Every prompt lately is just 'person finds a door in the woods' and I'm over it

I scrolled r/writingprompts for 20 minutes last night and counted 7 separate posts about mysterious doors, portals, or hidden rooms. It's like people think atmosphere counts as a plot. I've been writing for 3 years now, mostly short horror, and the prompts that actually help are the ones with a conflict built in, like 'a librarian discovers a book that rewrites her memories every time she opens it' or 'two strangers share a taxi during a blackout in Chicago'. A door in the woods just gives me a setting, not a story. Does anyone else filter out certain trigger words just to find prompts that have a character goal or an obstacle? How do you search for better prompts without wading through 50 variations of the same idea?

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finley_gonzalez496d ago

Skip the door, just walk past it and save us all the trouble. My filter list is basically just "woodsy" and "portal" at this point, because apparently nobody can think of a setting that ISN'T a creepy forest. It's like the writing prompt version of ordering the same burger every time and acting surprised it tastes the same. Honestly, at this rate, someone should just make a sub called r/doorsinwoods and corral all that "mystery" in one spot. Give me a prompt with a broken elevator or a clingy neighbor, ANYTHING with a pulse.