A while back I was perusing through Pinterest and I came across a writing prompt that caught my attention. I’ve never been much for writing prompts, finding that they are too narrow for me in the way they provide too much information to get started with. Maybe I’m weird, but I have always felt like if I start a story based on such specific prompts, I could never make something truly my own, which pretty effectively caps off the creativity train for me.
This prompt was different. Simple. A series of words. Each separate and stand alone. No leading sentences. No questions to answer. Just three seemingly unrelated words.
My brain exploded. I immediately had half a dozen scenarios in mind that came from those three words. So I thought to myself, what if I made my own little prompt game based around the simple words or ideas.
So, since I can never do anything by halves, I created a deck of 52 cards with 52 individual “prompts” consisting of a combination of single, double, and triple word groupings. Each word placed on a card is rooted in one of six categories: character, object, emotion, setting/environment, action, and abstract.
From there, the idea is simple. Draw a card from the deck. Take in the word(s) for a moment, and then write.
Sounds simple enough. And wouldn’t you know it, I drew a random card and wrote the first words I’ve managed in over a month. And it felt great to write minus the pressure of finishing this or that story or making progress on my poor neglected novels.
And I think that is the point of writing prompts – to get juices flowing, regardless of what they are creating.
So for fun, I thought I would share my prompts here as I draw them as well as the result of my prompt session in all it’s raw glory. I hope you’ll follow along and maybe even try them out for yourself. If you want more information behind the concept and the prompts I created, check out the official page that breaks it down more officially.
For now, check out the next post and see the results of my first session.
-Alivia
Alivia Patton 