Want to write drag stories? Don’t know where to start? Well, here is where I’m going to periodically post some prompts to get your juices flowing — the creative juices!

Prompt #16, August 21, 2024

In drag, we often create a bizarro alternate reality that we inhabit onstage. What if that bizarro alternate reality was reality? Tell me a story set in that world.

Prompt #15, August 14, 2024

There’s a shortage that the straights can’t seem to perceive. Tell me about it.

Prompt #14, August 7, 2024

Think of someplace nobody goes. Why do we go there?

Prompt #13, July 26, 2024

What is a fantasy or science fiction trope that you hate?

For me it’s the “chosen one” — those stories where someone was pre-ordained to save the world just because they’re special in some way (usually because they’re actually of noble blood but being raised by a humble family). Sorry, no. We’re each and every one of us different and unique, and what makes the people who save the day different is that their particular set of unique was well suited to a situation they found themselves in and they rose to the challenge instead of deciding it was someone else’s problem. No one is better by birth. Period.

So pick the trope that is your own pet peeve.

What would a story look like if you told it the way it should happen, not what happens in the trope?

Tell me that story.

(Yes, you can totally send me a “drag queens are the chosen ones” story.)

Prompt #12, July 18, 2024

Sometimes delays happen. Often, there’s a great story behind them. Tell me that story.

Prompt #11, May 23, 2024

Open whatever music app you use. Look at the top 10 most played songs.

Tell me that story.

Prompt #10, May 9, 2024

Make a list titled “Things Straight People Do.” It’s the things that to straight people are the most normal things in the world, but we’d never do. Yes, you can start with the obvious one, but keep going. Shoot for at least 30 entries. Spend some time watching straight people in a public place if it helps.

Now, look about halfway down the list. Pick one of the things you listed. Whichever one jumps out at you.

Tell me about a world where that is the freakish behavior that people want to outlaw.

Prompt #9, May 2, 2024

We’re always told that as writers, we express our feelings through our words.

Tell me a story where you express somebody else’s.

Prompt #8, April 25, 2024

Step 1: Identify something from popular entertainment (music, movies, TV, books) that is very, very popular, but that you can’t stand.

Step 2: Analyze what makes it so popular.

Step 3: Now do that, but turn it up to 11.

Prompt #7, April 18, 2024

Where is it hidden?

Prompt #6, April 11, 2024

Take a look at this list of Speculative Fiction Tropes. Pick two at random. Combine them and make them drag.

Prompt #5, April 4, 2024

Tell me a drag fairy tale.

Prompt #4, March 28, 2024

Think about your drag community. What do they need to be told?

Prompt #3, March 21, 2024

In drag, we alter more than just the clothes each gender is expected by society to wear. Think about one of those things. Now, imagine the world where what we change is the case and has always been the case. What is that world like? Write a story in that world.

Prompt #2, March 14, 2024

Step 1: Select an historical event. I know history books tend to be about battles, but there are plenty of other times when history was made by people coming together with a common goal or when outside tragedy struck and people responded without going to war. Pick an event that appeals to you, but ideally one that’s not one that everyone already knows everything about. Then research it. How did it really go down? What was the psychology of the key players, and how did that affect what they did?

Step 2: Replace at least one of the major players with a drag character.

Step 3: Change the setting to a secondary world (science fiction or fantasy), where the rules are a little different than they were in the real world.

Step 4: Now, write that historical event, but how it plays out with those changes.

Prompt #1, March 7, 2024

Step 1: Read three stories published this month. For best results, take them from three different publications. For optimum results, use the ones that readers are gushing about.

Step 2: Find one thing that all three of them have in common. Make it something about the story itself, not, like, “they all sold to e-zines.”

Step 3: Take that one thing and ask yourself, “How would this be different if it were in drag?”

Step 4: Flesh out the consequences of that change until you’ve got a good short story structure (you know the one: three complications, a climax, and a resolution).

Step 5: Write it and see what you get.