Loading…
6
I paid $45 for a prompt generator app and wrote better stuff with a $1 notebook from Walgreens
Two years back I was stuck on a short story and figured a prompt app would fix it, so I paid $45 for a year of these daily generated prompts. Every single one came out like 'a detective finds a cursed spoon' or 'write about a door that opens twice.' I wrote maybe four stories off it in 10 months, and none of them went anywhere. Then in February I started carrying a $1 notebook from the Walgreens on 5th and just jotting down stuff I overheard, like my neighbor yelling at his dog named Kevin. I've filled 30 pages and finished six stories since then, all from dumb little real moments. The app prompts felt like homework, the notebook stuff feels like mine. If you write, what's the weirdest place you've gotten a prompt that actually worked?
1 comments
Log in to join the discussion
Log In1 Comment
aliceg611h ago
Oh man, the prompt app trap is so real! Back when my oldest was a baby I bought one of those writing prompt books thinking it would get me going, and every prompt felt like it was written by a robot who had never met a human. "A stranger hands you a key" type stuff, just nothing to hold onto. What finally worked for me was the grocery store parking lot, weirdly enough, because I started writing down full bits of talk I'd catch walking to my car, like a guy on his phone saying "no Mom, the raccoon is fine, I checked." That one line turned into a whole story, and I never would have gotten it from an app. Real stuff has grit to it, and the fake prompts just don't, which is why you could churn out six stories from a Walgreens notebook while the $45 app sat there collecting dust. My advice is keep the notebook in your car too, because the best lines hit you when you're stuck at a red light and your brain is bored.
3