I tried writing a prompt based on a real newspaper article and it flopped hard

Last month I took a true crime story from a local Detroit paper and turned it into a writing prompt about a missing evidence box. I thought it would be a hit because real life is stranger than fiction, right? Nope. Only two people replied and one said it felt too scripted. I learned that just because something happened in real life doesn't mean it makes a good prompt. Real events have weird tangents that don't fit a story arc. People want prompts that spark imagination, not ones that stick too close to facts. Now I tweak real stories more heavily before I post. Has anyone else tried pulling from true events and gotten a similar letdown?

2 comments

2 Comments

jade61820d agoMost Upvoted

Maybe you're overthinking it a bit. Two people replied to a prompt, that's not exactly a disaster, it's just a low turnout. Real life is messy and weird, but a prompt is just a jumping off point, not a documentary.

josephf1020d ago

You ever think that maybe the issue wasn't the real story itself, but how much you leaned on the "true crime" label? I mean, people come to prompts looking for a sandbox to play in, not a guided tour of something that already happened. When you say it's based on a real case, you kinda trap their expectations. They think they gotta be accurate or respect the facts or something. Maybe it's just me but the best prompts are the ones where you take a tiny seed from reality and let people go wild with it in a completely different direction.