Find Inspiration with the CanLit Premise Generator
Image courtesy of the CanLit Premise Generator
What Canada needs right now isn’t Bridgerton, Ru Paul’s Drag Race, or Amazon (absolutely not Amazon). It needs Canadian literature—chock-full of Canadiana.
The CanLit Premise Generator is a marvellously bizarre website that delivers random writing prompts with accompanying moody images pulled from Flickr to get you started on the next great (and hilarious) work of Canadian literature.
The premises combines tongue-in-cheek pokes at typical tropes found in Canadian literature like harsh weather, old men, and childhood homes with the current players like Drake, web developers, and the Maple Syrup Heist.
Here’s a peek at some of our favourite premises:
A new immigrant explores the Maritimes hoping to finally and for good reunite Alexisonfire.
A family abandons their life in the Oil Patch while helplessly watching as the harvest fails.
A Vancouver software engineer falls through the ice but in a Little Mosque on the Prairie kind of way.
Tree planters find success growing hydrangeas with Mennonites
An old man tersely buys a notebook at a thrift store, learning that surviving is a victory all its own.
The daughter of an MP becomes involved in the fur trade, haunted by the spectre of their grandfather's mistakes.
Paul Gross tries to live for... reasons.
Our team of experts has refreshed the generator over 40 times at the time of writing this and have yet to receive a repeat prompt. Forty times seemed like enough considering we eventually had to move on with our lives.
You can add to the generator by going to the bottom of the page and clicking “Send a Pitch!” which then takes you to a Google Form. We’ve submitted dozens of pitches about our queen and commander Carly Rae Jepsen, but have yet to see it appear from the generator. One day…
If you actually do end up writing a short story from any of these prompts, Shrapnel highly recommends you send it to us. We love this stuff. Tweet your premise and tag us on Twitter if you get a particularly spicy one as well!
Please… we’re so sick of reading Michael Bublé fanfiction. There’s only so many times that man can save Christmas.
Jo Ramsay
is a Canadian media and publishing enthusiast who currently works as a Publicity Assistant at Simon and Schuster Canada as well as the editorial director of Shrapnel Magazine. She’s worked in publishing for over five years at places such as PRISM International, This Magazine, Arsenal Pulp Press, Greystone Books, The Pigeon and The Ubyssey. She’s lived in Canada, the UK, and Japan.