I was dead wrong about writing prompts being childish until my professor challenged me

I used to roll my eyes at writing prompt forums, thinking they were just for beginners or people who couldn't come up with their own ideas. Then my creative writing teacher last semester gave us a prompt about a locked room and a single shoe, and I wrote my best short story yet from it. Has anyone else had a prompt completely flip your opinion on them?

2 comments

2 Comments

kevin_martin1mo ago

Man, I gotta say I still don't get the hype. Prompts feel like cheating to me. Half the fun of writing is staring at a blank page and wrestling something out of it yourself. That locked room shoe thing just sounds like a gimmick, not real inspiration. I dunno, maybe it works for some people, but I'd rather trust my own brain to find the story.

the_jordan1mo ago

You know, that locked room shoe thing actually reminds me of this time I was trying to write a short story and got totally stuck. I ended up spending an hour just staring at my cat's food bowl trying to figure out a plot point. Sometimes weird stuff works, I guess. But hey, no judgment either way.