Write about a WOMAN-eating plant (as opposed to just a man-eater).
Everyone says they’re afraid of clowns.  What are clowns scared of?  Depict their worst nightmare.
Ever heard the expression, “Let your freak flag fly”?  Write a story or poem about a freak nation and its hallowed flag.  (Option: try drawing or describing the iconography of the [...]

+ Reverse the roles in an alien autopsy.
+ Choose an inanimate object from your kitchen cabinet. Give it a mouth. Allow it to unexpectedly speak one morning to a child while he is preparing his own breakfast.
+ Speculate on paper: If you were to eat your own brain matter, what do you think it would [...]

+ Write a story from the viewpoint of a groundskeeper at the graveyard — avoiding any of the typical trappings of the horror genre. Make it mundane, even. Avoid using speculative fiction technique at all until you get to page three. Then, if you need to jazz things up, let her rip.
+ Devise a [...]

+ Bind a book in something dastardly…but avoid the obvious (lemme guess: skin, right?).
+ There’s a campaign afoot to nominate Cthulhu for president (http://www.cthulhu.org/). Create a Lovecraftian story that satirizes today’s politics.
+ Write a short-short with the title “Surgical Puppet Theater”
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Congratulations to Kathleen J. Trimmer who recently published a short-short called “Getting Off Death [...]

+ What does the moon say to the lycanthrope? Write a monologue.
+ A wife suspects her husband is a serial killer when he’s not. Script their argument one night when he comes home late from work.
+ Torture a competitive eater. Don’t use hotdogs.
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If you publish something instigated by this department, let me [...]

+ Dramatize an electroshock therapy session in second person, future tense.
+ Sketch a humorous conversation involving the devil’s accountant.
+ Adapt the features and traits of any cartoon character into a “real” creature or man, exploring the freakish results. (e.g. What would a “Spongebob Squarepants” creature >really< be like, if living flesh in the real [...]

+ Reveal a horrifying disfigurement behind a woman’s veil.
+ Something is “bulging” beneath Charlie’s sweater. Jane is obsessively fixated on this. Dramatize the revelation of Charlie’s hidden surprise.
+ Create a character who has no fingernails. What happened to them and what surprising skill can he perform without them?
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I’m sad to report that [...]

+ Place a deaf person in a burning building. First sentence: “(S)He didn’t hear the alarm.”
+ Place a wheelchair-bound character on a sinking ship.
+ Dramatize the methods of a “slow” serial killer.
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Instigation is a WEEKLY department in Hellnotes newsletter…who also now publishes a new online magazine of stories based on my prompts, called [...]

+ Depict an allergy gone haywire.
+ Pen the monologue of a nostalgic vampire.
+ Script a dialogue between the Devil and his publicist.
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Instigation is a WEEKLY department in Hellnotes newsletter.

It’s twisted memoir time!
+ Dramatize your own funeral (and/or wake) from the viewpoint of the person in attendance most likely to be bored by it all.
+ Look deep inside and mull over your greatest fear. Now write about what you think caused you to be so scared of this silly little thing. Consider [...]

+ Invent a new form of water torture.
+ Give a character an occupation involving cages (warden, zookeeper, dancer, wrestler…), and then trap them inside of one.
+ Murder an idea.
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Instigation is a WEEKLY department in Hellnotes newsletter. If you publish or post something instigated by this department, let me know and I’ll mention it here!

“Creative Oppositions”
+ Imagine an awful way to die. Now physically turn the victim upside-down. Write.
+ Choose a common horror icon or trope. Put the word “Anti-” in front of it. Consider that your title. See what turns up.
+ Describe a notorious painful experience (root canal, etc.) from the viewpoint of [...]

+ Describe an invented mental illness in scientific language, as though an entry in the DSM-IV. For structure, visit allpsych.com
+ Lovingly describe an over-the-top imaginary weapon, as though writing the sales pitch that appears in a mail order catalog. For inspiration, try crkt.com
+ Write an encyclopedia entry about an infamous (but fictional) massacre. [...]

+ Write an instructional guide for making something ghastly, but don’t refer to the thing itself. Have your reader try to guess what it might be.
+ Discover an alien ear.
+ Describe a monstrous living landscape.
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Instigation is a WEEKLY department in Hellnotes newsletter (returning in February).
If you publish or post something instigated by this [...]

+ Write a twisted news story in the style of Weekly World News.
+ Borrowing an idea from The Omen, write about a photographer whose portraits predict the manner of the subject’s death.
+ Write a monster’s monologue under the influence of truth serum.
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Instigation is a WEEKLY department in Hellnotes newsletter!
If you publish something instigated by this [...]