After 2 years of ignoring writing prompts, I finally caved and wrote one that worked

I always thought writing prompts were too restrictive, like they'd box you into someone else's idea. But last week I saw a prompt about 'write a scene where a character breaks a family heirloom and hides it' and something clicked. I gave myself 20 minutes and ended up with 800 words that actually flowed naturally. It turned into a short story I submitted to my local writing group in Seattle and they liked it. Has anyone else had a prompt surprise them when they least expected it?

3 comments

3 Comments

cora_west59d ago

pretty sure my brain treats writing prompts like vegetables. I know they're good for me but I avoid them until I'm desperate. I stumbled onto one about someone lying on their resume and accidentally wrote like a thousand words in one sitting. It was basically a comedy about a guy who claimed he could speak fluent French and then had to go to Paris for work. My writing group said it was the funniest thing I'd ever written which is kind of sad considering I thought my serious literary fiction was my best work. maybe those prompts are just cracks in the wall that let the weird stuff out.

fionat559d ago

Cora, YES that French resume story sounds amazing and I totally get what you mean about the serious literary stuff not hitting as hard (it's a personal tragedy for so many of us). @cora_west5 your comment about prompts being "cracks in the wall that let the weird stuff out" is exactly right, I think that's why the heirloom prompt worked for me too, it just dislodged something that was already there. There's something about being given a tiny box to write in that actually frees you up instead of trapping you, kind of the same way having a deadline does. I'm starting to wonder if my brain secretly NEEDS those artificial limits to stop overthinking everything.

kimr918d ago

Totally agree with that tiny box thing. I had the exact same experience last week when I did a prompt about a secret room in a house. It was just a little thing, like a paragraph to describe it. But suddenly I was writing about this kid who found a door in his closet that led to a whole other house from the 1950s. I never would have come up with that if I had to start from scratch. The limits definitely help me stop circling around and just pick something. It's like my brain gets bored with the small space and just starts making stuff up to fill it.