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 - Hot Wire Your Creative Writing With New Writing Prompts

Every writer has their own unique creative writing abilities, a way of spinning words together like no-one else. Also, we're all capable of improving our writing, writing more richly, more deeply, more abundantly.

Often though we simply don't write.

Our creative writing potential just sits there, desperate to be set free but somehow unable to even start.

It's like owning a beautiful, elegant and extremely fast sorts car, but it's just sitting on your front drive and you've lost the keys...

So how do you find those keys?

How do you get that sports car that is your creative writing potential started up and out to rip it up on the open road?

Hot wire it!

You need a way of getting it started, something to give that initial ignition spark that fires the engine. The best way of doing this with your creative writing is to use some kind of creative writing prompt.

A writing prompt can just be a few words, a paragraph, a short exercise, an image, something that gives your creativity a starting point to set off in its imaginative journey from.

Many of us fear or avoid creative writing prompts, because we feel it's taking a short cut somehow, or it's cheating, we should come up with every tiny part of every idea ourselves.

It's an understandable concern in principle.

But using creative writing prompts is not copying or plagiarising someone else.

It's simply using that starting point to challenge and encourage your creative writing talents to get to work and produce something interesting, something that's all your own creation.

If you wanted to adopt this purist approach of not wanting to use creative writing prompts and be totally 100% original, you could also say - OK you can't use any SEQUENCE of words that anyone else has ever used. Oh and you can't use any WORDS that anyone else has ever used either. Actually, you can't even use the same LETTERS, you must make up your own alphabet, then your own words, then you can write something that's completely 100% original. Happy?

Seems a little silly doesn't it?

What would happen then also is no-one would even understand your writing, it would just be symbols on a page.

A huge part of creative writing is to weave the words that connect with people, that touch them, prompt them to recall a memory, an emotion or an experience from their own life.

It's very hard to do that with a completely new alphabet and language!

If you've had these kind of concerns before, maybe it's time to try out some writing prompts and see where they lead, see how they can hot wire that beautiful sports car of yours.

Why let it just sit there gathering dust on your driveway any longer?

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 Use Prompts To Help Your Creative Writing Flourish

So you want to become a better creative writer? But you feel short of ideas, lacking in inspiration, and just don't know where to start your next piece of writing. You know deep down that you have a lot of potential as a writer, you enjoy writing and have written pieces in the past that you've been proud of.

But lately, the words are just not coming. What can you do?

Creative writing prompts are one of the best ways to get your creative juices flowing and unlock all that untapped potential.

A writing prompt is simply a word, phrase, picture or idea to stimulate your creativity and start you writing. Where you go with your writing after that is entirely up to you, the prompt just gives you that little push, that glimmer of inspiration you've had difficulty finding lately.

Many writers feel that using a writing prompt might be cheating or taking a short cut, and means you're not producing work that's all yours. Remember, the prompt is just a starting point. YOUR unique creativity does the rest.

Think of using writing prompts like this:

Imagine there's a huge wonderful garden, every last square inch heaving with the most gorgeous and bountiful blooms. There are many different areas within that garden, each with their own theme and design.

For example, there's the Victorian English garden, the dense tropical Amazonian rainforests, the Dutch tulip fields of every colour imaginable, and the sweeping majesty of the undiscovered Alaska. If you looked hard enough, you'd probably even find the hanging gardens of Babylon!

It's a big garden! Infinitely big in fact.

All around this glorious garden is a 20 foot high brick wall, with a gate every few metres or so. You can just about see enough through the gates to know there's plenty to be explored inside, but they're all locked and there seems no way of opening them.

Then, you realise, just beside each gate is a little red box. You open the box and inside is a key. The key for the gate, the key to entering this incredible garden. You take the key, open the gate, and you're in, off on your adventure...

So, how does this relate to writing prompts and being afraid to use them because they're not all your own, or because you feel you're cheating?

A creative writing prompt is the key to the garden. It's not the actual garden.

The garden is already within you. It's all the amazing, rich and emotive stories, poems, songs and novels you haven't yet written but are perfectly capable of writing. Use a creative writing prompt, take the key that's been offered, and start to explore that wonderful creative garden within you... You, and your future audience, deserve to experience that garden in its fullest bloom...

Creative Writing Prompts - How To Give Your Creative Writing The Time Of Its Life!

Feeling stuck with your creative writing? Struggling to come up with exciting and stimulating new ideas? Are you looking for an easy and effective way to unlock your creative writing potential? Something you can use right away without having to learn sophisticated new techniques?

Creative writing prompts could be just what you're looking for.

With creative writing prompts, your natural imagination and writing potential is encouraged to come out and play. There's a wealth of potential and talent right there waiting already, but it just doesn't get invited out very often.

Have you known people in the past that in a work or everyday situation seem very reserved and quiet?

People you assume would probably not find it very comfortable being in larger group or a more lively or challenging social situation?

Then, one day - maybe it's at a mutual friend's birthday party, maybe at charity event, maybe at a local class you attend for dancing or acting - you see this former wallflower having the time of their lives! They're dancing, singing, chatting, laughing, and generally having more fun than you thought they knew was possible!

All they needed was that invitation to come out and play...

It's exactly like that with your creative writing too. If you don't ever expect anything from it, if you never invite it to let its hair down and show you its moves, you'll never see what it's truly capable of.

This is where creative writing prompts come in, and are so valuable. They're the party invitation, the special offer membership to the local dance club.

Some fear that when they use creative writing prompts it's somehow cheating or taking a shortcut to writing better, because it's someone else's words they're using as a starting point.

While this perception is understandable, it simply isn't true. Yes you need the party invitation to go to the party, but once you're there, how much do you use it? You don't! You just get down to having a great time!

With writing prompts, once you've started writing you're imagination is away and free. Whatever comes out after that initial invitation - that first line or phrase - is all your own work.

Start experimenting with creative writing prompts today, and invite your creative writing potential to the party it's been dying to be asked to for years...