My mentor said my prompts were "too polite" and it stung, now I can't decide if he was right | Creative Writing Prompts

Laura Schmidt · 2026-09-17T16:00:03.944439+00:00

About six months ago I joined a Tuesday night writing group at a library in Des Moines, and the guy who runs it read my prompt for a flash fiction exercise out loud to the room. It was a friendly prompt, something like "write about a character who learns to forgive someone." He looked at me and said, "this is a prompt that already knows its own answer." I sat there hot in the face while eleven other people nodded. So I started writing meaner prompts. "Write about a person who forgives someone only because they need a ride to the airport." My group loved it, my stories got better, and I stopped being scared of a prompt that fights back. But here is where I get stuck. Two people in the group quit coming after a few weeks, and one of them said my prompts made writing feel like a test. Now I write two sets every week, a soft one and a sharp one, and I honestly can't tell which side is right. Are the narrow prompts actually better for getting words on the page, or do they just feel better because the answer is easier to find? Curious if anyone here has dealt with this kind of split in their own group.

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My mentor said my prompts were "too polite" and it stung, now I can't decide if he was right | Creative Writing Prompts - Thought Shares