by Teagan Berry

 

Sometimes, the words just don’t flow.

Writer’s block is something that unfortunately every single writer will come across in their writing career. In the past, I’ve written about ways to overcome writer’s block, touching on a few different techniques I’ve used to help jolt the creativity in my system. You can find those here, here, and here. I have another suggestion for you all… and I honestly can’t believe I’ve never thought to share it before.

Writing prompts are a great way to get your mind going and in the mood for writing. Sometimes (and this has actually happened to me before) it can even be the beginning of a whole new project.

There are many different places you can go to if you’re looking for writing prompts. Of course, Googling it is a solid approach. From there, you’ll find dozens of websites with hundreds of prompts out there for your perusal. I personally find the Writer’s Digest writing prompt webpage helpful, as well as ThinkWritten’s prompt page, found here. Both of these sites provide broad ideas to help push through that tough bout of writer’s block and get writing again.

Pinterest is also a super helpful site when it comes to searching for writing prompts. Just type those key words into the search bar and you’ll find tons of stuff to release your creativity. Through Pinterest, both dialogue prompts and general prompts will appear in your search. Dialogue prompts are great – they give you a (usually) single sentence a character would say, and then you have to go with it from there, making the piece your own. Sometimes, these dialogue prompts can be a couple of lines, even a small amount of banter between two characters. I personally find dialogue prompts extremely helpful, as they can get the brain firing with all creative cylinders again. They even can help out with current projects you’re working on – sometimes the dialogue provided for you sounds exactly like something one of your characters would say and that’s all you really need to get going again.

Now that you’ve found a writing prompt that you like, what do you do with it?

Like I mentioned before, writing prompts can turn into their own piece of work. Short story, full-length novel, poem, script… the sky is the limit. The thing about prompts is that they’re there to spark the creativity which has become stagnant in your brain. Sometimes that’s all they’re good for, and once you’ve harnessed that creativity again, you don’t need the prompt anymore. But sometimes that prompt turns into something much, much more. And I personally think that’s when things get really interesting. All of a sudden you’ve got a new project on your hands. New characters, a new setting, new conflicts that need to be resolved. Isn’t that what every writer looks forward to? Working on a new piece?

So there you have it: writing prompts. Another way to help keep the creativity flowing or get it jump-started again. I hope this suggestion is useful for your writing.

Keep writing everyone!

 

 

 

Guest post contributed by Teagan Berry. Teagan writes books, watches sports, and reads. She started her blog initially to beat writer’s block, but it’s turned into so much more.