5 Writing Prompts to get You Writing

Writing isn’t easy. We sit in front of a blank screen or piece of paper or some app like Scrivener or Microsoft Word, the Hemingway Editor or some other writing tool, only to stare at it hoping that the muse comes to us. We look for prompts and read blurbs and excerpts from books on Amazon whenever we’re lucky enough to have that little “Read Sample” button under some book that just came out or that we’ve been admiring or wanting to read for, like, ever. But nothing comes to us.

When I wrote my novel, The Losses, I had a physical copy of Elizabeth Strout’s Olive Kitteridge right next to my laptop (I’ve progressed from a notepad to an old typewriter to a Brother word processor with only one visible line to a laptop, and now I’m back to writing by pen because of Word’s Dictate feature). I rarely have any issues writing, not because I don’t struggle sometimes but because I don’t believe in writer’s block, as I know it’s just not being able to write what I want to write when I want to write it. Sit your ass in the chair and the muse will come, my friend the writer John Dufresne, says, and he’s right. The muse doesn’t come to you and then you sit down to write. So, that’s what I do.

But sometimes you need a writing prompt. Sometimes you need something to turn that light on so that you can get going. You need something that triggers that writing muse. So, today I thought I’d put a few prompts out there for you writers struggling to come up with a subject to explore in your fiction. It may take some research. You may have to run to some expert to find out more about what a career involves, because you want to get it right. That’s okay. You’re a writer and you are persistent. You don’t give up. Here’s seven writing prompts for you to use, if you so wish. Some require more work to get started. Others you can just jump into, because you’re a human being on this planet and there are just some topics we’ve all experienced at some point in our lives, many of which occurred to us or that we’ve experienced before we were even a teenager. Without further ado, here are 10 Writing Challenges and Exercises to get You Writing:

1. There’s a woman watching your apartment from across the street. She’s been there for two days. You sort of recognize her, but you can’t place her. Your friend Shelly comes over. “She’s running for city council,” Shelly says. “She’s also your mother.” Write about what happens when you approach her. Why did she abandon you? Why is she back? How does Shelly know who she is while you don’t?

   
   

2. You wake up one morning. Your wife is gone. The pictures in frames of the two of you that were scattered about the house are gone. Her clothing, however, is still there. You check everywhere she may have gone. You call your friends and her friends; some of them are the same friends. No one knows a thing. Then you find her purse. Everything’s there except two things: her passport and the picture of the child you lost when she was two. What do you do? What happened to you guys after you lost the child? Was the child a boy or a girl? And how did affect your wife?

   
   

3. Your husband comes home one day from a business trip. Something’s up, but you aren’t sure what—he’s acting . . . different. Then, at dinner, he says, “I’ve met someone.” What happens next?

   
   

4. You’re at a work party for one of your colleagues who’s moved up the ranks and finally got that role they were working towards for the last year. Arwan, your closest colleague, looks like his dog died. He gets drunk. He pulls you aside. He tells you that you’re getting passed over for the role you’ve been working towards for three, yes, three years. And the person getting that promotion? The twenty-two year old kid you just trained for the last six months. You can stay and report to the kid, or you can leave. How does the conversation go with your boss? Write two scenes: one where you stay, and one where you go. What happens?

1. Your neighbor, who’s lived in the cute little Craftsman next to you for the last twenty years, moves out after selling their house. The new owners are quiet. You think, too quiet. They come and leave at all hours of the night. They’re gone for weeks at a time. You don’t want to assume anything, but both of them dress . . . differently every time you see them return home from wherever they’ve gone. You know this because you’ve been watching them. Your roommate says you’re being paranoid. But are you? Where are they going at night? Where do they go for weeks on end? You get the idea to see if you can get inside their home. You know, just to check them out a little because you can’t find anything about them on Google. And so you do. What do you find?

I hope the above prompts get you writing. They’ve got me thinking already. I want to know who my neighbors are. I want to know why the kid got the job when I clearly know more than he does. I want to know who my husband met. Maybe you can help me get there. Or maybe you’ll at least try.

Happy writing. Show me your first page in the comments once you’re done.

Cully Perlman is author of The Losses, a novel. He’s also a substantive editor. He can be reached at Cully@novelmasterclass.com

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