Tips and Tricks: Prompts

Tips+and+Tricks%3A+Prompts

Maricruz Trenado-Frias

It has been a long fall term filled with various midterms, essays, and projects and we want to give you a little break. Sometimes when the term consists of a lot of writing or researching we tend to have a little writers block towards the middle of the term. In order to help the writers block there are many ways to help. One way to write with the help of a prompt. This allows your brain to focus on something less stressful and more go with the flow. 

Here are some prompts that can get your creative juices flowing:

Describe a broken, rusted barn without actually letting your reader know what it is until the end. 

Example: Now on top of the hill, a barn barely standing still on the verge of crumbling down. It’s been through many storms and rainy days, but nothing worse than the one passing through now. Walking towards the barn, even from a distance, you can hear it whistle as if it were calling out to someone. The wind travels through the barn, swinging open the one working door, inviting you in. Creaky doors, chipped pieces of colored wood, the barn doors crying aloud as the wind blows through, remembering it no longer provides shelter for the living. The storm now passed but not forgotten as it has left behind broken windows, the left raggedy old door broken down, holding on with only the bottom hinge, leaving the barn almost roofless, not letting it have the ability to store valuables without worrying about damaging anything. Against the wooden gate leading up the hill, following the trail, the clear blue sky, the sun which always never seems to disappoint but never has been kind on the once bright cherry red barn, that now has become a pink blush. A newly built one with additional luxuries is next to the old, broken-down barn. Never ridding of the old barn that has been rendered useless and has been for quite some time. 

Write from the perspective of an animal.

Write a love story that was meant to be but does not work in the end. 

Write a character who created a new famous board game and how that was his falling. 

Write about a character whose persona is stuck in the 50s but lives in a world filled entirely with technology. 

Write a story where the beginning is the end of a relationship. 

Write a story where you are the evil in the story, but in the end, it solves everyone’s problems. 

Begin with “Splotches of dry blood on the tips of my lips slowly tear apart only to let out..” 

Write a story where the first home you buy is hidden with clues for an adventure from the owner. 

Write a story about how you live life on the sea. 

Set your story up in your character’s mind, literally. 

Write a story where everything your character thinks about comes true. (But not in the way they would have imagined). 

Write a story where your character’s actions and behaviors depend on a dice roll. 

Write a story where you have a special power. 

Go back to the classics and write a love story made entirely of love letters. 

Write a story where the last words are “we might never find the answer.”

Write a story where worlds are switched, and we live in the ocean. 

Now that you have had a chance to take a creative break from homework this term, you can use your pieces of writing to submit to Prism! The deadline is coming up, it is on November 18th @11:59pm. I hope to see your submissions for Prism! Remember you can submit up to five submissions and up to 800-1000 words. You are allowed to submit an excerpt if it is a longer piece.

 

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