Are Writing Prompts Actually Helpful?

You’re staring at a blank page, and the words just aren’t coming. What do you do?

Maybe you turn to writing prompts to help you get the ball rolling. 

Writing prompts are thought starters. They provide some type of instruction or parameter for you to fulfill. They might be a single word, a phrase, a setting, or a question to answer. Their goal is to provide some inspiration to help you start writing.

I’ll be honest, I have mixed feelings about writing prompts.

I see them posted all over social media, and I know they are frequently used in writing workshops. And while using them as a warm up exercise or a fun distraction seems harmless enough, if you’re working on a novel, I question their usefulness. 

Here’s why.

I’m a big believer in context – the background that informs a scene and gives meaning to the details in it. It’s because of context that we understand if a reveal or plot twist is positive or negative in relation to your protagonist and their goals.

A writing prompt is unrelated to your story. It has no context to connect it to your protagonist.

When you rely on writing prompts, instead of spending time and energy exploring situations that would be meaningful for your main character, you’re writing about something that may lack any connection to your story.

How Writing Prompts Can Lead You Astray

Let’s look at a potential situation to give us context. (Hey, there’s that word again!) 

Perhaps you’re at a difficult point in your novel, like the murky middle, and you don’t know what comes next. You’re sitting, your head is spinning, and none of your ideas seem right. In that situation a writing prompt can feel like a valid way to generate some ideas.

And that may work. But here’s the problem. 

Let’s say that a writing prompt really inspires you, and sends you in a completely new direction from what you’ve been writing. The words are really flowing and you love what you’ve come up with, to the extent that you want to include it in your work in progress (WIP). 

So you start looking for ways to shoehorn it into your story. You twist character motivations and redirect your protagonist’s actions to integrate this new piece of writing. 

Suddenly a plot that was making sense goes off the rails. The protagonist loses their agency because now you’re trying to set up the dominoes to accommodate this new information that you’re introducing. 

If you’re making plot decisions based on whims (and I would classify a random writing prompt as a whim), it’s a sign that you need to do more work to understand your protagonist on a deep level.

How to Use Writing Prompts Successfully

So, how can you use writing prompts to your advantage when you’re in the midst of your novel? Here are a couple tips.

First, ask yourself if you’re hiding from something. Why write pages disconnected from a WIP when you could write your WIP?

The answer to this could be that you’re looking for a little mental stretch break from your novel. But it could also be that you’re avoiding your novel because the writing has gotten hard. Being aware of what’s making writing prompts appealing can help you avoid giving them more attention than they deserve.

Second, look at the prompt as a way to explore your protagonist’s personality or backstory. This might require zeroing in on the essence of the prompt and adjusting the specifics to align with your WIP. 

For example, the prompt could be to write a break up scene. If your protagonist isn’t in a romantic relationship or romance isn’t key to your story, you might choose instead to write a scene where they fight with a friend or family member, or you could write about an impactful relationship from their past.

Use the prompt as a way to add complexity and nuance to what you know about your protagonist, not as a means to add unnecessary details.

Now, I know not every writing prompt will resonate with you, let alone provoke you to jump ship on the current trajectory of your WIP. But those that do can result in a huge detour of energy and writing time. And once you’ve gone to the trouble of writing something new that you’re excited about, it can feel hard to abandon it.

So be honest about your goals when using writing prompts. And if you think you’re using them as a replacement for cohesive plot development, it’s time to pump the brakes.