Writing Plots & Prompts - Beg, steal, or borrow...

[Madonepro]

You sit down and stare at the blank document in front of you. No matter how many times you come back to it, the words don’t seem to want to write themselves. The hours pass, and hours later, you’re still looking at that same blank document.

How do you fix this? Let’s look at the benefits of a writer’s prompt.

What Is a Writing Prompt?​

The complicated response to this is — anything. A writing prompt can be anything around you. If it evokes an emotion, if you can put a story behind it, that is a writing prompt. It can be that simple.

Take a look around wherever you are right now. Do you see a lamp, perhaps? Imagine you didn’t buy that from the store and you bought it at a secondhand shop. Now, imagine that lamp having a life before you brought it home. When you open your mind, the ideas are endless.

 

[Madonepro]

Here's one of my favourites; 1. The Variants of Vampires. Think of an alternative vampire that survives on something other than blood. Write a story or scene based on this character.

What's yours?

 

[Certificate of Excellence]

When I have writers block I used to typically go somewhere to people watch and contemplate their lives; their paths. As I’m on the downhill slope of life/age, I’ve made enough mistakes, done enough stupid things and still made it out the other side to try again, I turn inward and review those actions/experiences, how they made me feel then, how do I feel about them now, how do I think they impacted those on the receiving end etc.

I still do look outward but not as much these days.

 

[Madonepro]

When I have writers block I used to typically go somewhere to people watch and contemplate their lives; their paths. As I’m on the downhill slope of life/age, I’ve made enough mistakes, done enough stupid things and still made it out the other side to try again, I turn inward and review those actions/experiences, how they made me feel then, how do I feel about them now, how do I think they impacted those on the receiving end etc.

I still do look outward but not as much these days.

What is your genre of writing?
In recent weeks, I have entertained the same thought you made, of being on the downhill slope of life/age, but I thought about this a little, and I question that thought. If I take my life as a whole (so far), it had the early years, where I was not productive, and loved playing sports, and bunking class. The 20's through to late 40's, I hammered everything I could, partied, travelled, and definitely didn't take care of aspects of my health, aka drinking too much, eating anything, and everything bad. Yes I exercised, and kept fit. As I reached my 50's, the exercise continued, but the diet changed, and thought went into 'living longer', and subsequent recent events have made me question the early part, and accept that it was fun, but a little regrettable. The slope, well I might not be trying to further my career, or all the things one attempts to do in your 30's thru 50's, I am now content in trying to find the things to do, when I get to 60 and beyond. The challenge of a career that involves sitting and thinking, instead of walking and talking. Exercise appropriate to long term health, and nutrition to support that. Helping out in the community to give to those my age, less fortunate, and jotting down my thoughts, in the process.

Life is very much a book, and has lot's of chapters, and storyline arc's. The beauty of a book of your life, is you are unlikely to write the final chapter, and definitely not an epilogue. 😂

 

[Certificate of Excellence]

I primarily write horror at this time.

My method is to use introspection as a means to dive into actual lived experience as a source of creative inspiration vs assumptions made by watching and listening. Sometimes that is the only way, and is the case for young people but for folks of any age, there is a sizable lifetime of actual emotional experience to draw on which in my opinion is a powerful creative force. As an example, I myself am never going to viscerally understand the process/feelings of carrying, laboring and delivering a baby as my wife certainly does viscerally understand this as she’s done it end to end. Having three kids, I know it well and was there the whole time with her but I wasn’t the one growing the kiddo, pushing the kiddo out, nursing the kiddo for years etc. I would need to make certain assumptions on the feelings of that process and hope my words convincingly convey that human experience where as if I was the person doing it, living it, my depth of understanding and all that came with would deepen the meaning thus value of my writing.

So when I can use my own life experiences to help infer understanding on the written page, I do that.

 

[Madonepro]

The last train to Brighton was always the strangest, but tonight, the only other passenger was a woman wearing a full-length, fur-lined opera coat in the middle of July...

 

[KaliYoni]

BABY SHOES. FOR SALE. NEVER WORN.

;-)

 

[Madonepro]

BABY SHOES. FOR SALE. NEVER WORN.

;-)

reads the handmade sign, scrawled by hand, by the desperate mother of two, as she stands outside the department store, that once was her place of employment, but since the floods, has become the place where she hopes that her faith in humanity is restored.