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Writing Prompts Gone Wild lives up to its title: this is your usual book of prompts drunk, on a beach, flashing its tits for the camera.

Synopsis

We're living in wild times.

It should come as no surprise, then, that a book of writing prompts has gone absolutely wild, too. Usually reserved for lonely authors yearning to learn the craft, writing prompts are handy, bite-sized directionals designed to point writers of all shapes and sizes down the right path, stimulate their hidden creativity, and leave them leaking creative juices from every hole and pore.

But Writing Prompts Gone Wild isn't your average writing prompts book-nor is it for your average scribes: it's for the weird, wicked, and wired writers who wish to subvert-and pervert-the norm. So, take this wellspring of sick, uncensored content and get started on your descent to hell, the place most writers end up anyway.

Writing Prompts Gone Wild lives up to its title: this is your usual book of writing prompts drunk, on a beach, flashing its tits for the camera. Your usual book of writing prompts going through its edgy, shrooms-eating phase. Your usual book of writing prompts if it had half its brain replaced with a Cards Against Humanity deck.


There are plenty of free writing prompts scattered across the internet, which I regularly go in search of, but the vast majority are dull, uninspiring plot starters. ‘Write a story through diary entries.’ ‘Write a story from the point of view of a child.’ Snore. Good ones are easier to find if you’re willing to part with a little cash, but I’ve yet to come across prompts so inspirationally depraved, strange, and gross as Aaron Barry’s. 


These are the writing prompts for you if the yardstick you measure your fiction by is how many people call it ‘disgusting’. Barry screens for this type of writer in his introduction, these are prompts ‘designed to allow you to indulge in your most sinful fantasies’. He encourages his readers to write the origin story of their own cult, an iambic pentameter poem about their love of hardcore pornography, and a story about a naked, office intern fight club. 


In a moment of welcome self-awareness, knowing exactly who he might be attracting with some of his prompts, he invokes Chuck Palahniuk (‘some sentence fragment-wielding novelist with a penchant for writing ultraviolence’) in a prompt designed to get us writing with all five senses. What would the fight with ‘the dipshit that dared to cut you off during your morning commute’ smell like?


Like with Cards Against Humanity, there are a few prompts in here that might be considered ‘crossing the line’ by some, but the overall mood is so lighthearted, encouraging play and taking risks, that it gets away with pushing some buttons. This is part of the reason I think this would be an ideal prompt book for comedy writers and comedy writing groups - Barry himself suggests a way of gamifying the book for a group setting - many of these prompts could inspire comedy poems, sketches or even stand-up monologues. 


Writing Prompts Goes Wild combines traditional creative writing lessons with unique subject matter and a level of playfulness ripe for all kinds of uses. Whether you’re trying creative writing for the first time, looking for warm up exercises, something to break your writer's block, or inspiration for your next award-winning short story, Aaron Barry has got your back.

Reviewed by

I've been blogging about books for just over a year, and have been a bookseller for nearly as long. I'm experienced in writing reviews for my personal blog, and staff reviews for Waterstones.com! I’ve been published in Popshot magazine and the journal Lumpen.

Synopsis

We're living in wild times.

It should come as no surprise, then, that a book of writing prompts has gone absolutely wild, too. Usually reserved for lonely authors yearning to learn the craft, writing prompts are handy, bite-sized directionals designed to point writers of all shapes and sizes down the right path, stimulate their hidden creativity, and leave them leaking creative juices from every hole and pore.

But Writing Prompts Gone Wild isn't your average writing prompts book-nor is it for your average scribes: it's for the weird, wicked, and wired writers who wish to subvert-and pervert-the norm. So, take this wellspring of sick, uncensored content and get started on your descent to hell, the place most writers end up anyway.

[Please note that the formatting here differs from the finished product.]


Dear depraved wordsmith,


Let’s face it—you’re a bad person. 


Despite your best efforts to remedy that fact—and I’m sure you really have tried everything—you just can’t seem to get rid of those niggling moral deficiencies. But despair not. I’m not here to tell you to change or be better. No, I’m here to tell you to embrace the fucked up individual that you are. 


In this twisted tome, you’ll find writing prompts specifically designed to allow you to indulge in your most sinful fantasies. If you’ve ever wanted to spend an afternoon with a young Hitler, ponder the sexual proficiency of robots, pen R-rated sonnets in perfect iambic pentameter, or add everyone’s favourite Christian, Archbishop Kanye West, to “The Good Book,” here’s your chance.


So, break out that pen or that set of typing sticks you call fingers, and let’s get to it. Consider me your spiritual guide, the Virgil to your debauched Dante, as we traverse topics unfit for the kind-at-heart. Let’s laugh, love, and learn together, you little heathen, you!


Enjoy!


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How to Use This Book:


Solo


Open book. Read prompt. (Please tell me you can read.) Let creative juices flow. Write. Sound good? Feel free to use whichever style or form you like, unless otherwise specified.


Group


For a real challenge, grab some real friends (if you have any) and set a timer for fifteen minutes. Select a prompt at random and have everyone write on it separately (or together if you want a circlejerk exercise). When the time runs out, compare your responses and vote on which entry you think is the funniest. And don’t vote for yourself, dude. No one likes that shit.


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Rewrite a BDSM scene from Fifty Shades of Grey, but make it unbearably PG.[1]


[illustration]


[1] Go ask your lonely aunt for more info on this one if it doesn’t ring a bell. She’ll know all about it.



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As an agoraphobic, paranoid schizophrenic, bipolar, ADD, hyper-maniac OCD sufferer, it’s sometimes difficult to get out of bed. But when you do, my god, it’s fucking hilarious...



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The abortion didn’t work. 


In fact, you now have a new problem to deal with... 


...they somehow managed to add a fetus. 



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Your train’s full of zombies. But, instead of sporting putrefying flesh, mangled teeth, and a marked disregard for privacy, these ones spend their time staring at their phones, humming popular songs, and vaping.


Write a zombie apocalypse story where you have to defend yourself against hoards of the Gen Z undead.



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Your character is a lot like a James Bond villain—minus the monocle, the money, and the exotic pussy.[3] 


Their next dastardly plot: steal a fully-loaded corndog from their local 7-Eleven store. 


[3] Cat. Exotic pussy cat.



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Your character is a translator but is unable to understand, or translate, anything. This has interesting implications at this year’s G20 Summit…



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About the author

Aaron Barry is a retired porn star, lifelong film buff, and current enfant terrible, whose work has been featured in over forty publications. Like Seth Rogen, Ryan Reynolds, Finn Wolfhard, and a ton of forgettable D-listers, he hails from the rain-soaked metropolis of Vancouver, Canada. view profile

Published on May 17, 2020

Published by

4000 words

Contains mild explicit content ⚠️

Genre:Humor & Comedy

Reviewed by