writing a story with a prompt

I love to use prompts to write a story. I should emphasize that I mostly use prompts to help me overcome the writer’s block that occasionally strikes me. Writer’s block is an irritating thing that results in people losing confidence in their ability to write. But you don’t have to give in to the frustration of writer’s block. There are ways of letting it go, including writing with a prompt. I believe that, if you can talk, you can write. The problem isn’t the inability to communicate via written word. The problem is… how do you start?

If you want to do a random writing exercise, you can skip the next two steps and just go straight to the first line generator. I usually prefer the random approach, but that’s not for everyone, and that’s okay. This is your writing project, so you need to tailor it to your needs. If you want more structure, you’re going to want to do these two steps:

The first step is to decide what kind of writing you want to do. What genre would you like to write? You have your choice of numerous genres. These genres would include suspense/thriller, horror, romance, fantasy, science fiction, mystery, historical fiction, paranormal, and contemporary fiction.

Then you need to choose a style of writing. These writng styles include poetic, descriptive, and creative. If you don’t want to choose one, that’s all right. I have employed all three in stories. Here is a link that gives information about different writing styles, as well as about literary devices. https://selfpublishing.com/different-writing-styles/

So, now that you know what sort of fiction you want to write and the basic writing style you want to use, your next step would be to find a first line generator. Below are links to several first line generators:

This generator offers you the choice of genres, so, if you’ve chosen your favorite genre, you’re going to enjoy this. https://writingexercises.co.uk/firstlinegenerator.php

This generator is strictly random: https://pentoprint.org/first-line-generator/

Here is another one that could offer you some writing fun. https://www.plot-generator.org.uk/opening-line/

Now that you have your first line, you’re going to continue writing. The most important thing to do is to turn off your internal critic. It’s giving you those annoying “you can’ts,” and you really don’t need to hear that, especially from yourself. There will be plenty of time to edit later. Right now, you need to write. Don’t worry about grammar and don’t worry about spelling. Those are easy things to fix. Let your imagination free and remember that everyone deserves a chance to fly, and that includes your imagination.

Have fun writing your story!

Question for you: what kind of fiction would you most like to write?