I usually give a visual writing prompt in this newsletter.  They’re pics I’ve taken myself (or in this month’s case, that one of my friends took of me), and the whole point is to show that ideas for stories, screenplays, and even non-fiction articles are everywhere.  I tend to snap a TON of pictures.  (Yeah, a lot of them are for social media.)  But you never know where a seed for inspiration is going to pop up,  I tend to take even more photos when I’m doing research.  It is a lot easier to describe something in text when you have an image to work with.

More traditional writing prompts consist of just words.  You can find entire books filled with prompts, including one I just picked up called A Year Of Writing Prompts, which features a five minute prompt, a mid-day prompt and an evening prompt.  I don’t think I will wind up doing all of them, but there are certainly enough choices to get me through days when I want to remember how fun, silly or over-the-top stories can be.  Writing prompts can serve a number of purposes,  They can give you a break from more serious projects.  They can be a spring-board for for brainstorming or free-writing (as the single-word “5 minute” prompts in the book I’m looking at are almost certainly meant to be).  Or they can help when you just aren’t sure what to write about — or even how to start writing.

To me, one of the most important things that prompts can provide is limits.  When you can write about absolutely ANYTHING, it’s hard to narrow that down, especially if you are a newer writer.  I keep a list of ideas for stories, and also a list of elements I want to include in my current story, which function as personalized prompts.  Say I know I need to provide a flashback later on in a story that describes the secret reason behind the way a character is currently acting.  I will make a note, which basically becomes a prompt for me to follow when I go to write the new scene.

How do you get started when you haven’t written in a while, or if you have finished a long project and are looking into something new?  How do you limit your characters so that they have something to work around?  How do you choose new projects?  How attached do you find yourself getting to specific story ideas?

NOTE: Pic is of journals I spotted for sale at a local coffee shop.