I Want To Write, But I Don't Know What To Write

Hey everyone, glad you can make it back.

So how many of you have ever got that urge to write, to create something, and when you sit down to start you just don't know what to write. Maybe you've been working on a mansucript, a story, a poem, or your main peice of work, but you feel you want to take a break from it and work on something new? Yet nothing is coming to mind, all you have is that urge to write something new. Well, today I'm going to tell you of my five favortie writing prompts and, maybe, they'll work for you.

A Picture is Worth 1,000 Words

I know you've had to hear this at least once in your life. And it works as a great writing prompt. Find yourself a picture, hit up deviant art, tumblr, Facebook even and find a picture that captures your eye. Or have a friend do it for you. Here's the thing, you get no contex about the picture. You just get to see it and go for there. Now you can set the word limit, you don't need to have a thousand words, but it works for the name.

Dialogue Prompt

This prompt is a really easy one to get going or it can be really hard. Honestly, it depends on how you see the world. If you hit up Pinterest there are hundreds of dialogue prompts there and you can pick any of them to start with. Let your creativity go for it. But let's say you don't want to do that? Well what you can do is go out in public, take a seat somewhere there is a lot of people and just listen to what they are saying. Yup, I'm saying you should eavesdrop on people. Listen for the oddest few sentences you can find, then write the story to go with them. You'll be surpised on what you can come up with.

Lyric to Prose

So everyone has that one song they really, really like to jam to. That's great, but I bet you didn't think of it as a place for a story. Take any song and listen to it once, maybe twice if you need too, and then write the story that it inspires. Some people go with the story behind the song others take what they feel about the song and write it there. Its fun. Now you want to make it a little more random? Go to Pandora or Iheartradio and pick a station, listen to a few songs and pick from them. Or, if you're the social type, go up to a stranger or a friend and ask them what the last song they listened to was and you listen to it, then write the story. I've seen this prompt produce some really great stories and I hope it works for you as well.

It's All In the First Line

For those of you who can just write without any planning (who I envy very much) this is the perfect start for you. Go to your local library, bookstore, friend who has a bunch of book' house, any place where there are plenty of books. Grab a book, and just let it open, don't think about it, just let the book open and when you have a page, close your eyes and pick a line. There you go, you have the first line of your story and just keep writing. This is a little difficult to do, especially if you're like me and like to plan everything out, but if you can jsut write, go for it. See what you can come up with.

Order from Randomness

So this prompt is probably one of the most frustrating, but amazing, prompts I have ever dealt with. I was introduced to this by my creative writing professor who was a man of literary fiction. Darell Spencer was professor and where he did not deal with genre fiction, he taught me alot about the craft and his method. Okay, so here's how it works. You go out into the world with a note book and just start writing down things you notice. Things that catch your attention, details about something that are cool, interesting or random dialogue you here; just write down everything. Make sure to number them as well. 1, 2, 3, 4, so on and so on. Once you've got a bunch of details, ask a friend to pick six random numbers from 1 to however many you have. Then you take those five sentences/details you've collected and put them into a paragraph. Yes, it will make no sense at first. But you just keep repeating the process. Always collect more detials and just keep putting them in. Keep making paragraphs in the same way, then go back and put in new sentences in random places (have a freind or significant other picking the numbers) and slowly the story will build. If you do this you'll write something you'd never think you would have wrote. It worked for me. I didn't think I would end up writing gay sex for a class assignment, but I did.  This can be a frustrating task though, just a heads up. It takes time and patience.


Well everyone, those are my top five writing prompts. What do you think? Some you want to try? Do you have a writing prompt that you really, really like? Let me know. I'd love to see what you come up with.

And always remeber, just keep writing.
Dakota