My Writing Habits & Practices: The Power of Prompts

Expanding upon what I shared in My Writing Habits & Practices piece back in September where I shared five different habits/practices, I wanted to share a bit more about the power of prompts.

My relationship with prompts have shifted and changed over the years of writing, but as I’ve taken classes in school settings or participated in formal workshops or even now, heading to the Monday night open writing group at a neighborhood tea bar, prompts have been proved.

In classrooms, prompts are often given as part of a lesson plan, highlight a particular topic for the students to then reflect on particular techniques or styles or approaches to storytelling, gauging how we approach exploring an idea, and seeing how our response to that prompt can be strengthen, evolved, or even challenged to be better. In workshops, I’ve found that there’s often a bit of freedom and creativity that comes from a prompt—instead of just a written framing, I’ve taken virtual and in-person workshops where prompts follow themes (ranging from topical ideas, seasonal ideas, quotes from other text, sometimes photo, maybe even a poem or piece to respond to with our own). In either setting, they sometimes felt like a distraction—I’m here for a reason, I already have a story I want to tell, I’m unsure of if a prompt is what I need when I have a limited amount of time to get some writing in. Being in the New York Writers Coalition groups before it shut down opened up my perspective on prompts, with facilitators who had thoroughly thought of a variety of prompts, sometimes rooted in a workshop focus, with such creativity that cultivated really cool and wonderful outcomes.

My prompts sometimes slow me down—in the best of ways. It allows my brain to pause, to take in some sort of creative notion, and see where my imagination lets a nugget or a notion of an idea take me. AND, see how others interpret and imagine prompts of their own is so fun. An interesting anthology called The Machine of Death is a collection of stories written by different authors all responding to the prompt around what if there was a machine that pricked your finger and generated out how you would die (a bit of a twisted prompt, but it was fascinating to see how an array of writers interpreted where this prompt could take a story). There’s such imaginative diversity through the interpretation of a prompt that it gets my wheels turning in ways that might not be explored others.

Sometimes prompts have informed future scenes to the main piece I’m working on, sometimes prompts stir future ideations for stories I know I’m planning to tell, but I haven’t had a chance to fully prioritize, and more often than not, a prompt my populate a random idea (sometimes tied to other tales, sometimes something new). Sometimes it’s genius, sometimes it’s idiotic, and sometimes it is so random it gets buried away next to meet or greet the world again (unless I’m running short on Substack material lol).

The weekly tea bar writing group opens with quick and simple prompts, which is helpful for an open group of writers. It can range from a word to a seasonal theme to something random the facilitator noted or was talking about seconds before that is born into a prompt. These are short prompts, only 10-minutes of writing, and for this group, it’s ideal—it’s lowstakes prompt. The joy of this space (and a few other spaces) is the safety to share, doing a prompt in a group setting that allows you not only to warm up your creativity, but gifts you individuals who’ll pump up your freshly birthed idea from this prompt. Writing in community (another of the writing practices/habits) has such benefits, especially when you can do so in a space that others understand the fragility of a new idea.

Last year, I did two big cataloguing prompts, because my nerdy hyperfixation and Virgo tendencies can be useful and not just cumbersome. I went back and reviewed the variety of prompts that I had responded to during the virtual writing groups I participated from 2020 to present day, just to organize all the prompts I’d been gifted in those spaces. It was great, because as I reviewed them, I noticed a few wonderful pieces I’d long since forgotten from those prompts I’d explored. And, naturally, I knew I needed to then catalogue my prompt responses. I then found myself with a massive document with dynamic prompts that I could call back to whenever I needed and I had a list of pieces, many of which were scenes I’d already used, some were pieces I’d worked on, but many were things I found myself falling back into intrigue with, stories not fully told, with fresh eyes, hungry to finish them. I now catalogue prompts 1-3 times a year, and as a short story writer, prompts are a wonderful jumping off point for a short story (even better if you’re one for microstories or flash fiction).

I chuckle thinking back to the overeager writer ready to just dump and draft pieces without seeing the value the prompts provide a writer. There are prompts a-plenty to be found online, but some of my favorite prompts have been found in writing groups and workshops where the prompts have been curated for the quality experience expected, but I can always rely on a prompt from the tea bar I’m regularly at or within my personal writing groups I’m in or even at the roll of a set of writing prompt dice my friend gifted me. Prompts can be found everywhere. It’s a question of if we are willing to slow down enough to engage them, and a chance to look around to see who might ponder a prompt with you, so there’s a listening ear to share it with.

So what are some of your favorite prompts you’ve explored in your time as a writer?