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I thought writing prompts were a total waste of time until a 10 minute timer proved me wrong
Two years ago I rolled my eyes at every prompt list I saw. I figured real writers just sit down and write, and prompts were for people scared of a blank page. Then my writing group in Denver tried a thing where we grabbed one random prompt and wrote for 10 minutes straight, no stopping, no editing, and I got 400 words out of it that actually turned into a short story I still like. What sold me was the timer. Knowing I only had 10 minutes killed my inner editor because there was no time to second guess anything. Now I use prompts every single morning before work, and some of my best stuff started as total nonsense about a lighthouse or a lost dog. The trick is picking prompts that are weird and specific instead of vague junk like write about love. So here is my real question for you all: do you use prompts as warm ups and throw them away, or do you actually build finished pieces out of them? Because I keep doing both and I cannot tell which one is helping me more.
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spencer9817h ago
Man, my buddy in Austin had the exact opposite thing happen with prompts. He kept every single 10 minute draft in a folder and never looked at them again, just treated it like stretching before a run. Then one day he was stuck on a real story and went digging through that folder and found a dumb prompt about a guy who collects other people's mail, and that tiny thing turned into a whole chapter. So maybe the keep everything plan is the move, even the throwaway stuff.
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