Hot take: most people writing prompts are really just writing to-do lists and calling it a story | Creative Writing Prompts

Laura Schmidt · 2026-10-09T07:15:04.049609+00:00

I've been in a small writing group out of my garage here in Amarillo for about 8 months now, and last week we did a prompt night where everyone pulled the same line out of a hat. Nine people, one prompt, and seven of them wrote something that was basically a chore list with feelings. Someone woke up, made coffee, drove to work, thought about their dad, came home. That's not a story, that's a grocery run. The two that actually landed both had a character who WANTED something and got told no. That was the whole difference. I've been writing for years and I only figured this out because I watched nine people fail at the same prompt in one night. A good prompt doesn't hand you a scene, it hands you a problem. So here's my question for this group: when you post a prompt, are you giving people a situation to write into, or are you just giving them a mood and hoping something happens?

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Hot take: most people writing prompts are really just writing to-do lists and calling it a story | Creative Writing Prompts - Thought Shares