"Satisfied" from Hamilton (writing prompts!)

Yes, all of today's writing prompts were inspired by one song, but it's only the BEST song ever, so I think we've find plenty to mine from it.

As always, we'll start with a reading — a little inspiration — before we get to today’s writing prompts. This is Hanya Yanagihara.

"I was recently reminded of these lines by David Foster Wallace: 'The new rebels might be artists willing to risk the yawn, the rolled eyes, the cool smile, the nudged ribs, the parody of gifted ironists, the "Oh, how banal." To risk accusations of sentimentality, melodrama. Of overcredulity. Of softness.' I think he’s right. We’re living in a literary age (at least in America) that is marked by a sense of distance, a coolness, in all senses of that word. To be too obviously, unapologetically emotional is to risk being considered foolish, or at the very least not serious.

I hadn’t intended this book as a response to that coolness, but I suppose I now see it as such. What I did know was that I wanted to write something big, something excessive: something extravagant and self-indulgent and large of emotion and feeling—the kind of book I wanted to read myself, the kind that is comfortable ignoring the parameters of good taste. I’ve talked before of how I wanted to marry two unlikely forms—the fairy tale and the contemporary naturalistic novel—but I also wanted there to be something operatic about the book, in both its structure and its celebration of melodrama. I sometimes think we need to be reminded of violence at its most visceral and explicit: it exists, after all, and there should be no sense that its detailing is not a subject for serious literature."

Tonight’s prompts were inspired by the song SATISFIED from Hamilton. (Watch/listen to it here.)