Aha! thought I was going to set up a writing prompt for you, didnja?
Well, no, sorry. I mean, maybe, at the end, for the comments ….we’ll see.
There are a lot of places you find writing prompts. Writing groups use them to stimulate writers at their meetings. Workshops often include them. Now I find that some of my social media ‘starts me off’ with an (unwelcome) writing prompt. I actually don’t use them much myself— not because I don’t think they have value; I just don’t have time to devote to them because I have so much in my tbw (to-be-written) pile.
Writing prompts are good for warm-ups’—flexing the fingers and the brain to put together words on the keyboard or notepad. They’re good for when you feel like writing but don’t have an urgent project and want to start something different. They can be good for working out problems with an wip (work-in-progress), but I don’t count that as working from a writing prompt. I call that writing.
I mostly use them in groups — note: I give them out, I don’t write from them; see above— when I’m working with people who know they want to write but don’t know what they want to write about or they don’t know how to start. It’s how I get them to open up and find where to begin. The goal there is to help them discover their own process and show them they can prime the pump. Which is the only way I use writing prompts myself. Here goes.
I use a simple formula with a minimum of props. It sort of depends on the writers I’m working with. If they are totally clueless about what to write, I get very specific.
I set up 3 criteria. I tell them: Pick a color. Pick an animal. Pick a place. The writers do the picking. They write down their answers in a list for reference.
Okay, next I say: Now I want you to write a paragraph of at least 10 sentences that starts a story with those 3 things in it. Yes, you may write a second paragraph if you need to. Then, after a somewhat lengthy but sketchy explanation of what a paragraph is, why do we need them, and how do I know when to start a new one, they start writing.
Then, I say, in tones that reminisce of a game show host offering up a ‘curve ball’: Oh, by the way, you have to include a monkey in your story. Or a fire, or the Eiffel Tower, or popcorn — you get the drift.
What we’ve done is to create — with their own involvement — a set of parameters in which they must write. Far from being restrictive, these parameters challenge the writer’s creativity in meeting them while at the same time giving them fodder to chew on and feed the creative process. Plus, eventually, it’s an exercise a person can do on their own.
Why would they?
That’s when I use it. Because you can take your problem-child story, the one you can’t get started on, and line up 3 choices (maybe more, once you are used to this process, but I’d stop at 6.)
If it’s a character that’s giving you problems, you can work with that character. Use their gender (biological or psychological), their age (ditto), and a food they hate (or anything else they might have feelings or thoughts about). Now, put them in a situation, eg, Character has just arrived at a crowded restaurant and waited 45 minutes for a table. She goes to order and learns they only serve fish and seafood, which she wouldn’t touch even if she were eating with the Pope—(okay, so she’s Catholic in this instance). How would she respond? A writer kind of can’t help playing What If? with that scenario, and bending their writing to meet the parameters results in consequences the writer has to include.
It also allows (forces?) them to explore their character in a dimension different than the storyline they will ultimately inhabit, which will give the writer more insight into them. It can be a great way to build your character’s backstory and discover things about them you never planned to write. Goal met.
I said I wasn’t going to do this, but here are the parameters…
- Choose a color, but not a primary color
- Choose 1 from Earth, Wind, Fire
- Choose an ice cream flavor — any one that you’ve heard of
Now, write a 7-sentence paragraph to introduce a new character in a scene.
Leave a copy in the comments; I’d love to see what you write.
Finding Robin's Story 