In my day job, I teach creative writing at Seton Hill University, and one of my many tasks is advising the campus literary magazine, Eye Contact. They are running a special theme issue on “Masks” for Spring 2021, in response to the Covid pandemic, and I made a list of prompts for one of their workshops, as well as for my current creative writing class.
Since masks are an icon in the horror genre, I thought I’d also share that instigation with the public here, too (even though not all the prompts are “scary”). If you’re a writer looking for something to trigger a story idea, poetry premise, or journal entry, see below! Teachers, too, should feel free to steal these. [If you’d prefer to download a copy for your own personal use, I’ve posted a downloadable .pdf version (also available on Academia.edu) of what follows.]
PROMPTS ABOUT MASKS:
Although the following list is intended to inspire creative writing during the Covid-19 pandemic, not all of the prompts necessarily relate to face masking during the health crisis, and instead invite you to contemplate the variety of ways in which masks can operate in any given culture or in the arts.
- Write a monologue (first person talk) from the point of view of your mask.
- Draft a poem entitled “Hide and Speak”
- Your story begins with a masked woman pushing a cart through the aisles of a supermarket during a pandemic. A very young child sits in the front of the shopping basket. The child is not wearing a mask. Describe their encounter with a stranger who is upset by this contradiction.
- Reflect on all the things that you hide behind your mask in a short creative non-fiction piece or realistic memoir.
- How differently did you wear your pandemic mask on Halloween day? Journal about this as a source for a possible poem or flash fiction piece.
- Create a four panel graphic narrative featuring a mask or some kind of facial covering, called “What’s Missing.”
- Research how different cultures integrate masks in their daily life. And then write about a conflict of your own design that masks might create or resolve.
- Write about the way any famous masked hero or villain or other well-known movie character feels when their mask is off.
- Describe your favorite mask — or perhaps the different masks you wear for different circumstances — and why.
- Describe the personality of a modern “Man of Many Masks.”
- Write a scene set in a very different (if not downright bizarre) kind of “masquerade.”
- Riff on Poe’s famous short story title to come up with your own original title: “The Masque of the [adjective] [noun].” Write the story or poem to earn it.
- Robert Bloch once wrote, “Horror is the removal of masks.” What does this mean to you?
- Write a poem that includes each of the following words related to masking:
- disguise, front, screen, obscure, veil
- Write a poetic list of “The Masks We Throw Away”
- Imagine in great detail what it would be like to perform impossible or absurd actions while wearing a face mask: eating, kissing, etc.
- In what ways did you already mask something about yourself, prior to the pandemic? How will you truly unmask yourself after?
- Research the arguments that conspiracy theorists are making against mask mandates (maybe start with a google search for “mask conspiracies”), and use what you find as a springboard into a science-fiction story or a humorous piece.
- Write a prose poem in appreciation of all the problems that your face mask has prevented.
