“What if” posts are not simple writing prompts but supercharged explorations into the many directions a simple prompt can take you. Here you will find conventional questions and “what if” questions surrounding a prompt to help get the creative juices flowing.
From Writer’s Digest A Year of Writing Prompts comes this prompt.
Write a story about a character who digs up a time capsule.
The easy questions
What is in the time capsule?
Where did he dig it up?
How old are the things in the capsule?
What if the contents revealed a secret? Who shot JFK? Do aliens exists? Hitler still alive?
Or a secret more domestic? Mother had another child? Your father is not your birth father?
Or a secret more sinister? Neighbor murder the previous owner of the land the capsule is buried?
What if the time capsule contained things from the future, like a history of events and you could profit from them today? Invest in a stock?
What if it contained something harmful, a virus?
How about going into the sci-fi arena?
What if the capsule is from an alien life form and from a distance universe?
What if it contained an alien life form, dead or alive? Alive, maybe so small it crawled out when open?
What if it was an attempt at communicating with us and the capsule contained a way to communicate back but it will take time to figure it out?
What if the capsule was from the past but before the big bang? What if it contained spiritual evidence?
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