Making the most of writing prompts
and the lies you have been told.
But first the lies:
Good prompts and themes automatically make good stories.
Include social issues in your fiction or poetry. People will love your work because what is more important than social justice?
Well, that’s just not how art works. Art is about having fun. Writing about social issues is important, but that doesn't mean that works that are otherwise or even almost intentionally lame, are without purpose. (I mean, I just wrote a poem on chickens and am now writing a short story with chickens as the heart of my story). Art serves different purposes - it is playground and workstation at the same time. All its purposes are important because there is no hierarchy in art. Art is equal. And no art is more equal than others (lol). Bad joke? Come on, laugh a little! Even Orwell liked humor.
I’ll let you in on a secret - as much as they say that for a beginner, ‘good’ prompts are key; it’s just not true - at least not always, at least it wasn’t for me. When I first realized that my writing wasn’t as great as I had thought, I decided to work on my craft and learn to write by myself. But I didn’t know where or how to start. Obviously, I thought a ‘good’ writing prompt would produce a ‘good’ piece of work. LIE. I looked for ‘good’ prompts and soon found out that there are no objectively ‘good’ or ‘bad’ prompts. In fact, some of the best writers write about the unconventional, anti-literary, and the lame, and what they produce is amazing! In fact, sometimes the lamer, the better, the wittier.
One of my favorite poets, Brian Bilston’s poems are extremely witty. He takes trivial matters and no, its not what you thought - he does not elevate them. Instead, he takes trivial matters and trivializes them so much that they become extremely funny, witty and pretty important. Bristol knows how to have fun. And I love it. If you wish, you could read Bristol’s work here
So, coming back to writing prompts. I’m not saying that prompts aren’t a good place to start— they are. But they don’t improve the craft and ‘good’ prompts will not make up for the lack of craft. That is a fact. Still, prompts can be extremely useful whether you’re a beginner, intermediate or advanced writer. As a beginner though, I had to let go of writing prompts and figure out the craft first - baby step by baby step. But whatever your level or writing, this approach could help you to find and make the most of writing prompts while improving your craft:
If you’re just beginning to write, its best to ‘write what you know.’ Begin with what is familiar - familiar themes, motifs, ideas, emotions, places, people; anything that you know well. Use those as prompts to drive your writing. Once you have a draft, figure out how to make it better, by working on your craft. Once you’ve learnt to write what you know well, you can move forward.
After you have gained some practice, you’re ready to explore. Here is where the writing prompts come in. This time, look for the exact opposite of what you did as a beginner - you must ‘write what you do not know.’ Waltz into an unfamiliar territory and you’ll be surprised at the kind of work you will produce. For example, if you have never had a beer in life, take beer as a prompt. Maybe imagine having beer for the first time and how that would feel or write about the color of beer matching the color of a sunset or your favorite dress.
Never (well, almost never) pick cliche prompts such as ‘autumn’ or ‘spring’ or ‘my first love,’ especially when you’re starting out. I swear, I experienced a creative block the minute I heard them. Try looking for unusual prompts such as ‘steel’ or ‘door.’ However, if you must stick with these prompts, try looking at them from a different lens. Think of autumn as a person or your ‘first love’ as fish.
Something to keep in mind is that prompts do not always need to be themes. You can consider point(s)-of-view as prompts. For example, I wrote my short story Maybe a Butterfly Will Sit on Us in the first-person collective point of view, i.e., using ‘we’ and ‘us.’ This is a very rare point-of-view and also my favorite! You can read the story here
Another trick is to pick the most interesting prompt you can, and then give it a spin. Place the prompt in an interesting environment or explore it within the background of an interesting incident or circumstance. For example - if your prompt is beer, you can think about what happens when your protagonist’s roommate accidentally freezes his beer and your protagonist has to wait for half an hour for it to un-freeze. He’s had a really bad day at work. What happens in that span of half hour? What tensions can you explore between your protagonist and his friend?
Lastly, if you’re feeling too lazy to think, you can pick up a random word or picture from your favorite book or your morning newspaper and use that as a prompt.
These tricks work for both poetry and fiction! But remember, sometimes, our work might not reflect our prompts fully. That’s okay. Prompts are just a kickstart to your piece and are only meant to incite your writing process. As long as that happens, you’re good!
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JUST FOR FUN:
I also wanted to share with you, the song I’ve been listening to all week on repeat! You can find the YouTube link here
Until next time!