Monday, December 27, 2010

Getting Creative, Part 6: Create a Prompt Library

Writing prompts are a fun way to get started in writing. The topics are bountiful, so create a library of them for whenever you are contending with writer’s block. Here are a few examples:

From the Ifs, Ands, and Buts File:
  • IF I had only a notebook and a pen AND were stranded in an igloo with an Inuit family BUT had no mobile phone coverage …
  • IF my mother and father met three years after they did AND were living independent, single lives BUT were both extremely successful at their jobs ….

From the People, Places, and Things Files:

  • An elderly NAVAHO WOMAN standing outside the SUPERMARKET was selling GIRL SCOUT COOKIES …
  • My DENTIST bumps into me in the GRAND CANAL of Venice drinking bottled WATER

From the Animal, Vegetable, or Mineral File:

  • A RABBIT would not let go of the CARROT it was chomping on as it scampered to the barn during a HAILSTORM …
  • The TAXICAB DRIVER drove past a CORNFIELD, he realized he was on the wrong side of the MOUNTAIN …

From the 5W & H File:

  • The person WHO invented the wheel …
  • WHAT is least likely to happen to me if I won the lottery is …
  • WHERE the country’s next military deployment will be …
  • WHEN human evolved from their former species, the knowledge they took …
  • WHY President Richard Nixon did not destroy the White House tapes is a matter of …
  • HOW Captain Edward John Smith died aboard Titanic in 1912 …

From the 3A File (Analysts, Artists, and Athletes):

  • SIGMUND FREUD had little to say to ANDRÉS SEGOVIA when DAVID VILLA scored another goal against Austria because ...
  • ALBERT EINSTEIN postulated that LEONARDO DA VINCI and MUHAMMAD ALI understood their craft as well as did his because ...

Books by Philip Vassallo