JCB's Ruminations on the Craft of Fiction #16
September 3, 2020
I want to talk about writing prompts. Writing prompts can be very helpful to spur writers into writing, but it’s important to keep in mind the purpose of a writing prompt and not to expect too much from them. It’s a strange thing to be a writer, to feel that urge to create with words, to love the power of the medium, and yet to find oneself continually fighting against a strange desire to avoid actually writing. Writing prompts can be a great way to get ourselves in front of the keyboard, to propel us toward the blank page and the activity of laying down strings of words. But writing prompts are almost never meant to produce stories.
A well-crafted story requires character and character development, the events of a plot, even if minimal in the case of flash fiction, which force the character into action that will begin to redefine their worldview. Although bolts of inspiration strike now and then, it always takes time to bring together these various elements into a fully considered story. We might spend this time either diligently planning or staring at a tree and waiting for inspiration. No matter what, it requires time.
Probably the best way for a writer to spend that time is writing, which is why there is quite a lot of writing and story-planning advice that encourages pre-writing. We can type out character sketches and develop the scenes that shaped our character’s understanding of themselves and their world and sets them up to be the person for whom a story can be told. We can outline plots, explore the cause-and-effect relationships among the events of our plots in order to maximize the effectiveness of the story upon the character. There are many kinds of writing that a writer can do to prepare themselves for a story. Although none of this pre-writing will appear in the eventual story, it puts us in the mindset, shapes our understanding of a character and what the character needs from the plot, so that from there we can commence with the story.
A writing prompt is just such a thing. It is meant to be practice, something to get the writer writing, and in some few cases a writing prompt can even set in motion the thought processes that will lead us to a fully conceived story. Depending on the specifics of the prompt, it might help us discover something about a character we’re trying to find a story for, might help us practice showing character emotion within a scene, might help us render a vivid setting, might help us depict exciting action, might help us uncover the pivotal character flaw that will be the springboard for an entire novel. It’s not always clear before we begin writing what the writing prompt will help us accomplish, but it’s usually something.
On the other hand, a writing prompt will almost never give us a complete story--unless you’re a story-savant, capable of envisioning a complete, fully fledged story in a flash of virtuosic inspiration whenever you sit down to write. In such cases, a writing prompt isn’t likely necessary. Whereas a writing prompt might help us discover the outline of a story which we can then develop and explore, we should not expect a story of every prompt. Writing prompts are simply invitations to do what we profess to love: to sit down and write.