Writing Prompts Inspired by Octavia Butler's "Bloodchild" (Spooky Writing Season Week 5)

Welcome to Week Five, the final installment of our Spooky Writing Season writing prompt series. For our last week, Jessica dives into the world of body horror in the short story "Bloodchild" by Octavia Butler. Try the prompts, and thank you for joining us on our terrifying literary travels!

You can order from Bookshop.org or read for free online here.​
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​***Spoilers Below***

"Bloodchild" by Octavia Butler

Happy Halloween friends! We've made it to the last week of our Spooky Writing Season series. As your resident scaredy cat, I hope you've enjoyed my (occasionally unorthodox) exploration of horror, and I wanted to close out our series with a classic creature feature from the one and only Octavia Butler.

I was an undergrad at Western Washington University the first time I read "Bloodchild," and, truthfully, I had a hard time wrapping my head around this story. All I knew was that I was deeply unsettled by the description of what appeared to be a sentient insect who was eager to find a host for its progeny. The description of T'Gatoi's movement was enough to keep me up at night, "she made a lot of little clicking sounds when she walked on bare floor, each limb clicking in succession as it touched down. Waves of little clicks."

*Cue the bloodcurdling screams.

It was a world out of my nightmares, but Butler was able to make it sound so familiar. Even Bram's brutal surgery felt like a twisted take on a c-section, a procedure that pregnant people undergo all the time. The moment I couldn't understand was when Gan offered himself up to T'Gatoi as a host body. After what he'd just witnessed, I was sure he'd run in the other direction. With the way he handled the gun, her murder didn't feel far off either.

Then I was struck by a line I hadn't noticed before. Gan is waiting at his kitchen table, a table built by his deceased father, and he thinks to himself, "Now I sat leaning on it, missing him. I could have talked to him. He had done it three times in his long life. Three clutches of eggs, three times being opened up and sewed up. How had he done it? How did anyone do it?"

Suddenly, the narrative came together for me. The way Gan's mother had acted that evening, her knowing looks. The extra sting from T'Gatoi that helped her sleep. The inebriating effects of the eggs on his siblings. Implantation had always been the plan for the evening; Gan was just the last to know. But when he realized what was truly being asked of him, when he saw what his sister would take on if T'Gatoi followed his instructions and chose her instead, he knew it was ultimately his responsibility. He knew that he would have to be the one to take this on, just like his father did, and just like one of his children would have to in the far-off future.

A terrifying inheritance.

Writing Prompts inspired by "Bloodchild"

1. Use this as a first line: “I sat down at my mother’s table, waiting for quiet.”
2. “Bloodchild” takes place on the last night of Gan’s childhood. Consider the last night of your own childhood and write the story of that night.
3. In her afterword, Butler asks the question “who knows what we humans have that others might be willing to take in trade for a livable space on a world not our own?” Imagine a scenario where humans are bartering with entities from another world. Write a story or poem about what it is that they want from us.
4. Creature Feature! Let your imagination run wild as you dream up your very own monster. Write a story or poem that explores their backstory.
5. Write a dialogue between a mother and someone she doesn’t fully trust with her child.
6. Begin with: “They said it was an honor.”
7. Write a poem or story using these four words: “urgent,” “vessel,” “host,” and “promise.”

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