Stop me if you’ve heard it before, but you should be encouraged that every writer experiences writer’s block at one time or another. Whether you’re stuck in the middle of a work in progress or you just can’t seem to get a story off the ground, the block can be the most frustrating thing in a writer’s life. Even the greats like Stephen King or J.K. Rowling admit that they can run into these common issues. How do we break through and get the keyboard tapping again?
Enter the wide world of writer’s prompts. Prompts are ideas or situations meant to jog your mind and jump-start the creative process to help you feel the flow again. The internet is a veritable treasure trove of such prompts. Here are a few of my favorites.
As the name suggests, WritingPrompts.com offers daily prompts for writers of all genres. Fresh prompts are offered up daily, but you can access past prompts for additional exercise.
Writer’s Digest is an excellent resource for writers, offering new writing prompts every week. Writers share their creations with each other through the comment section and provide helpful tips and feedback.
This Tumblr gem offers unique and out-of-the-box prompts for writers looking to do something a little different. The opportunity to share work and push the creativity envelope makes this Tumblr a great resource.
The DIYMFA Writer Igniter app is a fun way to get the juices flowing. The Writer Igniter shuffles through various main characters, settings, situations, and props until it lands on a unique combination. You use that combination to jump start a new story. The possibilities are truly endless.
This is a list of 365 simple creative writing prompts. You could do one every day to keep your skills sharp.
Trust Reddit to come up with some real prompt gems. For example: “You can feel it every time you die in another dimension. Normally it’s infrequent but today you are hit with billions of deaths at once. Something’s coming, and it just killed you in almost every other plane of existence.” Members post their results and feedback, and the creations are truly imaginative.
Writing Forward has as great list of 25 original prompts, as well as tips, exercises, and resources for writers to improve their skills and marketing.
OneWord.com gives you 60 seconds to write about — you guessed it — one word generated by the website. When 60 seconds is up, you have the option to post your results to the OneWord website and see what others came up with.