Creative Writing Prompts- A Cure For The Dreaded "Blank Screen Paralysis"

Picture the scene. You head off to your creative workspace, head full of great ideas, ready to get writing and create wonderful, rich, three-dimensional characters in believable, realistic scenarios.

You're keen to write the stories that will touch and inspire people, make them say "that character spoke to me, I'm just like them!".

You open your notebook, switch on your computer, sit down, and... er, nothing happens, that's it.

For all your ambition and great intentions, you don't know where to start. You can't think what to write. You begin to wonder if you can even string together a couple of sentences, let alone a complete story or novel.

You're in the grip of the dreaded "Blank Screen Paralysis".

Also known as creative block, or writer's block.

But don't give up, because there's a way this story can still have a happy ending.

Creative writing prompts are an excellent tool to combat writer's block.

A creative writing prompt is a small phrase, idea, or picture that can be used to kick start your creative writing. They provide that initial little push we sometimes need to get our creative writing going.

Once we have got going, the momentum easily builds and we can write freely and deeply.

Creative writing prompts can be used as and when you need them, for example when you feel you're hit with some kind of creative block. But the great thing is, by using creative writing prompts regularly, you actually begin to create more easily without them.

Using them often means your mind begins to learn new ways of approaching your writing and finding starting points when it feels there aren't any. In a short space of time of using creative writing prompts written by others, you quickly begin to automatically come up with your own.

If you haven't used creative writing prompts before, try them out today and realise what a wonderful tool they can be to enhance your creative writing.

Creative Writing Prompts - The Secret To Exploding Your CreativeWriting Potential

It's easy for us as writers to get into a rut with our writing. Even if we're still writing fairly prolifically, sometimes it feels like we've become some kind of factory line conveyor belt, churning out near identical copies of the same pieces of writing.
Now because you're a highly creative and imaginative person and not a factory robot, you need more stimulation, more variation. Volume is not enough, it's also important to have the variety.
Also, as someone creative, you're keen to continually evolve and feel you're developing and moving forward. If you think you're destined to be simply rewriting the same poems, stories, songs or novels for the rest of your life, that's hardly an exciting incentive to continue, is it?
Creative writing prompts are a great tool to help you explore your creative writing potential.
In fact more than that, by using writing prompts regularly, you can explode your writing potential in all directions, many of which you never even considered trying before.
A creative writing prompt is simply a short phrase or idea that gives you a starting point for a new adventure in your writing.
Once you're off and running, the rest is up to you. The prompts provides you with that initial direction and little burst of energy to get going. Where you take it after that is completely up to you.
Without the kind of starting point a writing prompt provides, you could be sitting at a blank page for the rest of your life.
And I'm sure you know how painful and unpleasant an experience this kind of writer's block can be.
Some people have avoided using writing prompts because they don't want any help with their writing. They feel they should be creating every single part of the writing, every tiny fragment of idea, every word and syllable. Maybe this is a concern you've had too?
Creative writing prompts aren't the "cheat" that you might think they are. They're not giving you a finished piece of work served up on a platter. The creativity and the imagination comes from you.
For example, say a creative writing prompt says simply: "What passion means to me - ". Everything after those 5 words comes from your own creative mind. You may start writing about your passion for horses and end up with the outline for a new novel about a young girl's journey from riding horses bareback on her parents' farm to winning gold in a showjumping championship.
You might write about the passionate romantic memories you have from your teens, and realise that there are certain things you'd forgotten than you want to rediscover with your current partner.
Or you might write about writing itself, what it gives you that nothing else can, how it makes you feel.
Wherever you take it, it's your ideas, your memories, your creative talent and imagination that's producing the words.
Run with it, have fun and enjoy where it leads.
Start using creative writing prompts today, and you'll see too how a few words or a snatch of an idea can explode YOUR creative writing potential too...

Creative Writing Prompts - How To Dive In To The Ocean Of Creative Writing Talent Within You

Each of us are more creative than we realise, the amount of talent we have is not what holds us back form creating to our full potential. What hold us back from writing as deeply and as rewardingly as we're capable of is fear.

Your creative writing potential is a vast ocean.

The only problem is, most of the time you don't get much further than dipping a couple of toes in the edge then finding the water too cold and intimidating!

So how can you discover and put to use more of your creative writing talents?

How can you dive bravely into the ocean and discover the depth and breadth of what you're capable of writing?

Creative writing prompts are a fantastic tool for this. A creative writing prompt is simply a phrase or an idea or a technique that you can use as a starting point to write from, a way to begin to let your natural creativity unfold.

Creative writing prompts are the equivalent of being given a little boat to set sail in out on the vast ocean, and a friendly push off from the edge of the shore.

If you had to swim out on your own, that would be far more dangerous and intimidating. By using the boat, you have a safer way to get out into that vast ocean, a way that will mean you don't run back to the security of the beach at the slightest suggestion of getting your hair wet.

Some of us are put off by using creative writing prompts because we feel it's cheating, like we're using someone else's writing and claiming it as our own. But it's simply not true.

The writing prompts are not the ocean itself. They are not giving you more talent and ability. Also they are not writing all of your stories, poems or songs for you, perfectly packaged with absolutely no input from you.

The ocean is already there, and it's always been there.

You know from some of your past writing the kind of creativity you're capable of, even if you've only seen tiny glimmers here and there. And so you know once you're brave enough to venture out, you can see that kind of creative writing again, and much more of it.

Start experimenting with creative writing prompts today, take that brave step, hop into your boat and set sail!

Creative Writing Prompts - But Isn't It Cheating To Use Prompts To Enhance My Creative Writing?

A creative writing prompt is a simple technique or a few words or phrases you can use as a starting point for your creative writing.

Once you've begun to write, and used the prompt for inspiration, you're off on your own.

Where your writing goes after this is entirely up to you and your imagination.

Many creative writers feel uncomfortable using creative writing prompts.

They think it's cheating or taking a short cut and all their ideas should be 100% new, original and their own.

On the surface that sounds like an honourable point of view. Of course we all want to be able to compose work that's uniquely ours and the fruits of our creativity alone.

We know how bad we'd feel if we simply copied someone else's writing and claimed it as our own.

But the fact is, nothing is completely new.

Everything creative builds upon the works of those who've gone before us.

For example, think about when a major car company begins designing a new model.

They may introduce many new features, some of which are truly revolutionary in car design and innovation. They'll most likely use cutting edge technology to design each new element of the new model.

But that new car, even after all the millions spent and the thousands of man hours of design and labour invested, will still have four wheels and an engine.

It's the same with creative writing.

At the most extreme fringes of creative writing, you might invent new words, you might even invent new letters. But they'll have meaning in some form.

Creative writing is about the expression of ideas and emotions. Yes it can be as experimental as you want to make it, but it'll always return to being about that human expression.

Creative writing prompts help us explore that creative expression.

If you're a dressmaker, do you make the material from nothing. Do you have your own factory that processes the raw fibres into larger pieces of material? Unlikely. You probably buy material that's already been woven and then make your dress from that.

If you're a musician who composes using computer software, do you write a completely new software program from scratch each time you want to start a new composition? It's not very probable. You find software that works for you, and use it to help you explore your creative music ideas from there.

If you're a photographer who specialises in photographing buildings and architecture, do you go and erect a new building each time you want to take some pictures? Do you build a new camera, piece by piece? No. You have cameras you're comfortable using, then you find buildings that inspire your photography.

Would you consider any of the 3 artists described above as "cheating" or "not being original"?

So if you have any concerns about whether using creative writing prompts is cheating or somehow not allowed, think again.

You'll no doubt realise that in fact creative writing is in many ways already one of the simplest and purest forms of creating, because we need so little equipment, tools or technology to begin.

So using a few words or techniques as a starting point is even less of a possible concern.