Writing Prompts

June 2, 2008 at 8:51 am | Posted in Jessica, writing | 3 Comments
Tags: Jessica Andersen, Marissa Doyle, Writer's Digest

Our friend, Marissa Doyle, has had great success with the debut of her novel, Bewitching Season.  I couldn’t wait to buy this book when it hit the shelves on April 29.  When I hunkered down and opened the first page, getting set to jump into this much-anticipated book, I was struck by her opening line — “Oh my God, you killed him!” — not because of the strength of the hook but because I recognized this very line as a writing prompt that was used in one of our RWA chapter meetings. 

I was astounded that the one line used to jumpstart one of our chapter writing exercises launched this bewitching story Marissa had written.  How very cool that six words could inspire the conception of an entire book! But isn’t that the way of it? Sometimes there is a lot more to prompt our creative ideas, but often the inspiration for a novel comes down to much less.

I thought a discussion of writing prompts would dovetail nicely with the topic of Jess Andersen’s guest post this week, because a prompt is one more option to use when feeling stuck in your writing.  If you’re spinning your wheels, not sure what to do or where to go with your story, some free writing may be just the thing to help you through the quicksand.  And what better way than to get a random suggestion, hit the gas, and run with it without a second guess.

Writer’s Digest offers writing prompts for every day of the year.  If you don’t subscribe to their magazine, you can find some WRITING PROMPT suggestions on their web site.

Another web site that offers great prompts is called CREATIVE WRITING PROMPTS.  Feeling lucky?  Pick a number at random to get your prompt for the day.

Or we can take a stab at it ourselves — what would you do with the following?

All was right with the world until that knock at the door changed everything.
 
Give yourself five minutes to write whatever comes to mind when you let your creativity play with that line. You never know if a random writing prompt could inspire you to hit the gas and write the book that becomes a much-anticipated new release!

Keep writing – the prompts are all around you!

-Jessica