Can Writing Prompts Help A Writer?

When it seems you are stuck, there is something that can help you out- a writing prompt.  These can be as simple as “write about a tree” to as complex as sitting down near a bus stop and write everything you see and observe there.  Sometimes, you can almost see that there is an idea there, but you aren’t sure what to make of it.  It is not as easy being a writer who has some sort of block.  How can writing prompts help a writer?

Try this prompt:

He walked up to the man and…

Go ahead, try it out.  Is the first idea you have a bit violent? Write it out in your journal.  Is it that there was romance? Is there friendship?  What other things can you think of?  Would you say the man was punched?

Writing prompts lets you, the writer decide.  Sometimes this can help when you are really stuck and sometimes this can only make things worse.  Prompts, like the ones you find is books like 1,000 Awesome Writing Prompts can challenge you.  However if you only focus on prompts and not on what you as a writer are capable of, you are hurting your chances of writing.  Writing is about taking these prompts and building something great from there.

Prompts or ideas are only the beginning to writing, they let you work with the information that you might not think of as once.  Writing prompts is all about writing.  In many ways this is why one take courses when they begin the writing journey.  They need something to start with.

If published authors are known to have used prompts- or ideas to help with their stories, then it’s a good idea for a new writer to use it.  It can help with bringing the passion back to their writing

We have to work with titles and we have to work with everything else.  Until we are published.