Are you in a creative slump?
If you’re a creative in a corporate world, chances are you’ve hit this block more times than you want to. The result is countless, mindless outputs, filled with only instructions and no creativity.
Sometimes, the best way to get out of this block is to work on something else. It’s basically a break, but one that doesn’t give your time to wander and stress out over your work again.
Writing prompts are a good exercise for this. You don’t have to be a writer to try out these prompts. You can be an artist in any form, maybe not even in profession; maybe you’ve never even enjoyed writing before. There’s no harm in trying.
Point is, if you need a break but your brain can’t settle down enough to have one, try something that involves a bit of productivity out. Maybe that’s the key to getting your gears turning again.
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With that, here are a few creative writing prompts that can help reboot your brain:
- Have three different people give you a word, and make a short story out of it.
- Start a story with: This never would have happened if I hadn’t taken a bath that day.
- Today, I met the _________ person on the planet.u201d What would you do?
- End a story with: So she picked up a cracker, and dipped it in ice cream.
- Ask someone to give you a noun. Write about a character who’s addicted to that one thing.
- What’s the worst food that you can think of? Write a first person paragraph describing it as your protagonist’s favorite food.
- Rewrite a popular fairy tale, but subtract one major character.
- Think about the person you hate most in the world. What if s/he was your best friend?
- You suddenly get a text from a blocked number, in a language you don’t know–but why do you understand what’s written?
- Out of nowhere, a girl with blond hair and a pastel blue dress falls on you. She says her name is Alice, and that she’s happy she’s finally back in Wonderland.
- Ask someone to give you a verb in past tense. It’s been 40 years since I last _______.
- You can only say three words for the rest of your life, what are they?
Write as short or as long as you want! And if you don’t like these, you can use them as prompts for new prompts. The best thing about writing prompts is they don’t only jumpstart stories, they jumpstart creativity.
Patricia Li is a frequent contributor at WorkWise Asia and Familywise Asia. She loves to read and write, and tries to incorporate this in her career.
