Writing Prompts to Wake the Muse
Thirteen curious ways to start writing now.
At the end of the day are you just too tired to write? Do you sit down ready to write, only your muse is absent? Try these timed prompts to start writing now!
One of the quickest ways to wake up your slumbering muse (no, not two-day-old coffee!) is to do a timed writing exercise with a thought, phrase or two unrelated words as the launching point. The time limit is up to you, thought 10 minutes should be adequate.
Use a timer because this shouldn’t be an evenings work, merely a way to get in the fiction writing mode for a story you’ve been aching to write, or finish. Not to say that what comes of the writing exercise won’t be of any use for something else, so save it and maybe one day you can use another writing prompt to kick-off the rewriting of the original exercise.
Some prompts require a little bit of thinking, like the ones that pose questions. Others that are just a jambalaya of words require no thought, just pick one word, start to write, and incorporate the other words in as you go.
1. Imagine you miss someone very important to you, and they are only reachable by letter… what would you write to them?
2. Pick a color, now pick a smell, then pick a flavor. Write.
3. What do you hate about your favorite time of the year?
4. Finish this line and continue: I’ve often wondered why_______
5. Write an apology letter to someone that you know you’ve offended, but you don’t know why.
6. Pick the first complete sentence from page 33 of the nearest book and go from there. If you dislike direct orders, any old random page will do, but no cheating.. It must be the first full line that you see.
7. Finish this line and continue: It could be worse___________
8. What would your life be like if you were Steven King, or Patricia Cornwell, or Danielle Steel?
9. Imagine a small random act of kindness on your part, like letting another driver merge in front of you, or giving up your seat on the plane for someone flying home for an emergency, and how that one act could have changed the course of the stranger’s life.
10. Imagine, as a totally normal adult, one day you inadvertently made a wish and it came true almost immediately…
11. What lessons did you learn from your first love?
12. Pick a scent that you associate with a happy memory and write about it.
13. Take a notable first line from any classic novel (or use one I’ve chosen) and write freely from there.
· Call me Ishmael- Moby Dick, by Herman Melville
· Let me tell you a story. – the Little Princess, by Frances Hodgson Burnett
· “Christmas won’t be Christmas without any presents,” grumbled Jo, lying on the rug. – Little Women, by Luisa May Alcott
· The first place that I can well remember was a large pleasant meadow with a pond of clear water in it. – Black Beauty, by Anna Sewell
· Ships at a distance have every man’s wish on board. – Their Eyes Were Watching God, by Zora Neale Hurston
· No answer. – The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, by Mark Twain
· In my younger and more vulnerable years my father gave me some advice that I’ve been turning over in my mind ever since. – The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald
Have fun!
