Welcome back to my nine-week creative writing lessons. This is your third lesson to help get you writing and to improve your writing style. So far you answered questions and written a letter to yourself. This time you are going to be writing an actual story.
Today’s less is writing prompts.
Writing prompts are little ideas that help to jumpstart a story. These prompts could be a single sentence, a paragraph, or a picture, but they are meant to inspire a story. These types of prompts are great ways to help you when you feel stuck for ideas.
You can spend ten minutes writing on a prompt, and then return back to the book you’ve been working on with new inspiration. It works by stimulating your writing process. Google can provide you with a whole host of writing prompts, but I’ve got a few for you.
- You’re enjoying your favorite show when you notice that the window is open. You know you didn’t raise the window, and you live along. Who could have opened the window? Are they still in your house? What are you going to do?
- You wake up in the morning excited about the day you have planned. Out of nowhere, you are hit with a blinding headache. As quickly as it hit, the headache is gone, but now you can’t remember anything. Who are you? What happened? Where are you going to go? Can you get help?
- You’re walking along the beach when you trip over something. You inspect the ground where you tripped and find a hidden staircase. Will you explore it? What’s down the stairs? Is anybody there? Who will you tell?
If there’s a book that you want to read, but it hasn’t been written yet, then you must write it. – Toni Morrison
Pen to Paper 