Showerthought: freewriting prompts worked way better than detailed ones for my novel

I spent a month using super specific prompts like "write a scene where the main character discovers a hidden door" and kept hitting walls. Then I switched to looser ones like "your character is afraid of something familiar" and suddenly I was writing 3 pages in 20 minutes. The difference was night and day, it let my brain fill in the gaps instead of forcing a direction. Has anyone else found that vague prompts unlock more creativity than the detailed ones?

4 comments

4 Comments

oliver_baker4910d ago

Oh nice, 8 pages? That's a short story, not a novel.

the_hayden10d ago

Honestly I had the exact same thing happen with my fantasy novel. I spent like two months using a prompt about "describe the marketplace trading scene" and got nowhere. Then I tried "your character is holding something they wish they could throw away" and wrote 8 pages in one sitting about this old coin my MC carried around. It was crazy how much more my brain could do when I stopped trying to steer it.

abby_fisher10d ago

I once wrote 5 pages about a character's hat.

oliviabutler10d ago

its wild how much easier things flow when you take the pressure off yourself. like the other day i tried to plan out my whole week on sunday and got nothing done, but when i just wrote down one thing i needed to do the next morning it actually worked. the brain really does just shut down when you try too hard to control it.