Writing Prompts

Don't know what to write about? Check here for inspiration!

Ava

General Prompts

"What was the best part of your day and why?"
"Describe a place you've never been but would like to visit."
"Write about a person who has inspired you and why."
"What is something you're grateful for today?"
"Write a letter to your future self."
"Describe a dream you had recently."
"Write about a time when you faced a challenge and how you overcame it."
"Describe a favorite memory from your childhood."
"Write about a goal you're working towards and how you plan to achieve it."
"Write about a lesson you've learned recently."

Creative Writing Prompts

"Write a story about a character who discovers a mysterious object with unusual powers."
"Write a poem about your most treasured possession."
"Write a story that takes place entirely in a single room."
"Write a descriptive passage about a character's home, using all five senses."
"Write a short story that begins with the line, "I never expected to see him again, but there he was..."

Example

Writing Exercise: Stream of Consciousness - Dorrance Publishing Company

Write about you- your day, what’s going on in your life right now, your desires, your fears. Don’t be afraid to get personal, no one is going to see it. The important thing is to not pick up your pen from the page. Don’t pause or hesitate- just keep writing. This will serve as the warmup for the rest of the activities.
Grab a book, any book. Go to page 72 and copy the first full line on the page. Make it the first line of your story. Now, go to the first page and find the first sentence. Make this your last line. You now have a beginning and an end: write the story. Start the timer!
In ten minutes, write a story that includes the following words: moonlight, chair, crow, window pane, haggard, sidewalk, lounge, shell, jar.
Personify the walls of your house or apartment. What do they think? What do they see and observe about the comings and goings of the day? What is their opinion of what they observe? Do they have a name?
Using a character from your book, play the ‘I remember/don’t remember’ exercise. This is where you alternate every other sentence between something they remember and something they don’t. For example, I remember growing up in Georgia, picking tomatoes from the garden. I don’t remember a time where I felt safe.
Think of that scene in your book that you have been struggling to write for a while (you know the one). Take a minute to picture the events as they need to unfold. Start the timer and write the scene. Don’t make it perfect, and don’t pick up your pen or stop to think… just write.

Example

30 Creative Writing Prompts to Improve Your Craft | School of Continuing Studies - University of Toronto

Use a newspaper to find ideas for writing. Can a news item prompt a short story, an editorial prompt a rebuttal, a photo prompt a setting, the classifieds prompt a catalogue poem, or the headlines prompt a found poem?" – Patricia Westerhof
Write about the first pair of shoes you ever loved, and the first day you wore them. What made them meaningful?" – Martha Batiz
Write a short dialogue between two characters every other line. Write what they are really thinking in italics between each line of dialogue." - Kim Echlin
Close your eyes and take yourself back to the kitchen of your childhood. What is the first thing you smell? What is the most powerful smell from your childhood? Write about it, what it meant then, what it means now." – Beth Kaplan
Your character is at a train station. Their gaze falls on a person with whom they have a complicated relationship. There is no way for your character to avoid this person and this person spots them. What happens next?" – Natasha Deen
Pick a random news photo. Describe the scene with 5 words, then 10 words, then 20 and then 40. Reverse the process. What do you notice?" - Arif Anwar
Write about a body of water." – Ranjini George
Put your character in bed falling asleep alone. Write every thought that passes through their mind. Do not punctuate or use full sentences; just describe what is drifting through their heads." - Kim Echlin
Choose three recent Google searches, or three songs or photos that are meaningful to you. Then write one paragraph about each. Do any interesting connections emerge?" – Becky Blake
Write about your memories of Thanksgiving." – Ranjini George
Find a talisman, a special object from your life. Hold it with your eyes closed, feel it. What does it mean? What did it mean? Write about it. – Beth Kaplan
Set a timer to write! Giving yourself a goal to write for even 15 minutes a day will get you to the page. Write longer if you’re inspired. And those pages will add up." – Barbara Radecki
Your character steps into a grocery store to buy items for the evening’s event. At the produce aisle, they see a display of oranges. Your character comes from Florida & a fractured childhood. Oranges remind them of their past. What happens?" – Natasha Deen
Write about what stops you from writing." – Ranjini George
Write about a special object of your childhood that is now lost, but you'd like to recover. What was it? What would it mean for you to have it back?" – Martha Batiz
Write “I didn’t know…” over and over, ten times down the page. Then, without thinking, fill in the rest of the sentence. Pick one and unpack it." – Beth Kaplan
Take a prose fiction story you have already written, but which is not in its final form. Rewrite the same story, only this time change the gender of your protagonist. What, if anything, does that do to your plot? Dialogue? Central Theme?" - Elizabeth Ruth
Describe a person you love without typical details such as hair colour or body shape. Instead describe how they move, how their expressions change, how they use their hands. Describe how they sound—their laugh, their favourite phrases." – Patricia Westerhof
Remember that story your parent or grandparent used to tell over and over and over at every family gathering? That had meaning for them. Tell that story." - Michel Basilieres
"Take the last line of any poem and make it your first. Write from there. Take the first line of a poem and make it your last. Write towards there." – Catherine Graham
"Try writing a scene set twenty minutes before or twenty minutes after the expected scene. What’s happening before the trial, after the funeral, when everyone’s standing in the parking lot?" – Blair Hurley
“Write about a childhood home” - Ranjini George
"Look at every paragraph in your story draft and try cutting the weakest sentence from each one — the wordiest, the most ‘explainy’, the most expository." - Blair Hurley
"Give voice to an inanimate object. What might it say?" - Catherine Graham
"Write about what you can't forget." – Ranjini George
"She was in that particular time of her life when every stranger she saw in the street reminded her of someone she had once loved/hated/lost. [Finish this paragraph, using your narrator to articulate the chosen emotion.]" - Dennis Bock
"Go over to your bookshelf, close your eyes, and pick up the first book you touch. Open that book to a random page, read the first full sentence on that page, and use it as the inspiration for a scene." – Amy Jones
"Use this 19th Century Character generator and start an argument over an inheritance between two of them: http://ow.ly/FJUh50GyO9k" - Michel Basilieres
"What I can't forget..." – Ranjini George
“I used to be …. but now I ….” – Beth Kaplan

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