The Community Guide

c/creative-writing-prompts

2

grant.parker•15d ago

I think the 'show don't tell' rule gets way too much credit in writing prompts

Last month at a writers meetup in Austin, this guy spent 20 minutes lecturing everyone about how showing is always better than telling. I told him straight up that sometimes you just need to say 'he was angry' instead of describing his clenched fists for three paragraphs. In real life, people actually say things like 'I'm furious' and it works fine. Has anyone else found that sticking too close to this rule actually makes their prompt responses feel forced and unnatural?

22

max472•15d ago

Overheard my bus driver say 'everyone has a story' while kicking a guy off

Last Tuesday on the 47 bus this guy was yelling at the driver about being late for work. The driver just said 'everyone has a story' real quiet before telling him to get off. Made me think about how I never know what's going on in someone else's life when I'm rushing around. Anybody else ever get a random line from a stranger that stuck with you?

24

ellis.felix•15d ago

Blew $60 on a fiction writing prompt deck from Etsy that just gives me plot holes

It came with 200 cards but half of them suggest characters with impossible motivations like a vampire who runs a vegan bakery and the love interest is a sunbeam and I swear the person who made it never actually finished a story themselves, has anyone else found a prompt deck that actually keeps a plot consistent?

3

the_drew•15d ago

That $150 creative writing course on Skillshare was a complete waste

I signed up for a course called "The Art of Fresh Prompts" by some guy named Mark B. (not linking him here). It was just 4 hours of him telling us to "write what you know" and then reading his own short stories out loud. Has anyone actually gotten useful material from paid writing courses, or do they all just recycle the same basic advice?

29

max472•16d ago

Had to pick between a 3 act structure and a nonlinear timeline for my short story

I was writing this piece about a guy fixing up his late father's truck. I figured a straight timeline would be easier to follow since I only had 2,500 words to work with. But every time I sat down to write it I kept jumping back to memories of the dad in the garage. So I went with the nonlinear version where the present day work on the truck triggers flashbacks. Turned out way better because the mystery of what happened between them kept me writing. Anyone else ever chose a trickier structure and regretted or loved it?

1

claire999•17d ago

The trick that fixed my dialogue pacing after 6 months of flat scenes

I kept writing conversations where characters sounded like they were reading a script. Turns out I was cutting every piece of small talk and filler. I tried adding in just two or three lines of stuttered words or interruptions per scene, and suddenly my beta readers at the Austin writers group actually felt like they were listening to real people talk. Has anyone else had luck with a specific rule for how much filler to leave in?

29

matthewross•17d ago

That moment during my nanowrimo event when my laptop crashed and I lost 12,000 words of my novel made me a firm believer in cloud backups

I was at a coffee shop in Portland at 2am, finally hitting the climax of chapter 18, when the screen went black and I realized I had been saving everything to the desktop for a month, so now I start every writing session by hitting Ctrl+S into Google Docs before I even type a single word.

6

nancy929•17d ago

That time I found out I'd been outlining my stories wrong for 4 years

I sat down last week to finally organize my novel idea and realized I'd been using the wrong structure the whole time... I kept trying to fit everything into a 3 act format, but my plot kept dragging around page 60. My beta reader finally asked me why I had 15 chapters of setup and no payoff. She showed me her own outline template with a pinch point and a midpoint twist I never knew about. I felt so dumb, I even printed out the wrong guide from a blog back in 2018 and never questioned it. Has anyone else stuck with a bad method for years just because it was the first one they found?

10

ryand26•18d ago

Got a beta reader who told me my dialogue was too on the nose, so I started having characters talk around what they mean instead.

They pointed out that in real life, people rarely say exactly how they feel, so I rewrote a scene where two siblings fight about a lost dog without ever saying 'I'm sorry.' Has anyone else found a specific critique that totally shifted their writing style?

3

matthewross•18d ago

Appreciation post: the 15 year old short story I finally gave up on

Spent 5 years rewriting the same opening paragraph before realizing I was just trying to force a premise that never worked, does anyone else have a project they stubbornly held onto way past its expiration date?

15

stellablack•23d ago

My old writing process was all paper notebooks and sticky notes

I used to plot out every short story on index cards spread across my coffee table, but now I just type straight into a blank document on my laptop... started doing that around 2020 when I ran out of index cards during a lockdown. Does anyone else miss the physical act of shuffling scenes around by hand?

15

richard_kelly54•27d ago

Why I ditched planning my novel for pantsing it entirely

Last month I had to choose between mapping out every chapter in a 50-page outline or just writing the first scene cold. I picked the pantsing route, and let me tell you, after 12 pages I hit a wall where my main character ended up in a library with no clue how she got there. Has anyone else found that overplanning kills the fun of discovery or am I the only one who likes the chaos?

18

stellablack•28d ago

Stop starting every story with 'It was a dark and stormy night'

I used to do that garbage too until a workshop leader in Brooklyn told me to just drop the reader into the middle of the action. Try starting with a character already running or a sentence of dialogue. Has anyone else found a specific opener that always works?

11

drew_chen•28d ago

Update: I used to hate writing short stories, but one prompt changed my mind

I always thought short stories were too limited, but then I saw a prompt that said 'write a 100-word story about a locked door.' That tiny constraint made me focus every word, and now I get why people love the challenge. Has anyone else found a prompt that flipped your style around?

3

sanchez.mary•29d ago

Rant: The "show don't tell" rule is getting misused

I keep seeing people in writing groups say you should never state a character's emotion directly. "He was angry" gets flagged as bad writing every time. But I read a passage from Stephen King last week where he just says "Roland was furious" and it works fine because the context carries it. Why has the rule turned into this absolute thing where every feeling has to be shown through sweaty palms or clenched jaws? Anyone else think we've swung too far into avoiding simple emotional statements?

27

gray_smith67•1mo ago

That prompt method everyone loves? It killed my story dead

Everyone swears by "show don't tell" as the golden rule for writing prompts, but after 4 months of forcing it on every post, my stuff felt flat and lifeless. I tried just telling the premise straight up in my last 3 prompts and got way more responses than usual. Anyone else find that the "rules" actually make for boring prompts?

16

rubybarnes•1mo ago

Hit a wall on this writing prompt about a time loop that resets every 500 years

Been tinkering with a prompt for the last month where a character gets born every 500 years with full memory of their past lives. But how do you show the progression of civilization without writing a boring history textbook? I tried focusing on one city, say London, from Roman times to now, but it feels too big. Anyone crack a similar time scale prompt without making it a slog?

25

the_hugo•1mo ago

Noticed how writing prompts got way more specific over the last 10 years

I was scrolling through old prompt threads from 2014 and they were all stuff like "write about a door" or "a stranger gives you something." Now every prompt has a full paragraph of setup and three rules about genre and word count. Did the community just get more demanding, or did we all get tired of the simple stuff? What kind of prompts do you actually prefer writing to?

9

christopher903•1mo ago

Finally realized I was killing my dialogue tags

I spent like 3 years writing 'he exclaimed' and 'she retorted' before a beta reader asked why I was using a thesaurus for every line. Has anyone else had that moment where you learn a basic rule you somehow missed completely?

8

loganm52•1mo ago

My fantasy world map took three weeks to get the river flow right

I was building a continent for a new story and wanted the geography to feel real. I drew the mountains first, then started adding rivers flowing from them to the coast. A friend who knows geology looked at my draft and pointed out that three of my major rivers were flowing uphill, crossing mountain ranges to get to the sea. I had to re-learn basic watershed principles I hadn't thought about since middle school. I spent the next 21 days redrawing the entire central basin, erasing and moving city locations that depended on the old water sources. It was a huge delay, but now the land makes sense. Do you think this level of geographical accuracy is necessary for reader immersion, or can you hand-wave it for the sake of the plot?

1

maxpalmer•1mo ago

I hit 1000 words on a single character description and it wasn't boring

I mean, I was just trying to flesh out a side character for a fantasy story, idk. I started listing small details like a chipped tooth from a bar fight and a habit of humming old sea shanties when nervous. Before I knew it, I'd written over a thousand words just about this guy's backstory and mannerisms, and it actually felt useful, not like filler. It surprised me because I usually struggle to get past a paragraph without getting stuck. Now I have a whole folder of notes I can pull from when he's in a scene. Has anyone else had a prompt explode into way more material than they expected?

22

elizabethhart•1mo ago

Bought a $200 'idea generator' book that was just a list of cliches

Honestly, I saw it in a bookstore about five years ago and thought it would help with writer's block. Tbh, it was just a big, glossy book with prompts like 'write about a haunted house' or 'a character finds a key'. I could have gotten that for free online. Ngl, felt pretty silly after that. Anyone else have a go-to place for good, fresh prompts that doesn't cost a fortune?

17

charlie269•1mo ago

My main character's motivation puzzle took me a full day to crack

I was writing a short story about a baker who finds a magic rolling pin, but I couldn't figure out why she wouldn't just sell it. I spent a whole Saturday trying different ideas before landing on her fear of losing her family's legacy. What's the longest you've been stuck on a simple character detail?

11

the_jordan•1mo ago

Can we talk about the idea that you need a full outline before you start writing

I see a lot of people here saying you have to plan every chapter and character arc before you write a single word. I used to do that, and it killed my stories. For my last project, a fantasy thing set in a fake city called Veridia, I had a choice: stick to my 20-page outline or just start writing with a single image in mind. I picked the second one. The story went in a totally different direction, and a side character I made up on the spot became the main villain. It was messy, sure, but it felt alive in a way my planned stuff never did. My friend read it and said, 'This part where the guard just quits his job feels so real.' That never would have happened if I'd stuck to the plan. Has anyone else found that too much planning makes the writing feel stiff?

16

stellablack•1mo ago

I thought the 'write what you know' advice was just a cliche until I tried it for real

For years I avoided writing about my own life, thinking it was boring. Then last month, I wrote a short story based on working at my uncle's auto shop in Toledo. I used real details, like the smell of the grease and the sound of the air wrench. It felt way more honest and people in my writing group said it was my best work yet. I guess you really do have to start with what's right in front of you. Has anyone else had a prompt or piece of advice they thought was dumb that actually worked?