5 Minute Writing Prompt

[sandy101]

Writing prompts are excersices to get you started writing.

 

They can be used as warm-up exercies or for times when you sit down and say, "I don't know what to write".

 

One way to use then are as 5 minute writiing exercises. You take a prompt and write for at least five minutes about it. If inspirations takes you - of course you can write for longer or turn it into a novel. If it doesn't work, you've done your 5 minutes and move on. You can interpret the prompt any way you like and add or omit details as you feel appropriate.

 

The plan is to post one a week. If follk want to add their own, to the thread then please feel free to do so.

 

If you want to share what you've written,t ehn please do so.

 

1/ A troll knocks on the door of your (or a character's) house. "But trolls do not exist," I hear you cry. Well, you try telling the troll that.

[Arcadian]

Uh! This is great! There was a similar thread at a previous time, which I had fully intended to contribute dedicatedly to, but I fell away. This time, I won't!

 

- P.

[mana]

Writing prompts are great! I can write reams and reams of text if there is a reason or a goal to do so. The sad thing is, I am rarely self motivated to actually do writing and that is where those handy little helpers come to the rescue.

[inkstainedruth]

I have found that the daily prompts on the NaPoWriMo website have been incredibly useful. They might be a theme, a subject, or a type of verse form that I'm not familiar with. And of course you don't have to actually use them -- but they're there if you get stuck. Sometimes I will use them as is, but other times I will approach them at an angle. Because the true goal is to get a poem a day written for the month of April. (Although when I was taking writing classes in college, there was one guy who actually managed a sestina, and the rest of us were basically going "Ooh, Patrick... you're GOOD!" I can write villanelles and sonnets -- but sestinas? Not so much.... )

When I was taking the writing class last summer (because I had never really tried my hand at fiction) we had an assignment to come up with three story ideas. Then we wrote them on the board and everyone else voted on the best idea of the three. The one they picked for me was, IMO, the WORST and least interesting. But then we were given this prompt where you look up a few words together in a random book based on the current date (so, for example, since today is July 3, you look up the 3rd line on page 7). Someone did that and came up with "page and a half" and THAT was the spark I needed to get the idea to gel. The story has some problems (picked up by the professor) so it needs a re-write. But once I got that prompt to go with the idea? The story just flowed.

Someone once asked my mother how she got ideas for the books she wrote. My mother was flabbergasted by the question -- because for her the *idea* for a novel was the easy part. The hard part was to do all the research, and then to get it all down on paper the way she wanted the story to go, and then edit the manuscript when she was finished.

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

[Pmcl2992]

Mana, I agree, the key is motivation. My issue has always been time to write as well. However, I have been reading a lot of great ideas from FPN members and it is becoming easier.

[sandy101]

Two children find a new "toy" under the hedge at the bottom of the garden. This toy will change their lives forever.

 

Write about this toy's discovery.

[sandy101]

"Don't go to Misty Lake," the old crone said. I wake up, in a rowing boat on Misty Lake, and the oars have disappeared. I can hear the town clock chiming quarter to midnight miles away down the distant valley. I can't remember how I got here or when.

 

What happens next?

[sandy101]

Buy a ticket, take the ride

 

What could possibly go wrong?

[Studio97]

Prompt: write what you care about and that can be anything within your universe.

[sandy101]

"They didn't build these walls to keep the monsters out, but to keep the monsters in!", the professor said.

 

What happens next?

[sandy101]

"Close your eyes, I have a surprise for you."