Monday Matchup Writing Challenge: Using the News as Muse

WRITING PROMPT:The News MuseFeel free to take the following prompt home or post a response (500 words or fewer, funny, sad or stirring) in the Comments section below. By posting,…

WRITING PROMPT:The News Muse
Feel free to take the following prompt home or post a
response (500 words or fewer, funny, sad or stirring) in the Comments section below.
By posting, you’ll be automatically entered in our
occasional around-the-office swag drawings.
If
you’re having trouble with the
captcha code sticking, e-mail your piece and the prompt to me at
writersdigest@fwmedia.com, with “Promptly” in the subject line, and I’ll
make sure it gets up.

Log on to a news website, and match up three random words from three article headlines to use in a story of your own.

For example, via CNN this morning, I could have used “billion,” “targeted” and “swans” from the following headlines*:

“Half a billion eggs recalled in 17 states”
“WikiLeaks founder: I was targeted”
“Sell queen's swans, Briton suggests”

*There was even a Spider-Man headline option in there. But I forced myself to resist.

--

Want more writing prompts and exercises? Brian Kiteley has packed more than 200 wildly original ones into his 3 A.M. Epiphany. Check it out here.


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Zachary Petit is a freelance journalist and editor, and a lifelong literary and design nerd. He's also a former senior managing editor of Writer’s Digest magazine. Follow him on Twitter @ZacharyPetit.