know maths and numbers and sciences, and I do not know what else would have been taught to me in school. We are Scottish Gypsies and Gypsy culture does not allow females to go to school. Being born female was already a great sin, but my grandmother took great risk in teaching me reading and writing. At 4 years old I was punished by my Uncle Bruce for knowing how to read, by being beaten in the face with a cinder block brick, that broke my right jaw and left me with garbaled near-mute spoken words ever since.

Because no one ever spoke words to be face to face from he time I was 8 years old until I was 37 years old (I escaped the room at age 27, but did not start college until 37), I have no training in how to vocally sound out or speak the words I write or read. I can read words, but I do not know how to sound out or say those words. I can write words, but I do not know how to match the written word against the spoken word. I struggle to associate spoken words at all, or make them match up with writen words.

Esentially, written words and spoken words are two completly seperate languages in my brain, and I have difficulty understanding spoken words.

If you say a sentance to me with your mouth, chances are very high I will have ZERO understanding of what you said and I will not be able to ander you.

However, if you WRITE down that exact same sentabnce, I can understand you and can type a written responce to you.

My doctors tell me this is a side effect of extreme isolation and neglect and lack of human contact during my toddler, childhood, teen, and young adult years, and that my brain never deveoloped to comprehend spoken vocal words due to no one ever speaking to me in over three decades of the first half of my life.

While I can read and write, American English (somewhat) I do no know how words are sounded out, what they are supposed to sound like. I readand write by shape recognition, not by sound/vocal recognition, so when reading and writing I do no "hear the words in my head" as I am told most people do when they read and write. In other words... I see "c a t" and think "c-a-t" I do not think "cat" nor do I "see" an image of a cat, no do I "hear" the word cat spoken. I'm told that this is very rare and that most people read and write by sounding out the words and linking them to visual mind images, while hearing the sound of the word in their head. I neiher hear words in my head no see images of things in my head. I'm told this is what makes me both a speed reader and speed writer, because I'm not tripped up by hear sounds or seeing images in my head like nomal people would be doing... however, I'm also told this is why my spelling and grammar are very poor, because my brain is not hear the sounds of the words or seeing visual images of the objects the words represent, so my mind also does not register spelling and grammer errors at all.

As I was only let out of the woodshed on Sundays to go to the Cape Elezabeth Ward Church of the August Stake of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, I was never allowed to go to school or hospital either. No adults ever talked to me because I was evil for comitted the sin of being born female, so I never learned how to speak properly and do not know how to sound out words to say them.

I was 42 years old, in 2016 when, while having an MRI for my spine, the doctors found out my speak issue was caused by a broken jaw as a toddler that was healed wrong because not being allowed to go to doctors. I had surgury to fix that, and since 2016 have been trying to learn how to use my jaw and touge so I can speak vocal words now.

Since 2023 my primary focus shifted to relearning to walk. I can now, in 2026, sit up for 2 or 3 hours a day, and can sand with a cane for a few minutes, and can walk for around five thousand feet in 2 to 3 segments a day, with the help of pushing my wheelchair like a walker.

As of 2026, with a slight return to using my fingers and legs, I am once again focused on trying to learn the American English, but I live in mortal fear of my uncles and male cousins, as they are so hateful of allowing me to have education.

have no one to help me to know if I am doing words correctly, and as such, I have no way of knowing if there are spelling and grammar errors, but I asume there are, and I fix them when I learn them, but I do not know what I do not know and spelling American words is a thing I do bnot know.

I have Low Fucntioning Kanner's Syndrom, also known as "RainMan Type of Autism" aka REAL and ACTUAL Autism, not to be confused with Aspergers, High Functioning Autism, or and of thr 861 illnesses on the Autism Spectrum. An Autism Spectrum Disorder is an illness that has symptoms similar to Autism but IS NOT Autism. If you have an Autism Spectrum Disorder, it LITERALLY MEANS you do NOT have Autism.

I am medically diagnosed as "kanner's syndrome, actual autism, the rainman type, profoundly retarded autistic savant, with a general IQ of 73, and an writing IQ of 221" but they added that they did not know how to properly diagnose me as I am "technically a feral child" and they don't know "how much is the autism, and how much is simple horrific levels of abuse and neglect induced post traumatic stress disorder that will go away with proper socilization".

It means I know how to write, I can write a lot, and it is next to impossible for you to teach me how to do literally anythig else because my brain only knows how to write and doesn;t know how to do anything else..
There's a reason, when I do book signings, people are quick to say: "Okay, what's the joke? why is this stupid retard here? where's the real author? I know this retard isn't the author. where are you hiding the author, why is this fucking retard here"

The end result is, I have near zero social interaction... my 3 years in college was the ONLY face to face interaction I have ever had with humans in my entire life, and I struggle deeply to understand MOST words used by MOST people when they ask me question. And so I suffer from a huge lack of understanding many words people say to me, how to translate those words into spelling, and how to translate what it is that has been said.

The fact remains hat until there exists a human on this planet who is willing to sit down and teach me what words spoken line up with and match what words written, this deficent is unlily to improve. But the fact also remains, that I am simply far too profoundly retarded for anyone to even try to make any attempt at all even to speak a friendly "hgelloe" or "good morning" when passing me on the street, so I have lost all hope of anyone ever either being my friend, being willing to teach me how to match spoken words to written words, or how to speak to other humans.

1. Official Home Page Of Wendy C Allen: Old Orchard Beach & Biddeford, Maine's Autistic Artist, Doll Designer, Art Car Builder, and Dark Fantasy MPreg Author
2. Just Write!
3. Write something! Just do it!! Right now! Writing something! You can do it! You know you want to! I believe in you!
4. Only one thing is writing...WRITING! So just start writing, right now, today.
5. The Park Bench Method of Writing Rapid Release Fiction without Burning Out

While there are around 20k pages on this website, most of them are blocked from search engines, with only around 800 of them available for appearing in Google/Bing/etc search results. The remainder can only be accessed via the various links found throughout this site. This was done deliberately on my part, and I did it because the bulk of the pages on this website are chapters from 138 novels and 423 novellas, so only the first page of each novel and novella indexed by search engines, and the remainder are linked in order, one page at a time, via clicking "next page" at the end of each. So if you are looking for a specific page from a specific novel, Google can't help you.

Thank you for stopping by and have a nice day! ꧁✨🌸🔮🦄🔮🌸✨꧂ And if it’s your birthday today: ִֶָ𓂃 ࣪˖ ִֶָ🐇་༘࿐꧁ᴴᵃᵖᵖʸ☆ᵇⁱʳᵗʰᵈᵃʸ꧂🤍🎀🧸🌷🍭 Wendy Christine Allen 🌸💖🦄 aka EelKat 🧿💛🔮👻

Wheelchair Fundraiser

@eelkat i just found out there is yet another bizarre rumour going around. where are these wild rumours coming from? who is starting them? and why? ♬ original sound - Wendy C Allen | 📚 Author

@eelkat since I've been flooded with hundreds of messages the past two weeks asking if I still own "the world's most haunted car", yes, and here it is, filmed today May 18, 2026… but my son Xavier is dead, i am crippled and given that people are AGAIN showing up calling my Dodge "haunted", calling my friend "an alien", calling me "transgender", and spreading wild defamation slander connecting me to Stephen King, I think I need to start taking down the contact information of every blogger, podcaster, youtuber, and social media account spreading these rumors, and sue every single one of them for CAUSING my car to be cut in half May 10, 2010, for CAUSING the backhoe that drove over my house August 8, 2013, for CAUSING my son's murder November 14, 2013, for CAUSING me to be crippled and in a wheelchair November 14, 2013, and for CONTINUING to CAUSE harassers to show up in person to harass me near daily, STILL now in 2026. EVERYONE telling you my car is haunted, telling you my friend is an alien, calling my car "the goldeneagle", calling my friend "Etiole", or trying to connect me or my car to Stephen King, is lying to you. They crippled me when I was 8 months pregnant, and a woman with a golf club, severed my spine and bashed my baby's head in, I spent 9 years relearning to walk, and the FBI is 13 years into the murder investigation and not yet identified the attacker who crippled me and killed my baby, both violently with a golf club and the FBI believes that it is friends and family of the woman who did it, are the ones who started and spread the rumors saying my car is haunted, saying I'm an alien abductee, saying all kinds of similar bs about aliens, ufos, ghosts, witchcraft, demons, and Stephen King connections, even though I don't believe in ghosts, aliens, ufos, demons, and had never heard of Stephen King before 30k of his fans showed up in my yard trying to find my car! FBI believes the backhoe driver and the murderer are the same person and it is a developer who wanted my land and so started the Stephen King, ghost, and alien rumors all in an attempt to drive me off my land, and when it didn't work they drove a backhoe over my house, and when that didn't work they crippled me and killed my son. Why are they doing this? How do I get them to stop? ♬ original sound - Wendy C Allen | 📚 Author

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Get an email whenever Wendy Christine Allen 🌸💖🦄 aka EelKat 🧿💛🔮👻 publishes on Medium.

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Do you know who drove this backhoe over my house at 146 Portland Avenue, Old Orchard Beach, Maine on August 8, 2013? If you have any information, please give it to FBI Agent Andy Drewer at 207–774–9322 of the Portland, Maine FBI office.

My house at 146 Portland Ave, Old Orchard Beach, Maine, July 4, 2013, photo taken because we had just finished building a baby room on the back. vs My house August 8, 2013, when the same group of people (yes group, the golf club woman was not alone when she attacked November 14, 2013, nor was she alone with her second attack July 2016.) who murdered my son on November 14, 2013 at Southern Maine Community College and crippled me July 26, 2016 at scarborough WalMart,... they arrived the first time with a backhoe on August 8, 2013, that they used to drive over my house, during a time of day that I normally was home asleep... I had to work a different shift at the Waffle Cone Pizza Food Truck at George's Parking Lot by Bill's Pizza at the OBB Peir, that day, otherwise, I too would be at the bottom of a landfill, along with my house and everything I owned that was also in the house. I was 5 months pregnant at the time and have been homeless for just under 14 years, homeless ever since....

... which means it is now only a few weeks from the 14th anniversary of my son's murder. I was 8 month pregnant November 14, 2013, and a student ay SMCC, and coming out of the Buglight Lighthouse art studio after art class, when a still unidentifiedwoman wielding a golf club attacked me, severed my spine, while I was 8 months pregnant, triggered early labour, then killed my son minutes after he was born.

While accusing me of being transgender, screaming "transvestite freak" and "look at that thing, that's Ken's son in a dress"... while I was 8 months pregnant.

My house at 146 Portland Ave, Old Orchard Beach, Maine, July 4, 2013, photo taken because we had just finished building a baby room on the back. vs My house August 8, 2013, when the same group of people (yes group, the golf club woman was not alone when she attacked November 14, 2013, nor was she alone with her second attack July 2016.) who murdered my son and crippled me, arrived the first time with a backhoe that they used to drive over my house, during a time of day that I normally was home asleep... I had to work a different shift at the Waffle Cone Pizza Food Truck at George's Parking Lot by Bill's Pizza at the OBB Peir, that day, otherwise, I too would be at the bottom of a landfill, along with my house and everything I owned that was also in the house. I was 5 months pregnant at the time and have been homeless for just under 14 years, homeless ever since.

The backhoe driver returned November 14, 2013, armed with a golf club, used it to break my spine and smash my baby's brains out on the ground

On November 14, 2013, my son was murdered. I was 8 months pregnant, leaving my college classroom, and just getting into my car, when 3 strangers, a man and two women, armed with golf clubs leapt out from behind my car screaming "kill or be killed, kill the transvestite freaks, kill them all before they kill us! look at that thing! That is Ken's son, look at how it's dressed! kill the transvestite freaks! kill or be killed"... while the bald man and the red haired woman chanted this over and over, the blonde woman, lunged with the golf club.

She severed my spine, I am now a quadriplegic, and been paralyzed arms and legs, and in a wheelchair for 13 years now. She broke my hips, my knees, my legs, ruptured most of my discs, and shattered three of my vertebrae so bad that the shards of bone acted like glass and embedded themselves into my spinal column nerve bundle.

The attack also triggered labour.

My son was born in that parking lot, and he lived only a couple of minutes, before the deranged blonde woman, beat his head in and smashed his brains out, with the same golfclub she had just used to sever my spine and leave me crippled for the rest of my life.

Realizing that I was not transgender, and they'd just murdered a baby, the man grabbed the 2 women and forcibly dragged them away to a 4 door white pickup truck, and they left me there to die.

The FBI told me later, that a few weeks before this attack, and transwoman, had murdered a cis woman, in a parking lot, abou 20 miles away from where I was attacked. The FBI, believes that my attackers, had somehow found out I wrote transgender fiction, connecting my real name to my penname, (my father's name is in fact "Ken", and I do have a brother) and believed that I wrote transgender fiction, because I was myself transgender, even though I'm not transgender. The FBI, believes the attackers, thought I was my brother, pretending to be a woman.

The FBI investigation, into my son's murder, has dragged on for 13 years, and still now in 2026, continues on, with the FBI, still not having yet identified my attackers, and only guessing at what their motive was.

Thus we come to 2014, and the full swing change of the series I write. WHY my series, went from just a transman main character living life, to the full blown Mpreg genre series that it now is today.

Before the attack, I had a chance of having a baby. I don't know. And because I'm in America, I'm too old to adopt. You have to be under 45 years old to adopt a baby. That is the law in America. I was informed this, when we tried to adopt, now that my injuries leave me unable to get pregnant a 9th time.

Thus began my obsessively writing, my transman main character, pregnant. Always pregnant now. Every time. Every story. Stories that now fully focus on pregnancy, labour, miscarriages, babies dying, babies living, raising babies... the whole series, since 2014 has devolved into an outright baby obsession.

Meanwhile, reborn baby dolls were suggested to me by my therapist, and have also become a deeply obsessive part of my life. Because 13 years ago my son was murdered minutes after he was born, because a transphobic bigot mistook me for being transgender, I'm STILL in a wheelchair, struggling to relearn to use my arms and legs, now 13 years later, and I'm still DAILY dealing with police officers and FBI agents who while they are trying to find my son's killer, they are also daily reminding me... oh, yeah, my son was murdered, literally ripped out of my belly, by a transphobe. Who still has not been located and walks free to kill again.

The golfclub woman as she looked during the golf club attack at Southern Maine community college November 14, 2013. She is about 20 to 30 years older then me and would be around 75 to 85 years old now in 2026. If you have any information about the identity of this child murderer, please call FBI Agent Andy Drewer at 207–774–9322

The golfclub woman as she looked during the shopping cart attack at Scarborough WalMart July 26, 2016. She is about 20 to 30 years older then me and would be around 75 to 85 years old now in 2026. If you have any information about the identity of this child murderer, please call FBI Agent Andy Drewer at 207–774–9322

The 2nd woman as she looked at both attacks, her hair goes all the way down to her knees. She is about 20 to 30 years older then me and would be around 75 to 85 years old now in 2026. If you have any information about the identity of this child murderer's accomplice, please call FBI Agent Andy Drewer at 207–774–9322

Do you know who these two woman who crippled me and murdered my baby, at Southern Maine Community College at 10PM on November 14, 2013, are, and what their connection to the backhoe that drove over my house is? If you have any information, please give it to FBI Agent Andy Drewer at 207–774–9322 of the Portland, Maine FBI office.

I am a legally blind quadriplegic, and low verbal, I have also published 138 novels in the last 48 years. It's not as impossible as people think. The problem being blind and quadriplegic, medically have different meanings then how those two words are used medically.

Fewer than 3% of all blind people see nothing. While 97% people who are classified as fully blind are able to see up to two feet in front of them. Legally blind means I can see more then two feet in front of me but not far enough to see twenty feet in front of me. In my case I can see about eight feet.

Quadriplegic, has varying levels, it means having a damaged nerve bundle in the spinal column causing limited mobility of all 4 limbs, (in my case this was done by a women wielding a golf club, who also beat my 8 month infant's head to pulp on the parking lot tarmak, at the same time she severed my spine with the same golf club; both on November 14, 2013; the FBI investigation into my son's murder and my being crippled has gone on now for 13 years, a few weeks away from 14 years now, and the FBI has still not identified the killer or her motive). Contrary to popular misconception, quadriplegic does NOT mean ZERO movement, it means means limited movement, specifically in means unable to lift arms over head, unable to grip fingers around objects to pick them up, and unable to stand for more then 5 minutes to a time. Because there are so many thousands of nerves in each limb it is actually very rare for there to be 100% no movement, but how much, and to what extent varies by patent depending upon the specific point of injury to the spinal column.

Meaning typing is still possible for over 60% of all quadriplegics.

In my case, it was the lower spine that was severed, cutting off completly my ability to move my right leg, leaving limited feeling in my left leg, and an ability to stand but not walk, with crutches, for the first 9 years. I regained enough nerve growth in my legs by the 9th year to be able to take ten or twelve steps allowing me to get out of bed for the first time since the golf club attack; This in turn lead to me being able to start using a wheelchair, as I was able to sit upright for the first time as well.

Because the shattered vertebrae bone fragments are broken off completly and embedded into the nerve bundle just above my tailbone, doctors were saying I would never walk again, but now at 13 years, I am able to push mu wheelchair like a walker, a distance of almost a thousand steps a day. Though doctors are still doubtful I will ever walk "normally" again, I have proven them wrong, when their said 13 years ago, that I would never walk again at all.

But because of the placement of the damage to my spine, regaining hand use, was always thought possible, it was just a matter of waiting long enough for nerve regrowth, along side daily finger exercises. I was able to continue writing, after becoming quadriplegic, because I still have use of my right thumb, and 2 fore figures of my right hand. And can type 90 words per minute with those 3 fingers.

I however have no wrist strength, elbow strength, or shoulder strength, so I am not able to form a fist, or lift objects, or brush my hair, or my teeth, all thing I have to have my caretaker do. But, those things are not needed for typing. Unfortunately, my pinky and ring fingers are "nerve dead" and drag over the keyboard, and cause horrific spelling errors and typos, which are incredibly frustrating to deal with.

Unfortunately trying to edit errors myself, just makes the errors worse, because those same two fingers drag over the keyboard yet again. Prior to the golf club attack, I rarely had spelling errors; now I got more spelling errors then someone is learning English as second language. Editing is a challenge, that I've had to accept, I simply can not do myself, and I have to hire several editors to help with that.

Low verbal means sounds can still be made, sounds that software programs like Dragon can be trained to recognize and translate, and type into full words. More then half my novels were typed with this method.

I still have a long ways to go before I am anything close to being able to do the things I could do before the golf club woman beat my baby's brains out and shattered my spine. And you know what's more frustrating then how slow mu medical progression has been? The fact that it's been 13 years and the police and FBI are still coming up at dead ends as to who the woman who murdered my baby was, or why she even did it.

My son's 14th birthday is only a few weeks away, but he didn't even get to live long enough to celebrate his 1st birthday, I don't even know why. And I can't wait to regain my ability to walk again, because regaining my ability to walk, means gaining the ability to go outside and start looking for my son's murderer myself instead of sitting at home trapped in a wheelchair waiting for the police and FBI to to find her. So, writing isn't a big priority for me anymore. I only write now, as a way to exercise my hands, in between relearning to walk.

Never let a disability stop you. Plenty of writers, artists, athletes, do not let either blindness, speech impediments, or limited mobility hold then back from perusing their careers.

Do you know who these two woman who crippled me and murdered my baby, at Southern Maine Community College at 10PM on November 14, 2013, are, and what their connection to the backhoe that drove over my house is? If you have any information, please give it to FBI Agent Andy Drewer at 207–774–9322 of the Portland, Maine FBI office.

More information about the backhoe attack, my son's murder, my becoming crippled, my becoming homeless, and the FBI investigation around all of it, can be found here.

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All the writing prompts found here on my website, are also available in printed paperback editions, on Amazon.

There are no ebook editions as they are already available digitally here on my website.

| The Park Bench Method of Writing Rapid Release Fiction Without Burning Out | Writing Advice | Writing Tips and Tricks | Writers on Writing | Writing Life | Cozy Fantasy Writing | Slice of Life Writing | 30 Days of Writing | Ideas For Writing Cozy Fantasy | Short Story Writing | Daily Writing | Writing Pulp Fiction | Writing 30 Short Stories In 30 Days | Write 30 Novel Chapters In 30 Days | Write a Novel in 30 Days | How I Write My Dark Fantasy Serial Fiction | 

The Park Bench Method of Writing 100+ Cozy Fantasy Writing Prompts for NaNoWriMo & NovNov 2025 Finding Your Character’s Goal Through Mundane Moments (Character Creation & Development - NaNoWriMo & NovNov 2025) --with 500+ Writing Prompts! 30 Cozy Fantasy Writing Prompts - June 2025 - 30 Day Edition 30 Cozy Fantasy Writing Prompts, Queer Throuples/Polycules Slice of Life Edition 30 "TRUE COZY" Cozy Fantasy Writing Prompts 🫖 30 More Cozy Fantasy Writing Prompts - June 2025 Writing Character Driven Flash Fiction for NaNoWriMo & NovNov 2025 -with 90 Cozy Fantasy Slice of Life Writing Prompts A shit ton load of daily writing prompts and writing dares to use for National Novel Writing Month, 2025 edition! For the people who had been asking where to find them, the Print Paperback editions of the writing prompts found on my website are available HERE. What's New (Newly Published or Recently Updated or Edited) NaNoWriMo (Now NovNov) Annual October Prep - 2026 Edition (22 years!) Oct 23, 26 03:51 PM NaNoWriMo (Now NovNov) Annual October Prep - 2026 Edition (22 years!) Read More Currency in a zombie apocalypse or The economy of Vesonta Oct 23, 26 12:03 PM Currency in a zombie apocalypse or How does the economy of Vesonta work? or Do the UnSeelie Court use money? Read More What makes a wizard a wizard? Oct 22, 26 04:42 PM What makes a wizard a wizard? Character Creation and Worldbuilding lore Read More Vampires - a look at Vampirism in The Adventures of Quaraun the Insane Oct 21, 26 11:50 AM Vampires - a look at Vampirism in The Adventures of Quaraun the Insane/The Pink Necromancer series Read More Is Quaraun gay? | Quaraun FAQs Oct 14, 26 02:59 PM Is Quaraun gay? Is The Pink Necromancer transgender? | Answering readers FAQs about Quaraun the Insane Read More Wendy C Allen: Old Orchard Beach & Biddeford Maine Dark Fantasy Author Oct 10, 26 05:58 AM Official Home Page Of Wendy C Allen: Old Orchard Beach & Biddeford, Maine's Autistic Artist, Doll Designer, Art Car Builder, and Dark Fantasy MPreg Author Read More How Did The FBI Get Involved? Oct 05, 26 10:46 PM How Did The FBI Get Involved? Read More But is it Omega Verse? Sep 30, 26 11:11 PM Readers have suggested my Quaraun series is Omegaverse... let's find out if it is or not Read More Who is Tod Murphy? (updated for Christmas Eve attack 2025) Sep 27, 26 10:49 PM Who is Tod Murphy? (updated for Christmas Eve attack 2025) Read More Phookas Sep 25, 26 02:46 PM Everything you could ever want to know about phookas Read More ChatGPT Command Prompts For Fantasy Writers Sep 16, 26 04:27 PM Asking ChatGPT To Create Its Own Command Prompts For Fantasy Writers Read More The Egg Question: A Pink Necromancer Short Story Aug 06, 26 08:42 PM After a long day of killing Humans, The UnSeelie Court's pregnant mage contemplates why having sex with the Dragon King does not result in laying Dragon Eggs. Read More Fish, Eels, Storyland, Autism, Becoming a Published Author, Art Cars Jul 30, 26 09:16 AM Fish, Eels, Storyland, Autism, Becoming a Published Author, and Art Cars; a long and varied conversation with ChatGPT5.6 Read More The Cat at the Sea Cave Jul 29, 26 10:02 AM A Pink Necromancer story poem Read More My Elves Are JellyFish Jul 13, 26 01:38 PM My Elves Are JellyFish, and I asked for thoughts from Google vs ChatGPT Read More The Three-Seventeen Pee Expedition Jun 16, 26 02:33 PM The Three-Seventeen Pee Expedition: A Pink Necromancer Short Story Read More Why I Write (Some Thoughts on Living With Autism) Jun 10, 26 10:45 AM Why I Write (Some Thoughts on Living With Autism) and a look at the history of 144 and 146 Portland Ave, Old Orchard Beach, Maine Read More How Much Money Do Self-Published Authors Make Jun 08, 26 08:26 PM A Look at How Much Money A Million Books Sold Is Equal To - How Much Money Do Self-Published Authors Make Read More 146 Portland Ave Old Orchard Beach, Maine, FBI Murder Investigation Jun 08, 26 08:20 PM 146 Portland Ave Old Orchard Beach, Maine, FBI Murder Investigation; How Did The FBI Get Involved? Read More The Quaraun Series Prologue May 20, 26 03:11 PM The Quaraun Series Prologue Read More An Introduction to The Pink Necromancer Series May 17, 26 04:47 PM An Introduction to The Pink Necromancer Series: The Adventures of Quaraun the Insane Read More No, Disabled People Do Not Exist To Inspire You May 14, 26 11:01 PM Yes, it is offensive to write disabled characters to act as inspiration to others. or how to write disabled characters accurately Read More Murder Investigation Updates, Old Orchard Beach, Maine May 11, 26 12:25 PM Murder Investigation Updates, Old Orchard Beach, Maine Read More The FBI murder investigation 144 & 146 Portland Ave, Old Orchard Beach May 06, 26 07:05 PM The FBI murder investigation of 144 & 146 Portland Ave, Old Orchard Beach, Maine - Everything we are allowed to publically release Read More Thoughts on Reborn Therapy Dolls After My Son's Murder Apr 15, 26 06:29 AM My 8 month old son was murdered; Thoughts on Reborn Therapy Dolls After My Son's Murder Read More Addressing victim blaming in murder investigations Mar 13, 26 09:40 PM Addressing victim blaming in murder investigations Read More The Tussah Day Serenade Feb 16, 26 07:44 AM The Tussah Day Serenade, a fiction short story poem - LGBTQAI+ FICTION | The Adventures of Quaraun The Insane | TransMan MC | Read More Ghosts Beneath the Pink Silk Tent Feb 11, 26 05:11 AM Ghosts Beneath the Pink Silk Tent Read More An Existential Crisis Feb 11, 26 05:09 AM An Existential Crisis 🌸{A Pink Necromancer Triple Drabble} 🦄🌸 Read More The Moon Goddess Laughs From The Rooftops Feb 11, 26 05:05 AM The Moon Goddess Laughs From The Rooftops Read More 10 Years of Injustice: Tackling Radical Church Extremism Feb 11, 26 04:29 AM 10 Years of Injustice: Tackling Radical Church Extremism Read More Don't Be A Stalker Feb 10, 26 09:14 PM Don't be a stalker Read More IMPORTANT NOTE: All the writing prompts found here on my website, are also available in printed paperback editions, on Amazon. There are no ebook editions as they are already available digitally here on my website. January February 2026 Updates If you are one of (as of December 2025, the now more than ten thousand) daily visitors, who arrive here daily in search of SEO advice, I made this page for you: My response to the alarming spike in traffic to my "SEO" pages. aka I am getting Weird Spike In Google Traffic For SEO & Content Writing & Marketing keywords and search terms even though this is a Yaoi and Gay Romance website that has absolutely nothing to do with SEO or Content Writing or Content Marketing What the fuck? The Park Bench Method of Writing Receiving death threats over a septic tank and a little brown log cabin, but I own neither a septic tank nor a little brown log cabin... what even are these thugs talking about? I am a mute/none verbal wheelchair user and I just had an encounter over my wheelchair, but being mute had no way to defend myself. Crazy Woman Just Attacked - No Clue Why or Who She Is (August 14, 2025) Articles For Writers on How To Write & Publish A Rapid Release  Series Want to write like I do? You want this page: Writing Mindset Shift & Lester Dent vs Kishotenketsu w/Thoughts on Being one of Dr. Lindstrom's 200 PenPal Students (NaNoWriMo & NovNov 2025) plus Polyamory Beyond Fetish: Writing Multi-Partner Relationships and Writing Blind Characters Plus Elves and Very High, High Elves  VS Unicorns and Phookas and Demons and also What exactly makes an Elf an Elf? (What is the definition of an Elf?) but Noses, Penis Piercings, And Rapunzel Hair and Need Help Defeating Overpowered Fantasy Wizards? + Wizards and More Wizards and Even More Wizards and Still More wizards and MAKE VILLAINS EVIL AGAIN: A WRITER’S BATTLE CRY TO RECLAIM THE DARK SIDE Have you ever considered: How Things In Your Life Affect Your Writing or Currency In Worldbuilding and The Dangers of World Travel or  Dragging a Body Through The Snow and Talking While Falling Asleep or Worldbuilding MoonQuakes and Disabled Characters for Fantasy Writers or I have everything but the kitchen sink... wait, how'd that kitchen sink get in my pocket? Writing Absurdist Fantasy Books but How long does it take to reach 1667 words? and 50k in one day - is it possible? plus What is the average typing speed? plus What (self-publishing) platform pays the most (for books)? My top 3 picks. Comparing my results from different places. and Knowing what to include when describing the surroundings of a scene also Validation Is a Cult and Open Strong, Stay Loud and  Where are the writers who love writing? plus Self-Publishing Success: Does Anyone Ever Succeed at Self-Publishing? and Where To Get Writing Ideas? and Writing What You Know Might Not Be What You Think It Is and Why I do not attend writing groups...are they all like this or just the ones in Maine? but also Don't Forget To Just Write  because Yes, You Can! Plus The Park Bench Method of Writing (with 10k writing prompt list) or The Park Bench Method of Writing (just the article) plus: How did you build your audience? Not online, that's for sure. aka How to sell ten million books aka How I sold ten million books. Need Writing Prompts? For Anyone Looking for: The "haunted car" people call The GoldenEagle & my response to Stephen King's illegally filming my family and farm in his movies? My response to MUFON's Amphibious Aliens? My response to Coast to Coast AMs Arrival in my yard? Back to the Home Page Wendy Christine Allen, Old Orchard Beach's Autistic Author, Artist, Illustrator, & Art Car Designer Counting Down to the 2028 50th Anniversary of my first published book (September 23, 1978) Yes, I am aware there are a lot of spelling errors on this site. No, I likely will not be fixing most of them. I have been quadriplegia/paralyzed arms and legs since November 14, 2013; As of 2026, I have regained use of two fully functional fingers on my right hand, and only stiff limited movement of all remained eight fingers. This causes most of the typos and spelling errors as my near-dead pinky and ring fingers tend to drag over the other letters on the keyboard. Attempts to correct errors, often causes more errors for the same reason. Much of my writing is also speech to text, but I have "profound low functioning, non-verbal kanner's syndrome aka autism aka the rainman type" (that is what the medical diagnosis called it), I have the medically diagnosed retarded type of autism, that medical doctors mean when they say "real and actual autism", I do not have the cool trend self diagnoses tiktok type of "autism". What this means is, in spite of five decades of trying, I have very limited vocal speaking abilities and a lower then average vocabulary, that leaves my speaking ability around the level of a 4 or 5 year old child; I do not know math or money or clocks and. I also, was raised by a Shetland Scottish Grandmother (Helen Ricker Allen) until her death when I was 8 years old, and she did not speak American, she spoke Shetland/Scottish, Shetlandic, which is a Nordic language, different from Scotts Language, not related to Gaelic which is what many Scottish speak, and while classified as a type of Scottish English is is considered "Olde medieval Norse" dialect of Scottish English and spoken by fewer then two thousand people as of 2026. It is the language of Scottish Travelling Gypsies, which is what we racial are. I was 31 years old first time I ever heard American English, and only started to learn American English at 42 years old. Right now in 2026 at 51 years old, I am able to speak American English on around the level of an 8 year old child, and greatly do not understand over 90% of American words, American slang, and American media references. What this means is, OFTEN words you think are spellt wrong (like color vs colour, or traveling vs travelling, are in fact NOT spelt wrong, because I use Scottish spellings) and often when I hear an American word, I spell it phonetically because I do not know the correct American spelling. Likewise we Scottish do not have words like my or your, and so say me and you, in places where Americans would say my and your.  I also use Scottish word meanings, not American word meanings, for example Unicorn means a blood thirsty flesheating shapeshifting sea creature that comes on land and pretends to be a wounded horse to lure in humans to eat, it can only be captured by a virgin. But when I say Unicorn, a word I frequently use, because I write Unicorn folkloric short stories... I find that most Americans connect Unicorns to children's cartoons, gay pride, or swinging sex lives... I struggle to understand who in their right mind thought the most bloodthirsty monster of Scotland folklore was good fodder for children's cartoons or "sex positive" mascots, me thinks Americans need to brush up on the lore of Unicorns using their horns as sword to stabbed people's eyes out, while gallopping through swamps with rows of bloody Human heads hanging from their backs via braids made of Human entrails... really, why did Americans thinks a monster like a Unicorn was fit for children's cartoons or sex positivity? Americans is weird. All this to say... speech to text software, struggles badly with my thick Shetland accent, my slurred Autism speech impediment, and causes additional misspellings and typos because it can not figure out what words I am trying to say. And while I could take the time time to run all of it through a spell checker, that does require better hand mobility then I have, to copy the text from one program to the next and manually click each word, with finger mobility that I simply do not have, but also, most of my time is spent in trying to relearn to walk, and if you are local, you've probably seen this as I'm a stubborn bitch who refused to accept the doctor disnosis that I will never walk again, so, I walk around the block every day pushing my wheelchair, refusing to sit in my wheelchair, and... ...it's taking me 13 years to do it, but, I'm not actually able to stand up and make it all the way around the block now, and my focus on trying to relearn to walk is far more important to me, then catering to your pampered arse by fixing spelling errors, when there are far bigger problems to worry about in life, the spelling errors made by a quadriplegic who is typing this with her only two functioning fingers. Also, in recent years, I've watched the internet devolve into a mindless clusterfuck of ChatGPT written everything. Everyone sounds the same online these days, because no writes their own work anymore. Every website out there has become a carbon copy of each other, because they are all be written by ChatGPT now. I think ChatGPT makes a funny thing to chat with in your spare time, so you can laugh at the hilarity of how inaccurate it's responses are... but I am horrified that people are using AI for serious writing, writing they publish and try to pass off as their own. We live in a society where people people are forgetting how write. Heck I can read and write cursive, calligraphy, italic, short hand, and editor's marks, also edit my books by hand diagraming every sentence, and that... start walking around your neighbourhood and ask anyone under 30 if they sentence diagraming IS, let alone how to do it. So yes, I CAN spell check, and no I don't, for anything but my novels and short story collections, I spell check when it matters... and this is a website, not a printed book... but also, I am just getting so damn fucking fed up with endless AI writing online, so, no, I'm not going to fix errors and typos on my website, and you can bitch about that all you want (yes, I do get your messages, I just don't answer anyone in private) but, honey, maybe instead of bitching over my spelling errors, be thankful is still at least one website on the internet that still being written by a Human now in 2026 when ChatGPT writes over 70% of all posts online.

Looking for my annual NaNoWriMo Prompts and Dares? I've been publishing these every year since 2004! Here's,for my 26th year, a shit ton load of daily writing prompts and writing dares to use for National Novel Writing Month, 2025 edition! The Park Bench Method of Writing The Adventures of Quaraun The Insane: Paperpacks & Hardcover Editions on Amazon: Not sure what the series is about?  Check out  The Quaraun Series Prologue and Faeries vs Elves (In The Quaraun Series) A Pink Necromancer World Lore Post and Worldbuilding MoonQuakes and Disabled Characters for Fantasy Writers and How well do I know Quaraun? - Let's find out! to find out more about the plot and lore of the series. Not sure which story to start with? These here are good places to start, to get a good introduction to the three main characters: Absinthe Slushies: An Ode to Frozen Green Fairy Wine Bone Dice BoomFuzzy's Chowder Dilemma The Cellar's Forgotten Treasure Chaos in The Lighthouse - Shattered Panes, Shattered Minds The Cliff-Side Temple Control or Protection? A Dark and Stormy Night Drying Herbs Excited For The New Baby Five Ways To Save Money in Las Vegas The Golden Dragon Keys Herons in the Dunes If your ass ain’t freezing or your brains ain’t scrambled, you’re ain’t really trying Kiss Me Fuckin' Arse - Just Another Day in the Ice-Laced Ruins of The GodForsaken City Lens and Light Maintenance Macaroni and Cheese: A Creamy Pasta Dish Drenched in Melted Cheese, Often Topped with Breadcrumbs- It's Never That Easy A Map Worth More Than Gold The Morning After a Night of Teaching Wizards To Gather Magic With Cards Necromancer of the Parched Sands in the Desert of Diona Necromancy-A Day in the Life of a Bumbling Necromancer-Again Nightmare Nook Paddlewheel Maintenance The Phooka's Dragon School The Red Hakama Springtime by the River Spirit-Walk Slippers Sticky Rice, Bare Fingers, and Slippery Chopsticks The Sweet and Sour of Lemons The Terror Bird 3 Perspectives on an Apple The Valuable Mystery of the Talking Saloon Door and How We Nearly Got Shot Over Stale Tacos Vendetta over Vittles A Very Important Clump of Grass Wagers and Wiles in the Godforsaken City The Washer Woman & The Fae Weather Forecasting Stones You Never Know What Info You Might Pick Up in the Afterlife aka Quaraun's Near Death Experience (A NDE Fiction) Or if after reading those, you still are looking for more free to read stories, there are over three thousand of them on this site, too many to list here, but here a few dozen to get you started... ...you can just jump in and try reading some of the free to read online stories first before committing to buying the books: Abyssal Addlepated: Stupid and Confused All the roads are gone Alone Ancient Coin Hoard Unearthed Angry Ocean Waves at Sunset The Arrival The Art of Destroying a Human Village for Fun and Profit At the High Priest's Altar Back At The Tavern and Still No Shrimp The Bandits and the Pink Necromancer The Banshee Sisters: Bean-Nighe and Ben-Neeyah In the Swamp of Death The Beacon Room at the Top of the Black Tower Lighthouse The Beauty of a Silk Moth Hatching The Beginning of the End Bellicose: Warlike! Aggressive! Hostile! Beneath a crimson sky, the silk weaver wove pink silk. Beneath Malevolent Stars The Black Sock, Again Blizzard The Boat Fiasco The Book Burning Maggots, a You Can't Spell Hatred Without Red Hats BoomFuzzy's Gingerbread House from Hell The Brownies & The Witch, or Why Faeries Don’t Wear Socks The Bumbling Pursuit of The Pink Necromancer Candied Nightmares The Candle Con in Ember Hollow The Candy Corn Unicorn Captured By The Lich Lord The Cast Iron Frying Pan Cattail Pollen Spaghetti with Wild "Oregano" A Chilly Light Drizzle Becomes Snowfall on the Shore Chocolate Bliss Chocolate in the Neon Shadows Christmas in 40th Century Dystopia Christmas With The Krampus Family The City of Death Clam Digging in the Rain The Clock Ticks Away Clotheslines, Games, and the Village Code Ghosts Comet Fall Snow Day Blitz Conundrum in the Bazaar Corsets, Elves, and Undead Faeries Crabapples in the Rain Cranberry Muffins The Crooked Dice The Crows Are Restless Crullers and Curses at Midnight The Curse of the Liquid Gold The Cursed Mirror Dangerous Tides {A Pink Necromancer Drabble Dozen, featuring Etiole} Dark Damp Basement A Day At Witch Pond & Fleeing To The Forest Deadly Shores of Noodle Beach The Demon Cultists and The Coming of The Darkness The Demonic Music Box Desolate Nostalgia on a Frozen Shoreline The Diamond Forest in the Bio Dome The Disbelief of Humans Discovering A Floating Castle Dismal Day at the Street Market The Doors' Dark Secret - A Wedding In A Zombie Apocalypse Dreams of Purple Pearls The Drunk Moon Elf Echoes of the Glass Forest Echoes of the Unseen An Eclipse in the Faerie Glen An Eclipse Looms Tonight An Eerie Discovery Eerie Symbols in the Snow The Egg That Was Not an Egg The Elf With Crippled Hands Ember Enable The Enchanted Map Encountering ghostly apparitions in the swamp Evil Eggplants Stalking Outside Evil McEvil of The Twirly Moustache Existential Crisis Perspectives - 3 Perspectives on an Existential Crisis Exploring the Swamp's Forgotten River A Fall in the River A Field of Poppies On The Road To Witch Pond 15 Drabbles About Being Transgender The First Flicker of Dawn Fishing in the Rain Five Ways To Save Money in Las Vegas Fizzy and Frigid A Flapdoodle Wizard’s Duel Fleeced for Fizz Fog & Peach Melba Toast After Last Night's Rain Footprints In The Sand Forest Kings and Their Antler Crowns The Fragrant Smoke of Flavoured Herbs Freshly Baked Sugar Cookies The Frilly Nest of Panic A Garden of Pink Chrysanthemums Get your hands off my dress! GhoulSpawn & The Cultists GhoulSpawn Said The Moon Don’t Laugh GhoulSpawn's Toasted Marshmallow Magic A Glass of Fresh Milk Gloom Blob of Doom: The Dreadful Dripping of the Doom Blob of Gloom Glumpish, Grumpy, Sullen, Gloomy Golden Field, Pink Glories The Golden Mask The Graveyard That Ate the Living The Great UnSeelie Court Swindlers He Always Comes Back Heirloom Tomatoes Help! He's trying to feed me! The Herd Approaches The Howl on Silent Moor How to Create a Literary Empire with Just Your Bum Poems How To Kill a Lich How to Hijack a Human Supply Train Without Getting Shot How to Overthrow an Entire Settlement Without So Much as Lifting a Finger I Need To Feel Safe Ignoramus — An Utterly Ignorant Crowd of Humans IkuTursu's Cursed Depths of the Swamp Where Pine Boughs Whisper Incandescent Shadows Over Driftwood Bay The Infected Survivor Inner Fortitude Insidious Love Invigorating Cool Air Iron Hooves and Burning Roads, Krampus on Wheels The Ivory Tower of Greed The Jar of Pickled Toes Jibber Jabber Ramblings by the Fire The Jolly Red Lich King Journey Through the Zombie-Infested Swamp on the Blue Monkey Judgement An Ode To The Lunatics Preaching The Rapture of September'25 Kelim and The Necromancer: Finding Finderu Kelim Meets Quaraun The Insane Lanterns Over the Faerie Glen Leaving Your Bed Messy Isn't Exactly the Apocalypse The Leprechaun of The Deep North A Lich's Lament For a Mortal Lover Growing Old A Lich's Reflections On Escaping The Swamp of Death The Lich's True Form Revealed The Lighthouse’s Glass-Eyed Horror The Lighthouse Keeper The Lighthouse That Leapt, Space Dock 13's First Jump Through Space The Long Road The Loot Tree Lord of the Hive Lost In The Forest of No Return-Trying To Find Directions The Lost Library and The Snowglobe The Lotus' Silent Prayer on the Sandy Shoreline Lover's Triangle Make tea and go for a rainy forest walk Maple Cotton Candy Served as a Topping on Vanilla Ice Cream A Market Day Disaster Market Day Weekend - Three Days In The Life of The Pink Necromancer Marsh Serenity Reflection Mayonnaise Meeting Mallac Melt, Ya Safe With Me The MerMan's Wrath Milkweed Meadow Mint, Madness, and Motor Parts The Mischief of the Purple Unicorn Misplaced Utensils and the Cascade of Confusion Monsters & Mayhem: How Black Tower Became Pink (8+ Parts) The Moon and The Drowned The Moon Goddess Laughs From The Rooftops The Moon That Hungers The Moon and The Mirror Morning Sickness at The Shattered Stein (TW: MPreg Yaoi) A Mysterious Door No Goldfish, Today? No Place for Birth The Noodle of Power Not Little Red Riding Hood Obsessive Love-Dangerous Love An Ode to My Shattered Sanity Ominous One River In Three Perspectives Open Grave An Ordinary Day A Path of Twisted Trees A Peaceful Night on the Tundra The Peaceful Shores of Noodle Beach Phantom Tides Pickling Perfection Pickles, Panic, & Permafrost The Picnic Pink Marabou Trimmed Rainbow Leg Warmers, a Purple Feathered Black Leather Codpiece, and an Emerald Green Overly Fluffy Scarf The Pink Necromancer's Deceitful Carpet Weave Pink Sheep, Cheesy Burritos, and The Grim Reality of Zombies Pliable Clay on the Potter's Wheel Pocket Lich Unleashed: Quaraun Murders Finderu Preparations for the Street Market of the GodForsaken City Psychotic Dead Things Quaraun's Beauty Makeovers Quaraun's Candle Business Quaraun's Irritable Day Quaraun and The Wandering Turtle City Quarreling Over the Last Slice of Pizza A Quiet Day on The Blue Monkey The Quiet Evening in the Pink Silk Tent A Quiet Evening In The Rain A Quiet Night on The River A Quiet Place To Sweep A Quiet, Relaxing Foot Rub The Rain-Drenched Alley Raining Cats & Dogs Readers vs Readers, What Really Makes a Reader, a Reader? Remove! The Return of ZooLock The River Boat Man-Woman The Sacred Pink Secret (TW: Mpreg Yaoi) Safety and Emergency System Activated. Please Being Calm Santa's Floating Dead Body Santa's Letter To Satan The Screaming Contest The Seagull Sea Slugs and Clam Chowder Bread Bowls Secret Meeting Hidden Behind Closed Doors Shadows on the Clam Flats Shipyard at Dusk The Silence of the Unseen Silks in the Snow The Singing Crabgrass Crabs — A Green Fairy Wine Tale A Sinister-Looking Stone Well Six Days Earlier The Snake's Prophecy of Doom Upon The Fractured Moon A Solitary Black Sock Spinning Dreams in Silk The Soul Eater Spacious Space Spooky Scary Skeletons - A Graveyard Waltz Stillness in the Garden's Chaos Stone Cakes for the Road Survival Preppers Of The Zombie Apocalypse The Swamp of Death The Tavern in the Faraway Town The Temple City of The Green Goddess, Where Every Street Has a Name The Terrifying Cliffs of Noodle Beach, featuring Etiole That Afternoon When Quaraun Got Stuck In a Crab Trap That Big Bad Darkness in His Heart A Threatening Letter Too Busy Cooking Lemon Tarts Toobe's Well-Prompted Apocalypse (A ChatBot Plans Global Domination) The Trade Caravan A Tumble In The River The Vacuous Tavern Fool Waiter, There's A Head In My Soup Wandering Merchant: The Trader’s Cryptic Goods (Part 2 of ShipYard At Dusk) What I Wish I Knew Before Not Becoming an Astrophysicist When a Government Tries to Cover Its Crimes Why the Sea is Salt A Winter Wizard Wishing For Lobster Rolls-Never Make Wishes In The Presence of Wizards WORMS! Wrath of the Sacred Pink JellyFish Yelling at the Snowstorm You've Only Known Our World Through The Eyes of a Madman You trust that nonsense over a map? Zombies Are Not the Worst Thing Here {TW: Love fucking wins} Zwodder: A Drowsy Stupid State of Mind Hmmm... soooo... I was making the above list to ALL the links to EVERY Quaraun story published on my website here, and adding it into the footer of my site, here as you can see, which loads on every page, and then I realized... wait... there are over two thousand Pink Necromancer stories up free to read on my website, I can't put two thousand links on every single page! Whoops! LOL! So, now I'm putting list to ALL the links to EVERY Quaraun story published on my website here on this page instead and just link that page to the footer instead. But also I'll just leave some of the links in the footer, as you can see above. FacebookXPinterestTumblrRedditWhatsApp ShareFacebookXPinterestTumblrRedditWhatsApp The Park Bench Method of Writing

1. Official Home Page Of Wendy C Allen: Old Orchard Beach & Biddeford, Maine's Autistic Artist, Doll Designer, Art Car Builder, and Dark Fantasy MPreg Author
2. Just Write!
3. Write something! Just do it!! Right now! Writing something! You can do it! You know you want to! I believe in you!
4. Only one thing is writing...WRITING! So just start writing, right now, today.
5. The Park Bench Method of Writing Rapid Release Fiction without Burning Out

1. Official Home Page Of Wendy C Allen: Old Orchard Beach & Biddeford, Maine's Autistic Artist, Doll Designer, Art Car Builder, and Dark Fantasy MPreg Author
2. Just Write!
3. Write something! Just do it!! Right now! Writing something! You can do it! You know you want to! I believe in you!
4. Only one thing is writing...WRITING! So just start writing, right now, today.
5. The Park Bench Method of Writing Rapid Release Fiction without Burning Out

The Park Bench Method of Writing

IMPORTANT NOTE:

All the writing prompts found here on my website, are also available in printed paperback editions, on Amazon.

There are no ebook editions as they are already available digitally here on my website.

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