What kind of prompts do you like to write from?

[radiantfracture]

 I feel like I'm struggling a bit to come up with prompts that my writing class really enjoys sinking their teeth into. Or I'm morbidly projecting. Anyway, if you like to work from prompts, and you care to share, what kind of prompts do you like?

Evocative words? Requests for sensory detail? Poems? Photos?

I like photo prompts a lot, but I haven't used many yet, for no clear reason. well, the ones I like are pretty melancholy / grim and that feels inappropriate? I dunno.

I don't need a source of prompts -- I'm not in search of sites or lists -- just a sense of what kinds of things feel energized for you personally when you're given a writing prompt, if you'd like to choose to share that.

Comments

[prixmium]

A set of related words - Maybe trying to make a bingo with them in one prompt if it's for a class and not for the fandom application.

A set of pre-determined Titles to choose from and write a story to match.

- also a teacher but I haven't taught narrative writing just participated in it in fandom spaces

[larryhammer]

Not photos -- I'm not visually oriented enough for that to spark me. A vivid phrase, or a couple contrasting details, those work for me.

[sabotabby]

I like a one-word concept, a phrase, or a sentence that you can jump off from.

[cosmolinguist]

I do much better with words than sounds/pictures/other media.

[sovay]

Evocative words? Requests for sensory detail? Poems? Photos?

I can't answer this question because it's been almost literally anything over the years, from photographs to phrases of music to moving images to moods.

Why not melancholy photos?

[radiantfracture]

Why not melancholy photos?

I don't know, because things have to be as difficult as possible?

[sovay]

I don't know, because things have to be as difficult as possible?

If melancholy photos are evocative, bring 'em in!

[marycatelli]

One word. the only restriction is that it not be genre-specifying. I uses random word generators for prompts.

[cmcmck]

It's poetry that I write and clearly, I'm influenced by other poets, but views and scenery tend to be big pushes.

[mrissa]

I feel like varying them up is good, because then you won't pick, for example, photos and have someone who is not visual stuck for the whole term with a mode that doesn't work very well for them, but also the same with poems or phrases or whatever. I like looking at paintings and sculpture more than photos for this sort of thing. There's more of the "yes and" feeling, which is what I'm happiest with. I can write from a "no but," but I prefer "yes and" when I'm seeking it out on purpose.

[juniperberry]

I've liked it in the past when I've had to write from line of poetry as a first line. (I also really like doing centos, but that sounds like a separate thing from what you're going for here.)

[elusis]

My friend Angie Reed Garner did a series of paintings where she asked friends for three words. They were pretty spectacular. My word group was tiger lily, declaim, striving? I think?

[radiantfracture]

I like that a lot, thanks!

[oracne]

Something that can result in dialogue energizes me. Two people discussing/arguing about something unusual.

[stealthsystem]

I can’t dl photo prompts unless someone described the picture because I’m totally blind. But I adore both one-word evocative prompts and requests for sensory detail. Hope you don’t mind my answering.