Writing towards prompts

There is no tyrant as cruel as the blank page.

For many people (especially me), being told “Write a story! It can be about anything!” is neither a compelling or welcoming prompt. Its open-ended nature does not fill me with the wonder of possibility. “Write a story about your summer vacation” is a much easier prompt because it’s more specific (and thus, more restrictive - restrictions foster creativity!).

Write towards prompts.

Some of my strongest writing has been when I forced myself to write to a specific prompt - an image, a tarot card, an illustration, an I-Ching hexagram, two combined results from random tables, whatever. For example, here is a series of encounters I wrote to a random batch of medieval illuminations from Pinterest. I think these are as strong as they are because I forced myself to write to a random assortment of strange images.

There’s a special type of creativity that unlocks when you struggle with forcing yourself to write about one specific thing. You stare at the prompt and wrack your brain, thinking and thinking. How in the hell am I going to write a dungeon room about the III of Cups? And then it comes to you! And it’s SO GOOD! It’s way better writing than if you just had tried to “Write a dungeon” with no guidance.

When you are working on your projects, you can defeat the blank page but starting from prompts. Perhaps the Dungeon Seeds can guide you?

By the way...

Did you know the Worm Jam is currently going on? It's a space for folks starting new games of His Majesty the Worm to collaborate with each other. Come join us!