How to find, use prompts

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Writer's Block Weekend

You sit down with your notebook or laptop, your favorite tunes playing in the background and your favorite drink within arm's reach. Your pen is ready, or your fingers poised over the keyboard.

There's only one problem: that blank page or empty screen is taunting you. You don't know what to write, or maybe you don't know where or how to start.

Sound familiar?

Writer's block is a terrible thing. Fortunately, there is a simple tool at your disposal: the humble prompt.

What is a prompt, exactly?

prompt (according to Google) - [verb] (of an event or fact) cause or bring about (an action or feeling); [noun] an act of assisting or encouraging a hesitating speaker.

These are the two most useful definitions for writing purposes, anyway. Consider it a gentle push; not so much as a definite starting point, but as a metaphorical whisper in your ear to help you find your starting point yourself.


How to find them


Finding prompts is the easy part.

:bulletpink: Do a DA search for "prompts."



:bulletpink: Join a literature or writing group or two (or several); they often have prompts in their journals or galleries, or a contest going on that has a prompt built in, and even past contests are useful because good prompts never wear out.



:bulletpink: Google prompts. Don't feel confined by your medium; Illustration Friday may only accept visual art submissions, but that doesn't mean you can't use its weekly prompt.

:bulletpink: Check out the DA forums.

:bulletpink: Create your own! Go to your dictionary (real or online) and grab a random word; pick up the nearest book or newspaper and flip to a random page or story and write something inspired by it, or re-imagine the situation that the characters are in and write something based on that (hint: it doesn't have to be fanfiction, though); click to a random deviation and write something inspired by it.


How to use them


This is the far more difficult part; now that you have a bunch of prompts at your disposal, what do you do with them?

Most of the prompts you will run into are probably those one-word prompt lists. They've gotten a bad rap over the years. The thing is, though, they were never meant to only be taken at face value (though you certainly can take them at face value if you want to). They are supposed to evoke thought.

Let's play an association game. It's easy and fun, and it will help you get the most out of your prompt lists.

Let's take "spice." Now, I could write a story about a spice. Easy enough. But what else could I do? Spice makes me think of the spice trade, which makes me think of the Indies, which make me think of shipping, which conjures images of pirates.

This is an association game, where you free-associate by just letting your mind jump from thought to thought. Now I can totally write a story about pirates after a shipment of valuable cargo
and never even have to write the word "spice" to fulfill the prompt!

Or I could go another way, using different spices in a story, say about fairies, with each one having a different spice for their name
Cinna, Clove, Pepper and still fulfill the prompt, even if the story is not actually about any real spice.

The more creative you are using a prompt, the better off you'll do. You're really only confined by the limits of your imagination. You can use prompts and association games to work your imagination's muscles, though, so it's a win-win situation no matter how you look at it!

Have fun and keep writing.


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w-h-i-s-p-a's avatar
This is very useful! Will definitely be using these ideas.