I had to choose between a complex prompt and a simple one for my class

I picked the simple one, 'You find a key in your pocket you don't recognize,' and the kids wrote way more than when I gave them a whole fantasy world to build. It was just one concrete detail they could grab onto. Anyone have a go-to simple prompt that always gets people writing?

2 comments

2 Comments

the_thomas4d ago

Oh man, my buddy had a similar thing happen. He gave his group "The coffee was cold" and they filled pages, but a big sci-fi idea got nothing. Sometimes the small stuff just opens a door.

cameron_chen4d ago

Read a blog post that said constraints breed creativity, which totally lines up with what @the_thomas said about the cold coffee. My go-to is "The map was wrong.