“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.
Prompt is about insanity.
What if a hired hitman is suddenly haunted by his past kills? What if the hitman’s first victim starts appearing around him? In a café, or in a crowd at a sporting event? But what if the hitman never knows for sure it was his first victim? He only catches a glimpse but that glimpse triggers some familiarity.
This all seems familiar and we need to add a bit more. Additions to make this line of thought more unique can involve the reason behind the first hit. What if the first hit was by accident? What if the first hit was a friend and the hitman tried to make sure his friend didn’t know it was him before he died, but they locked eyes just before he pulled the trigger? What if the hitman finds out that his current love interest is the sister/brother of his first victim? Or ex? Parent? Father of their child?
Let’s think of other additions. What if it wasn’t just the first victim, but some of the other people he performed hits on? What if the hitman knows his victims could not possibly know each other but he witnesses them talking? I have to think how crazy the hitman would be from some of these events.
Let’s add more. What if the victims have something, not necessarily unique, but something the hitman remembers from each one? For example, maybe one listened to music he can’t stand. What if his radio is on a county station every time he gets into his car? Or go on the hallucination side. What if a victim had a mole or scar that was visible and one day he wakes up and has the same. Maybe for a day or two, or what if each item he remembers for each victim becomes part of his every day. The scar stays and the music plays, every day.
Adding more. What if the hitman starts seeing things in his home he doesn’t know where the item came from? What if as he investigates these items, he learns they are from his many victims?
Who is the protagonist in all of this? The victims? What if all these events were to trigger the hitman’s insanity by a rival hitman or someone who was hired to take him out? What if these events occur because of some elaborate play by some homicide detective who knows who the killer is for a number of his cold cases but can’t even prove an ounce of it? What if this detective staged these events as he believed the hitman would check some of the places where he buried the bodies?
This should be a good start on driving your hitman character in crazy directions so get to writing and create a world of insanity.
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