c/creative-writing-prompts

6

emery10•2d ago

That week I tried writing a novel in 7 days was a complete disaster

I sat down last June convinced I could crank out 50,000 words for a week long challenge. By day three I had 2,000 words and a migraine from staring at a blank screen too long. Has anyone else fallen for those fast writing challenges and ended up worse off than when you started?

9

zara_sanchez•2d ago

Got stuck in a laundromat in Austin for 3 hours because of a poetry slam

I went to this laundromat off East 6th last Tuesday, just trying to do my weekly wash in peace. Turns out they host this monthly poetry slam right in the middle of the place, like between the dryers and the folding tables. Some guy read a 20 minute poem about his cat's existential dread while my clothes sat in the rinse cycle. I couldn't leave because my wet stuff was stuck in a machine that kept glitching. By the time I got out, the poetry had actually gotten good, which was the weirdest part. Has anyone else stumbled into a random event at a totally boring place?

21

nina_taylor•4d ago

Just wasted $40 on a writing prompt generator app that's basically useless

I thought I'd try that app called PromptForge that keeps showing up in ads. It was supposed to give me unique story starters but it just recycles the same basic ideas like 'a character finds a mysterious door.' Three prompts in and I got the same premise twice. I feel dumb for not just sticking with the free prompts on this community. Has anyone else tried one of those paid tools and regretted it?

20

williamhenderson•5d ago

That character prompt from 3 years ago still haunts me

I found a writing prompt last week from a 2022 thread about a ghost who only appears in reflections, and I spent 6 hours crafting a story about a guy who slowly realizes his mirror self is living a completely different life. The thing is, nobody replied to it and the thread got archived before I could post. Has anyone else poured time into a dead prompt and felt like you wasted your best idea?

9

robert_ross95•6d ago

Three years ago I tried writing a novel in 30 days and ended up with 50,000 words of pure nonsense

It was November 2021 and I thought hey, NaNoWriMo sounds fun. I had this grand idea about a detective who solves crimes in a futuristic city where everyone lives underwater. By day 15 I had written like 20 chapters of the guy just walking through underwater hallways and describing the lighting. I never even introduced a crime. The whole thing was just worldbuilding with no plot. I got the word count but it's the worst thing I've ever read. Has anyone else finished a big writing challenge and ended up with something totally unusable?

32

miasanchez•6d ago

Hit 50,000 words on my novel draft and honestly didn't think I'd get past 10k

I've been working on this fantasy story set in Portland for like 8 months now, and I finally crossed the 50k mark last night. It felt huge because I usually bail on projects around chapter 3 when I run out of steam. My writer friend Jen kept telling me to just write garbage and fix it later, which I finally tried. Anyone else have a writing milestone that surprised them way more than they expected?

22

amyh12•7d ago

Heard a writing professor at a bar say 'kill your darlings' is the worst advice ever given

I was eavesdropping at a coffee shop in Portland last week and this guy who apparently teaches at PSU was telling his friend that the whole 'kill your darlings' thing makes people delete their best, most original ideas. He said he's seen students cut the one weird character or strange plot twist that made their story stand out, just because someone told them it was self-indulgent. Kinda made me rethink how I edit my own prompts and short stories. Has anyone else run into advice that ended up hurting more than helping?

17

colescott•9d ago

My neighbor's kid asked me why I write sad endings and I didn't have a good answer

I was at a backyard barbecue last Saturday and this 14 year old girl who lives next door asked why every story I share online ends with someone losing something. She said 'don't you ever just want things to work out?' and I honestly froze. I've been writing prompts for years and I always default to tragedy or bittersweet stuff. It made me wonder if I'm just scared of writing something happy or if I think conflict equals quality. Has anyone else noticed they lean too hard into dark endings?

19

williamhenderson•10d ago

The moment I realized my protagonist had no real goal

Last week I was staring at chapter 7 of my novel for the third night in a row. Nothing was happening, just scenes of my main character walking around and thinking. Then it hit me around 2 AM in my kitchen while making coffee. She had no actual want, no driving need that pushed her forward. I deleted three chapters and started over with her wanting something simple, a specific blue notebook her grandmother left behind.

3

emma_wells83•11d ago

Can we talk about when a writing prompt totally backfires

I tried one of those 'write a story from your biggest regret' prompts last week and it wrecked my whole day. Instead of a fun creative exercise, I ended up spiraling into bad memories from 2019. On the flip side, my friend used the same prompt and wrote her best short story ever. So is the issue the prompt itself or how we handle the emotional weight behind it? Have you ever had a prompt go sideways on you like that, or do you think prompts should steer clear of heavy topics altogether?

24

elliot_roberts•12d ago

That 'show don't tell' writing rule felt like gatekeeping until my critique group ripped apart my first 30 pages

Had three people point out I wrote 'he felt angry' eight times in one chapter and after forcing myself to rewrite each scene with only actions the whole thing actually read like a real story, anyone else have a writing rule they fought against that ended up fixing their work?

3

blair_chen81•13d ago

My fantasy novel's magic system broke itself on page 47

I spent like 3 months building this whole rule set for how magic works in my story. Last Tuesday I was writing a scene where my main character casts a protection spell and realized the rules I made would actually let her do something way more powerful. It totally broke the conflict I had planned for the next 5 chapters. I had to go back and rewrite the magic system with a hard limit on how much energy a person can pull at once. Has anyone else had a plot hole or rule in their world building just collapse on them mid story?

14

karen_carter•16d ago

That poetry slam in Austin last month changed my whole approach

Guy got up and read this raw, unfinished piece about his dog dying. Crowd went silent. Made me realize my polished drafts are killing my voice. Anyone else find more truth in the messy first versions?

13

hannahcraig•16d ago

Swapped from plotting every scene to just writing and it's night and day

I spent like 3 years planning a novel with color coded index cards and a whole timeline in Google Sheets. Finally got sick of it and just started typing whatever came to mind for a short story about a bakery in Portland. That story got accepted by a lit mag in under 2 weeks. Anyone else find that overplanning kills the fun of writing?

14

wade_kelly77•17d ago

That writing mentor told me to kill my favorite paragraph and I'm glad I did

I had this writing teacher in a workshop last year, an older guy named Tom who wrote for magazines. He read my short story and said "that paragraph where the character describes the sunset, cut it, it's slowing everything down." I was so mad at first because I thought that paragraph was beautiful. But I tried it, took it out, and the story moved way faster and got picked up by a small lit journal 3 months later. Has anyone else had a piece of advice that hurt to hear but turned out to be right?

2

barbara_jenkins66•17d ago

Just realized writing prompts work better when I set a timer

I spent last Saturday trying to write a story from a prompt about a haunted vending machine and got nowhere for 45 minutes. Then I set a 15 minute timer and forced myself to just type garbage until it went off, ended up with 400 words that actually had a plot. Has anyone else found a weird timing trick that unlocks their writing?

9

colescott•18d ago

I finally found a trick that kills writer's block fast

I was stuck on a scene for 3 days straight, just staring at a blinking cursor in my local coffee shop. Then I tried typing the worst possible version of that scene on purpose, and somehow the garbage version unlocked the real one. Has anyone else used the "write it badly" method to break through a block?

19

olivia670•19d ago

That writing advice about 'show don't tell' I always rolled my eyes at...

My critique partner pointed out in a scene where I wrote 'she was sad' that I could just describe her staring at the rain for 3 pages. Tried it on a story last week and got my first acceptance from a lit mag. Has anyone else found a specific writing rule that actually clicked after you ignored it for years?

23

lewis.brian•20d ago

Finally caved and tried that writing prompt app my sister kept pushing

She spent 6 months telling me her daily writing stats from this $5 app while I rolled my eyes, saying real writers don't need gimmicks. Then last Tuesday I hit a total block on my novel draft, downloaded it on a whim, and cranked out 800 words from a single prompt about a broken escalator in a Denver mall. Has anyone else found a tool they dismissed actually helped their creative flow?

27

sean_barnes24•20d ago

Can we talk about how many writing prompts are just horror openings?

I was browsing through the top prompts from last month and something jumped out at me. Out of the 50 highest upvoted prompts, 34 of them were some variation of "you wake up and something is wrong." I actually counted them during my lunch break at the help desk. It's like horror has completely taken over this community. I get that creepy stories are fun to write, but it feels like half of them are just the same "there's a monster in your closet" setup with different words. Don't get me wrong, I enjoy a good horror prompt now and then, but there's way more to fiction than just suspense and dread. Has anyone else noticed this, or am I just picking bad days to browse? Maybe I'm missing the good non-horror prompts because they get buried too fast.

11

ward.anna•21d ago

Spent $80 on a 'plot twist generator' app and all I got was 'the butler did it' 47 times

Ngl, I thought this app would spit out some wild, unexpected scenarios for my murder mystery novel, but after three days of using it, every single prompt ended with the butler being the killer. Has anyone else wasted cash on writing tools that just don't deliver?

24

alice928•22d ago

Just realized I had to pick between two totally different opening lines for my sci-fi story

I was stuck for days deciding whether to start with 'The station alarm blared at 0300 hours' or 'Captain Vex stared at the empty coffee pot, knowing this was the real emergency.' I went with the coffee pot line and it just felt right, way more human. What's a time you picked a 'small' detail over a 'big' one to start a story?

23

blair_chen81•22d ago

Shoutout to that one week in 2018 when I wrote 3,000 words a day

It was in July, right after I visited the library in Tacoma and saw a display of old pulp magazines. I came home and just started typing, no outline, just a character who was a lighthouse keeper finding a message in a bottle. Every day for a week, the words just flowed out before lunch. I haven't hit that kind of streak since. Anyone else have a random week where the writing just clicked like that?

11

emmamason•22d ago

My writing group keeps making the same mistake with their 'twist' endings

We meet every Tuesday at the library, and for the last month, three people have ended their stories with 'it was all a dream'. It kills the whole story for me because it feels like a cheap way out. I read a blog post by a pro editor that said this trick almost never works for modern readers. How do you guys handle predictable endings in your own work?

21

carr.abby•23d ago

Update on that $12 prompt book I bought at the airport

It gave me the idea for a story about a guy who finds his old wallet in a jacket, which I sold for $200. Anyone have a good prompt for a character who hates their job?