the_rose•10d agoMost Upvoted

Used to hate writing prompts about trauma until a workshop in Seattle changed my mind

I went to this creative writing meetup at a library downtown last month, and this woman - maybe 60 years old - shared a piece about her mom's dementia. It was raw and messy, not polished at all. And I realized I'd been avoiding prompts that hit close to home because I thought they'd be too depressing or just bad writing. But she talked about how using a prompt about 'a door you can't open' let her frame the whole experience in a way that felt safe. It hit different because she wasn't trying to be clever - she was just telling the truth. Now I'm rethinking my whole stance on personal prompts. Has anyone else found a specific prompt structure that helped them write about something heavy without feeling like they were oversharing?

3 comments

3 Comments

cora_west510d ago

alext52 that dashboard trick is genius, never thought about using an object as the emotional buffer like that.

alext5210d ago

That object perspective thing is smart. 3 years ago I wrote about my dad's accident by framing it through the dashboard of his truck that got crushed, and somehow it let me cry on the page without feeling like I was being dramatic about it. Funny how stepping sideways at something lets you actually face it head on.

joseph_green1310d ago

Flip it around and write from the object's perspective instead of yours. Let the door or the chair or whatever tell the story, it creates enough distance that the truth sneaks in without feeling like you're spilling everything lol.