Shoutout to the old guy at the library who changed my mind about writing prompts

I used to think creative writing prompts were just for beginners or people stuck in a rut. But last Tuesday at the downtown library, this retired English teacher named Dave saw me scribbling in a notebook. He asked what I was writing, and I told him I was avoiding prompts because they felt too restrictive. He just smiled and said "a good prompt is like a fence that gives you a frame to climb," then showed me a 3 sentence story he wrote from a random prompt about a broken watch. It was so specific and raw, it totally shifted my view. Now I try one prompt a day, and my dialogue has gotten way sharper. Has anyone else had a random encounter that flipped your opinion on something in your writing process?

2 comments

2 Comments

parkermorgan6d ago

Dave the retired English teacher sounds like the kind of guy who'd tell you to "just write from the heart" while he's sipping lukewarm coffee from a mug that says "World's Okayest Grampa." But I get it. My own prompt epiphany came when my buddy's little sister handed me a notebook full of random sentences she'd stolen from cereal boxes. That one about "crunching the silence" made me realize prompts aren't handcuffs, they're just a weird starting line. Now I grab them from trashy magazines or overheard arguments at the gas station. Still think most writing prompts are garbage, but some of them are like a rusty key that actually opens a door.

the_susan6d ago

@parkermorgan nailed it with the rusty key comparison. Read somewhere that Neil Gaiman said prompts are just "borrowed dreams" which sounds pretentious but makes sense after you've used a few. Only way to find out if a prompt works is to try it and see what shakes loose.