I never appreciated the value of writing prompts. They struck me as devices other writers used when they couldn’t come up with original ideas. After last weekend, I’ve changed my mind.
On June 1, I attended a fiction writing workshop presented by Ken Cormier, writer-in-residence at the West Hartford (Connecticut) Public Library. Ken’s pre-workshop instructions were to bring a pen and pad and leave the laptop at home. We would be writing on the spot, using prompts. Nothing brings terror to me like being asked to write on demand. What sort of rubbish would spew from my pen? Though I am a pantser, when I come up with an idea for a story, I do a lot of pre-writing in my head and then I prepare a basic outline of milestone events before I sit down to write. I would not have the luxury of this type of preparation this time. I was at sea without a life preserver.
Ken read to us a hilarious flash fiction piece about a crazy, drunken grandmother at Christmas, which set the stage for his first prompt. He instructed us to write about an episode involving one of our relatives. We were given 15 minutes. Sticking with the grandmother idea, I wrote about my Nana, who was deaf, and her attempts to carry on a telephone conversation with her sister, Theresa, who was also deaf. The words just flowed. I wouldn’t call it brilliant but it was the best work I’ve done in weeks.
The second exercise was interesting. He asked us to write a basic character sketch (name, age, address, occupation, most important person, and that person’s relationship with the character). Then we handed our character sketch to the person on our left and they had to write a story based on it. Again, we had 15 minutes to do it. The results were fantastic. Every writer in the room wove a vivid narrative that made each character come alive. I was amazed to see what a talented group of writers could do without the time to think.
I left the workshop feeling energized. I had been suffering through a serious creative block the past few weeks, for a variety of reasons. These writing prompts unblocked me.
To read more on writing prompts, check out these sites:
Writer’s Digest resource
Good essay on the value of writing prompts
Do you use writing prompts? Do you find them helpful?
A New Fiction Writers Forum 