It’s a prompt-a-palooza, writing prompts for authors, a mix of fiction and nonfiction.
Writing prompts can be a valuable writing exercise for authors. For those trying to get the book writing ball rolling, writing prompts for authors can keep those creative sparks firing in your brain, and your writing muscles toned. And for those already with a work in progress, writing exercises like these can give you a break to explore different creative avenues. Because who knows what discoveries you might end up bringing back with you to your manuscript!
Here is a mix of writing prompts to stimulate your creative mind, a mix of fiction, nonfiction, journaling prompts, creative writing exercises and more!
An Emotions Directory
How do you know when you’re anxious? When you’re sad? Angry? Happy? Content? Unsettled? List all the other mental states and emotions you can think of. Be as descriptive as possible using all of your senses.
What does it feel like when you’re anxious, what does it look like, how is the emotion reflected in your body language? Write about every possible sign that you’re experiencing each emotion.
Check it out! You now have an instant multisensory directory of many different emotions and mental states to draw from in your writing. And it will be even more meaningful for you since these are yours, whether you write about them as is or modify them for characters. You now have a detailed writing tool to deploy whenever you need it!
Defend the State of Society
We’re all experts at finding the flaws in the world today, society, and humanity in general. Right? For this writing prompt, switch roles from prosecutor to defense.
Write a letter to future society (you decide how far into the future) and defend the actions of our current society.
Total brain flip right?
The purpose of this writing exercise is not to fundamentally change how you view things, but rather to give you writing practice in arguing the other side of the story.
See what you learn!
The Fun of ChatGPT for Writers
Your writing prompt for this weekend is to put your writing skills to work and – practice creating ChatGPT prompts. And yes, there’s a creative method to this madness.
First – the obvious part. We have a new technological tool at our disposal, and it’s word based! Sure, it’s more complicated than a word processor or computer, but it’s still a word-based tool and therefore automatically falls into our sphere of interest as writers.
Second – ChatGPT is designed in a way that rewards good writing. In case you haven’t played around with it yet, it works very differently from search engines, where you type in words, phrases, and search prompts to find source documents and websites which (allegedly) contain the answer(s) to your query.
My friend Lynne described the difference well: “…”talk” to it similar to how you would talk to and challenge a child who is brilliant – like don’t let it be lazy in its responses. If you give it puff prompts, you’ll get puff responses. if you give it meaty, challenging prompts – you’ll get better results.”
As a result of Lynne’s comments, I now think of ChatGPT as “Young Sheldon.” It knows a lot of things, but it doesn’t have the right context or EQ to properly apply what it knows.
Here’s your prompt: Apply your writing skills to creating ChatGPT prompts and fine tuning them until you get the best information. And if you’re searching for something where accuracy of the information is important, always double check the source (because of the infamous AI hallucinations). I’ve done this on multiple occasions and when I’ve called it out for providing inaccurate information, AI Young Sheldon provided the correct information and then apologized to me!
A goal of this prompt is to see for yourself how writing abilities give us an advantage in using this latest technological tool. See for yourself how ChatGPT can support the more mindless, repetitive, busy work tasks in your world, writing and otherwise. And if, after you do give it a whirl, your verdict is – “Nope!”– at least it will be an informed decision.
Writing a Problem Solving Story
Think of a problem you’re dealing with now or have recently dealt with. The more significant the problem the better.
Write about the problem in detail. Now, pretend it’s a year later and you’re telling the story of how you solved this problem and inspiring others to do the same for similar problems in their own life. It could be in a blog post, as a guest on a podcast, or if you really want to go big, on a large stage in a motivational speech.
Visualize yourself in this situation. It’s the future, you’ve solved today’s big problem and now you’re thinking even bigger! Now you’re using what you’ve learned to get out of your own head and help others.
Write your problem solving story, however that looks for you!
P.S. Did these writing prompts get your creative brain fired up about writing a book? Let’s explore the possibilities, starting with how I help authors write books that stand out!
Recent Comments