Tried writing a story from a random word generator prompt vs. a detailed image prompt and the difference was huge.

I was stuck last Tuesday, so I tried a website that just gave me the word 'blue'. I wrote three pages of nothing. Then I used a prompt from a book that said 'A lighthouse keeper finds a message in a bottle, but the ink is made of seawater.' That one sentence gave me a character, a setting, and a problem. I finished a whole draft in two hours. Why do some prompts just click and others leave you blank? What's the best prompt source you've found?

4 comments

4 Comments

margareto261mo ago

Yeah the whole "three pages of nothing" thing hit close to home. I once spent an hour on a prompt that was just "a rainy street" and ended up describing the same wet pavement from ten different angles. But give me something weird like "a woman who can only lie on Tuesdays" and suddenly I'm writing the whole backstory. Prompts that already have a built-in conflict or paradox just work better for me.

emma_flores3mo ago

Honestly, it's just writing. Sometimes you get a good word and sometimes you don't. You wrote three pages on 'blue', that's not nothing. Maybe you just needed a break in between. I've stared at full scene descriptions and still written garbage. The best prompt is whatever gets you to put words down, even if they're bad. Overthinking where they come from is probably worse than a bad prompt.

emmaclark3mo ago

Ever notice how this happens with everything, not just writing? Like when you're trying to fix something at home and you over-plan it, you just freeze. Susanb34's joke about the blues was funny, but it's true that the simplest thing, even a single word, can get you moving again. I get stuck in the same loop trying to decide what to cook for dinner, reading recipes for an hour instead of just starting to chop an onion.

susanb343mo ago

Sounds like the word generator just gave you the blues. That lighthouse prompt is solid though, it does all the heavy lifting for you.