Loading…
11
PSA: A single specific prompt beats a list of 20 vague ones every time, and I wasted 3 weeks figuring that out
I used to write these huge prompt dumps for my writing group, like 15 to 20 ideas at once, and every time we met nobody picked anything. People just stared at the page and then asked if we could brainstorm more. Then in January I tried something different and brought one prompt with a real constraint: a character has to return a borrowed item 10 years late, and the owner is now a stranger. I got 9 finished drafts from 11 people that night, which never happens. The difference was that one prompt gave a situation instead of a topic, so nobody had to invent the stakes from scratch. Turns out a list of 20 vague ideas is just homework, but one sharp prompt is a starting gun. Does anyone else find that a good constraint gets people writing faster than total freedom, or is it just my group?
0 comments
Log in to join the discussion
Log In0 Comments
No comments yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this discussion.