3 Reasons to Add Writing Prompts to Your Tool Belt
“Write every day. Don’t ever stop”
- Rick Bass, American Fiction and Nonfiction writer
As writers, we know that in order to improve our skills, writing daily is valuable, but rarely do we do it. Ignoring the many facets of life that keep us away from the keyboard, sometimes we simply have writer’s block or we haven’t decided what’s next in our long-term writing project.
But there is a way through all of this. This is where writing prompts come in to give you a starting point to unlock your creative process and simply exercise your writing muscle. And who knows? You might discover a new idea to add to your current book or even inspiration for a whole new story.
Not sure yet about why to do writing prompts? Here you have three reasons you actually need them to become a better writer:
1. Get rid of the writer’s block
If you sit in front of your screen or paper to work on your project but nothing is coming out, you may be going through a little bit of writer’s block. The answer is not to wait for inspiration to hit you. Instead, select a writing prompt to kick start your fingers typing. Whatever comes next will be the pure result of your creativity.
A great idea can come from the simplest prompt, like this one:
“Over the past week, what was the strangest or funniest thing you witnessed?”*
And even if conversely you have too many ideas selecting one to start with causes a form of paralysis, starting with a writing prompt is a great way to focus you mind.
2. Polish your writing craft
Writing prompts are perfect for getting you out of your comfort zone to experiment with different styles and explore different points of view.
What about describing a person through an object, like in the next Writing Prompt:
“Think of a person and describe his or her personality through writing about a cup they might often drink from”*
Doing that kind of testing on your own novel can sometimes frustrate you and make it even harder get your ideas out. But, with writing prompts, there are no strings attached, no big decisions to make that could affect the story you hold so close to your heart.
3. They help you start a writing habit
They are an endless source of starting lines to unleash your creativity. You can find Writing Prompts in books like “Q&A, One year journal for writers”, which offers a new Writing Prompt for every day of the year, or you can simply look for your prompts online. Challenge yourself with a different one during each of your writing sessions and before you know it, you are writing routinely.
Are you up for a little challenge? Start your writing session today with the following prompt:
“Select a family photo, then write about the things you can’t see in the picture”*
One of the best ways to master the art of telling great stories is to have a strong outlining process, even if it is only for quick, small exercises like writing prompts.
Lynit is the perfect writing app for you to nurture your craft and improve your skills thanks to the unique visualizations and features that allow you to see your story from many different points of view. The Timeline shows you the development of your Arcs and Characters chapter by chapter while the Story Visualization allows you to describe the relationships between your different Story Elements.
Go to Lynit and start working on your Writing Prompts now.
* Holden, Chelsea. Q&A, One year journal for writers. United States of America. Clarkson Potter. 2016.
Michael Green is the Founder of Lynit. He started the company unofficially back in 2018 when he was deep in the trenches of editing his first book. He had 500 pages, a lot of characters, multiple plots, and many notes on possible changes. To make sense of everything, he created the first version of the tool. Then he realized that other writers might find value in it too and decided to share. Find out more at www.lynit.app.
