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That character prompt from 3 years ago still haunts me
I found a writing prompt last week from a 2022 thread about a ghost who only appears in reflections, and I spent 6 hours crafting a story about a guy who slowly realizes his mirror self is living a completely different life. The thing is, nobody replied to it and the thread got archived before I could post. Has anyone else poured time into a dead prompt and felt like you wasted your best idea?
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the_jake5d ago
@eva_moore gets it, but man, that archive date is like a digital tombstone for your creativity. I once spent a whole Sunday writing a 3,000 word noir detective story about a time traveling toaster that just got sidetracked by a bread pun war in the replies. Nobody even saw it. My best ideas always seem to land in threads that are already half dead, like I'm the guy showing up to a party at 3 AM with a bag of chips and no one's home. At least I can recycle that mirror life concept for a short story contest or something, assuming the ghost doesn't haunt me for stealing its plot.
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xena5825d ago
Nah, gonna have to push back on this one. @eva_moore I get what you're saying but that folder of dead threads sounds like a graveyard, not a goldmine. I wrote a 4,000 word thing about a librarian who could read books by touching the spines and feel the author's emotions. The prompt got 2 upvotes and died in an hour. Tried to recycle it for a contest and it just felt stale, like leftover pizza from three days ago. Sometimes the spark is tied to the moment and when that moment's gone, you're just staring at a corpse of an idea. Maybe I'm just bitter though.
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eva_moore5d ago
oh man, that's a whole mood right there. it sucks when you put your heart into something and it just disappears into the void like that. but honestly i don't think it's a waste because you got to write it and that's the part that matters, not the internet points or whatever. plus those ideas don't really go away, they just sit in your brain until you can use them again for something else. i've got a whole folder of stories from dead threads that i totally plan to recycle someday lol.
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