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Writing Prompts   Writing from Prompts Sometimes you're stuck and need unsticking. Sometimes you want something new for a journal entry. Teachers may want something interesting for their students to write about. Students may need an idea to get them started on an essay. That's what writing prompts are for. Writing prompts give you a place to start. When you're told, "Write about anything," you may get stuck. There is too much to write about. But when you get the request, "Write about a memory of something blue," immediately a memory of that plastic wading pool that you had the summer after kindergarten comes to mind, and you're off and running with a story of your first bee sting. Writing prompts are a great antidote to the feeling of, "I don't want to share my ideas because someone might steal them." Try giving a prompt to a group of fellow writers and see how different the resulting stories and essays are. One idea can spark dozens of different treatments. NEW! Get a prompt, leave a prompt at our Writing Prompt Wiki page! Use the password "wikipromptpass" to get access to Edit mode so you can add your own favorite writing prompts. (Please remember this is a family-friendly site -- inappropriate additions will cause your writing muse to abandon you and all your pens to dry up at once.) Also, Try our random writing prompt generators!  Here are some to get you started: For June, July, and August: Summertime writing prompts Summer writing prompts: Get a head start on the old "What I Did on My Summer Vacation" essay and write about "What I'm Going to Do on My Summer Vacation." Write about your dream vacation. If you could go anywhere or do anything this summer, what would you do? I was lounging on a beach on Maui when suddenly... The last thing you expect to find in a swimming pool is... Most kids set up a lemonade stand to make some money, but not us. We decided to... This is going to be the last summer when I... One thing I wish I'd done differently last summer is... This summer I'm definitely going to... The minute the fireworks started going off, I... Write a story about people from a land of perpetual summer visiting people from a land of perpetual winter, or vice versa. Start a journal entry with: I remember the first time that I... I'll never forget... I am the one who... I write because... No one can make me... If I were sure I'd never be caught, I just might... My life would be different if I'd never met... If someone went through my trash, they'd think... Nothing could have prepared me for the day that... I want to be famous for... I'm really good at... When I was a kid I always wanted... One place in the world I really want to go is... I wish I never had to... If I could have a second chance, I would... Write about... a memory of something blue. Or red. Or yellow. But don't use the name of the color in your essay. a memory of the smell of vanilla. Or grape Kool-Ade. Or Play-Doh. the first time you walked home from school all by yourself. your earliest memory of your aunt or uncle. a memory of footprints in the snow. the first time you saw the ocean. the best Halloween (or Hanukkah or Christmas or other holiday) you ever had. a memory of rain beating on a windowpane. the first time you did something you weren't supposed to do. having to eat something that you didn't like. Try an opening line: On a rainy night in London... He'd never noticed the diner on that street before. Had it always been there? It was half-past midnight when the paper clips revolted. Life as a vampire is difficult enough, but for the vegan vampire, it can be intollerable. That morning, we made a list of cafeteria foods that should be declared unfit for human consumption. If it weren't for the Northern lights... Her favorite word was "ghastly." I'd aways imagined that a talking dog would have a deeper voice. By the time the lie had spread so far and wide that everyone believed it to be the truth, it was too late. The river people lived on, down in the deepest eddies, long after the farmers stopped believing in them. She clung to the steel bars of the fire escape, five floors above the alley, and wondered, "How did I get up here?" When I used to pretend I was a superhero, I always imagined myself with really cool powers. Invisibility. Super strength. Super speed. But never, never, in all my imaginings, did I ever think that one day I'd really, truly end up with the most uncool power of all. Aunt Belinda warned me not to to go the palm reader at the fair. But of course I wouldn't listen. The last we saw of Benson that day was his sturdy shape wading along the bank of the river, poking at things with a stick, moseying along until he was completely out of sight around the bend. I woke up that morning to the smell of fried bacon and the sound of chickens clucking in the front yard -- my first hints that something wasn't quite right. Imogene Hornwinkle was the meanest, nastiest, most horrible girl in all of third grade. "If I must be a dragon," thought Fenwick, "it would be nice if I could blow at least a little bit of fire." Use props as prompts: Cut a picture pictures of three different people out of a magazine. Write about who they are and what happened when they met in an airport. Pick up three random items, each from a different room in your house. Write a story in which all three items are significant. Open up a high school yearbook. Pick someone you knew slightly, and write a story of what happened to him or her after graduation. Search a dictionary for a word you've never heard of. Use it in a story or poem. Copy down headlines from a tabloid newspaper, and turn one or more into a plausible story. Take five words chosen at random from a magazine article, and the opening line of a novel. Put them together in the same story. Find pictures of yourself as a child. Imagine your child self asking your present self to tell a story. What story to you make up? Walk into a shop you've never been in before -- one that you'd never had any inclination to go in before. What do you see? What do you hear? What are your reactions? Write about them. Go into a shop where you can find lots of interesting colors and textures: a yarn shop, a rock and gemstone shop, a hardware store, an office supply store. Find the most interesting items and create a story from them, or write an article about the origins of one of the items. Find postcards with funny pictures on them, and create a story or a poem from one of the pictures. Start with a traditional fortune-telling tool, such as Tarot cards, numerology, or I-Ching, or get the "Creative Whack Pack" (see recommended books, to the left). Make up a character and do a reading for that character, then create a story using the reading as a plot or theme. Websites Several websites feature long lists of writing prompts. Here are a few to try: The Writing Fix: Interactive Writing Prompts (extremely cool!) Creative Writing Prompts Writing Prompts from Writer's Digest Writing Bugs Writing Fix Interactive Plot Generator (and more) Writing Prompts from Can Teach

If you need more writing prompts, or if you teach writing, try these books: Story Sparkers Marcia Thornton Writer's Digest Books, 2000 350 Fabulous Writing Prompts Jaqueline Sweeney Scholastic, 1999 Incredible Quotations Jaqueline Sweeney Scholastic, 1999 101 Picture Prompts to Spark Super Writing Karen Kellaher Scholastic, 1999

Glen and Karen Bledsoe --> articles --> The Writing Process --> Writing Prompts