Hmm, I think I disagree with I think a good prompt offers just enough specificity to start the imagination going, and then as little as possible that blocks that momentum. At least for myself, based on your examples, I find the first version of each more potent for my imagination than the second, because the second version is too wide-open.
I'm a big fan of constraint as a fuel for creativity. Constraint can be thematic (something to include or exclude) or structural (as in limericks or sonnets or acrostics), and too much constraint does block momentum, I guess, but not enough constraint just leaves me staring bewildered at the prompt. So I personally prefer to start with A ghost overturns your car. What do you do? because the fact of the car gives me something more to start with; faced with A ghost upsets something essential I will spend too much time trying to figure out what is essential to me that could be upset by a ghost, and never get out of the starting blocks.
(I agree that the question is necessary. You meet six moon fairies. They take you on a journey down the river really requires do you ever get home? or another question at the end. I'm okay with the open-ended where do they take you? here because there's a lot that can be extracted from moon fairies and the implicit idea of taking you somewhere, and to me it seems like more guidance than the ghosts upsetting something.)
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branchandroot
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Date: 2022-01-12 04:40 pm (UTC)I'm a big fan of constraint as a fuel for creativity. Constraint can be thematic (something to include or exclude) or structural (as in limericks or sonnets or acrostics), and too much constraint does block momentum, I guess, but not enough constraint just leaves me staring bewildered at the prompt. So I personally prefer to start with because the fact of the car gives me something more to start with; faced with I will spend too much time trying to figure out what is essential to me that could be upset by a ghost, and never get out of the starting blocks.
(I agree that the question is necessary. really requires do you ever get home? or another question at the end. I'm okay with the open-ended where do they take you? here because there's a lot that can be extracted from moon fairies and the implicit idea of taking you somewhere, and to me it seems like more guidance than the ghosts upsetting something.)