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My writing group kept calling every idea a 'prompt' and it was killing our flash fiction nights
Last Thursday in my living room in Boise, six of us sat around a card table and I noticed we spent 40 minutes arguing about a prompt instead of writing. Every prompt was a whole paragraph, like 'write about a lighthouse keeper's last day,' and nobody could agree on what counted as a response. I started bringing index cards with just 3 words on them, like 'wet, second chance, bus,' and we got 11 finished pieces out of 12 tries. Turns out a prompt needs to leave room for the writer, not hand them the whole story. Does anyone else run a group where simple prompts beat detailed ones, or is that just how my table works?
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lilyp3723d ago
Three words is lazy. Real writers can handle detail.
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