Writing Prompts

Writing prompts are the equivalent of warm-up exercises for writers. In the gym, the first ten minutes are stretches and a small bit of cardio to wake up the muscles, get them in gear for something more strenuous.

In the same way, writing doesn't come out in golden nuggets from the get-go. The creative brain needs to wake up and start moving, too. So, a ten-minute freewrite does the brain good.

Natalie Goldberg, author of Writing Down the Bones, may be one of the most famous advocates of the timed writing practice. In an interview with Genie Zeiger for The Sun, Goldberg describes the method:

"A writing practice is simply picking up a pen — a fast-writing pen, preferably, since the mind is faster than the hand — and doing timed writing exercises.

The idea is to keep your hand moving for, say, ten minutes, and don’t cross anything out, because that makes space for your inner editor to come in. You are free to write the worst junk in America. After all, when we get on the tennis courts, we don’t expect to be a champion the first day. But somehow with writing, if we don’t write the opening paragraph of War and Peace the first time we sit down with our notebook, we feel we’ve failed.

You can use a computer, but I always say you should be able to write with a pen, because someday your computer might break, or you might not have access to electricity. It’s sort of like driving: you still have to know how to walk."



Writing prompts can be a question or a statement. A prompt can give a situation that sparks the imaginative process for what happens to a character in a particular dilemma or crisis. I have used a photo to tell a story. A song or lyrics can do the same. Anything that sparks the imagination can be a cure to writer's block and a kick-start to fueling new writing ideas.

Searching online for creative writing prompts returned a heaping goldmine of resources. These are just a few:

Creative Writing Prompts
Writer's Digest Writing Prompts
Writing Fix: Writing Prompts, Daily Writing & Journal Prompts
About.com Creative Writing Prompts
Pictures to use as Writing Prompts
Writing.com Fiction Prompts
Five Fiction Writing Prompts for Plot
Six Fiction Writing Prompts for Character
FictionAddiction.net Song Lyric Prompts