I had 104 ideas for sci-fi horror stories
And they are free this weekend only.
Back in 2013 I set up my own Creative Writing society at my uni. There had been some before, but they crumbled, and so a gap was left in their absence. I wiggled my way in, and made the uni’s only academic social at the time.
We even had homework (which I made) and tasks, and visiting writers, and movie analysis nights, and a poetry walk through a forest, and some other stuff that I really want to bring here to my Substack audience eventually, once there’s enough of us that I can point on a map and a handful of you will be there.
But enough about that. What’s the free thing today?
Well, my society had a lot of material, a lot of prompts and presentations and ideas. All that work fizzled out when I graduated, but I didn’t forget, and neither did those I left behind there. The society continued in my absence, fuelled by the creative passions of those who I met in their first year.
And as the years passed, I considered bringing it back again.
That was originally what my patreon was for.
But I realised, that’s not the form I wanted some of these classrooms to take.
Some writers are introverted, or simply prefer to work alone.
And what’s the best format for quiet contemplation?
A book, obviously.
Conveniently I already knew what a book was, so I set about creating this pair.
And since you’re reading this email (thank you), you do not have to buy these books. They are free for this weekend only.
Why?
Because I want more people to read them. And, whilst I am in that weird murky bit of time between publishing books, I want to keep these older ones spinning around in Amazon’s vast semi-sentient algorithm.
I do plan at some point to have these as the entry books for an online course I am making, but you know writing four sci-fi books and three poetry collections simultaneously whilst pursuing a career as a shirt designer and a comedian is taking up a lot of my time, so I figured, why allow my busy life to keep these fun prompts from you?
So here they are. One weekend only.
I am proud of the 104 prompts in these books, and I think you’ll find some use in some of them.
In the books I ask that anyone who uses the prompts for published stories without adding much to them, does give me some credit, because the core ideas were mine. Some of them are less weird than others, but I think my flair is present in a few. These prompts are meant as guides, as diving boards you can use to begin a storytelling journey. They are the seed, they are not the tree. You make the tree.
On the subject of trees, I have branched out again and I have a short story collection coming out at some point (after WKTH) which is inspired by some of these prompts.
Q: Was that a spoiler for a new unreleased book?
A: Yes it was. It will come out AFTER the seven stories series, so it’s a while away yet, but I have added yet another book to juggle. It’s how I like to work. Ideas move between books before publication.
Anyway, here’s the link. Same as usual, linktr.ee/phillipcarter. All you need to do is press this button and scroll to “52 weeks of scifi” or “52 weeks of horror” and it’ll throw you at the Amazon page. Probably the US one, but the UK one shouldn’t be too hard to find.
US links
UK links
Please share this far and wide. Let’s get writing.