creative writing prompts generator

creative writing prompts generator

Inspiring Creative Writing Prompts

1. Introduction

When it comes to being a prosperous writer, whether it be fiction, non-fiction, poetry, anything, the key to having an adequate amount of material, as well as feeling a confident relationship with yourself, is to have a complete understanding of what you’re representing. Now, the representation, of course, is words – words that come from your mind, your thoughts, your feelings, and your recollections. To be able to effectively siphon these things onto paper or computer, you need to be comfortable with knowing what you want, need, and understanding why you want and need them. Subsequently, with a full understanding of what you require, you’re going to need some ideas. Ideas are the key to an effective way of writing, and to have compelling ideas, you’re going to have to, yet again, have a complete and intelligent understanding of what you are going to want to represent.

2. Section One: Character Development

Having well-developed characters is the key to a riveting story. It is important that your audience can empathize or identify with the protagonist. If your audience does not care about the character, they will not care what happens to them. Character development can also breed plot development. Getting to know your character can suggest the direction your story should take. For example, if your character is an introverted, arachnophobic, ex-bank robber, it is likely that the story of how he was forced into the situation where he had to rob the bank will be an interesting one. People aren’t born with arachnophobia, and as to why he became introverted is probably quite the story as well. In order to fine-tune the character in your mind before you embark on your story, write a detailed profile for them. Ask them their views on various things, understand why they are the way they are. This may ultimately be information that you never use in the actual story, but knowing your character inside and out will greatly affect the way he presents himself in the actual story.

3. Section Two: Plot and Conflict

Now, what is plot? The idea is simple. Plot is what happens in a story. Or more to the point, plot is what happens to the main character. The story is then the main character’s response to what happens. Let’s assume you are a character. You go to work in the morning, only to find you have been sacked. What are you going to do? Call up your buddies and hit the town, of course! But what if the character in the story gets a different response to what happens? What if he tries desperately to get his job back with hilarious consequences? Scenario one is going to lead to a story about a man who discovers a new path in life. Scenario two is a series of attempts by the man to solve his problem and an exploration of how the problem affects his life. These two different paths are what we call the story. But in the grand scheme of things, who the man was before the incident, a study of how these events affect him, is a tale about character that takes place between the man and the world he has created. The impact of events on the life of the main character is what dictates what form the story will take, but it is always useful to know that there are only two things a story can be: a man’s attempt to change a chain of events, or a journey into a new and strange situation.

Aristotle, a classical Greek philosopher, noted in his essay “Poetics” that while a story does have a beginning, a middle, and an ending, beginning writers do not know where one ends and the next begins. This simple confusion of what goes into the beginning, middle, and ending of a story is the source of most plot problems a writer has. They are jerking a reader from scene to scene without any underlying structure that holds the story together. A good way to get to the bottom of a confusing plot is to make a plot summary. This will help you get an overview of the whole story from beginning to end and serve as a reminder of all the subplots that need to be weaved in and out of the story. Now that you have a summary of your story, print it out and cut it into individual scenes. Then lay these out on your carpet. What you will have is a bird’s eye view of your story.

4. Section Three: Setting and Atmosphere

The setting of a story is essential to any creative work; thus, setting development is a great exercise to apply to creative writing prompts. To construct a great setting, consider many facets of environment. Place is the physical location. What does it look like? What does it feel like? What does it sound like? What does it smell like? What does it taste like? Be as descriptive in each of these areas as possible. A good way to organize this information is by drawing a five-sense map of the location you want to create. Time period and time of year are also a significant part of place. Have an idea of when the environment you have created exists. Finally, build a setting that ties in with the inner mood of your characters and the outer plot of your story. Once you have a setting in mind, brainstorm ways to show that setting through character action. For example, in Erin Bow’s novel Plain Kate, the main character is hoping to escape a hard life of poverty in a port town. Needing to stay near a large body of water, she decided that she will move to a place with a similar geographic setting, although she travels to various on the course of the novel. To contrast, when traveling through a perilous and cursed forest to shorten her trip, Kate’s decision directly contrasts with the environment around her, creating conflict-aware that the environment outside the town she once knew is reflective of her own internal change in character and mood.

5. Conclusion

It is telling that as we finish this piece, the sun has set and the room is nearly dark. We have discussed the concept of inspiration and have explored the nature of creativity. We offered examples and considered possible methods for finding and utilizing inspiration and creative states of mind. While it may be suggested that a certain logic can be seen to run through this piece, creativity is a complex and elusive concept, and no one answer can be found. If this essay has been successful, it will have suggested this complexity while also indicating that there are ways of understanding creativity in effective and, it is to be hoped, inspirational ways. An understanding of the nature of inspiration and creativity can be of great practical value to students from any discipline and to educators as well. We are all maximally effective and efficient when we are working in a state of passion and excitement. Moreover, inspiration is not a state of mind confined solely to artists, scientists, and the like. Any states of mind that are vivid and transformative can be thought of as creative, and it is in the nature of human beings to appreciate and learn from others’ creative work.