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Lost the Plot? 500 Writing Prompts and How To Use Them
Almost every writer has a pathological predisposition to procrastination and often believe there is a magical answer to the question ‘where do you get your ideas?’.
Well now, whether you write Twitfic, Microfiction, Flash Fiction, Short Short Stories, Short Stories, Novelettes, Novellas, Novels or Scripts you can tell everyone that you get your ideas here.
This is a prompts book. Oh yes. But it's a prompts book with a BIG difference. The prompts in this book aren't the usual, run-of-the-mill, mind numbingly boring prompts you usually get.
Oh, no. Not here.
And this is not the sort of book that's just going to give you a prompt and expect you to know what to do with it. No matter what form your writing takes, this book will show you an easy way to get the ideas out of your brain and transformed into stories.
How? Well that's the easy part - firstly there's Mr Maxwell's Spectacular Story Suggester.
A simple method of taking whichever prompt you choose and getting it straight into the easiest possible form so you can get to the important part - writing the story.
There is, of course, more. The author has taken a prompt and written a Flash Fiction story from it and then explained exactly how he did it.
Then Adrian Graham, a prolific microfiction author whose ebooks have been downloaded over 120 thousand times has written some exquisite stories and explained how to create micro-magic from the prompts
Next Rosalind Wyllie, a tremendous playwright whose plays have been performed up and down the country by fine companies of players (including the RSC) has penned a short script and taken time from her busy schedule to describe how she weaved her magic.
And last but by no means least the fantastic Y.A. author Mr C.G. Allan has written a children's short story and then explained just how it went from prompt to print.
By the time you've inhaled this book you mind will be an overflowing well of wonderful ideas and even better - you'll know what to do with them.
Well now, whether you write Twitfic, Microfiction, Flash Fiction, Short Short Stories, Short Stories, Novelettes, Novellas, Novels or Scripts you can tell everyone that you get your ideas here.
This is a prompts book. Oh yes. But it's a prompts book with a BIG difference. The prompts in this book aren't the usual, run-of-the-mill, mind numbingly boring prompts you usually get.
Oh, no. Not here.
And this is not the sort of book that's just going to give you a prompt and expect you to know what to do with it. No matter what form your writing takes, this book will show you an easy way to get the ideas out of your brain and transformed into stories.
How? Well that's the easy part - firstly there's Mr Maxwell's Spectacular Story Suggester.
A simple method of taking whichever prompt you choose and getting it straight into the easiest possible form so you can get to the important part - writing the story.
There is, of course, more. The author has taken a prompt and written a Flash Fiction story from it and then explained exactly how he did it.
Then Adrian Graham, a prolific microfiction author whose ebooks have been downloaded over 120 thousand times has written some exquisite stories and explained how to create micro-magic from the prompts
Next Rosalind Wyllie, a tremendous playwright whose plays have been performed up and down the country by fine companies of players (including the RSC) has penned a short script and taken time from her busy schedule to describe how she weaved her magic.
And last but by no means least the fantastic Y.A. author Mr C.G. Allan has written a children's short story and then explained just how it went from prompt to print.
By the time you've inhaled this book you mind will be an overflowing well of wonderful ideas and even better - you'll know what to do with them.
- GenresWriting
ebook
First published October 1, 2011
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
September 1, 2017
There are not just 500 intriguing prompts, there are also stories that share from Adam, and other writers, how to best use writing prompts. The guide will be helpful to writers as they step into the short story portion of writing.
Some of the prompts are pretty funny and certainly made me think. I enjoy using writing prompts to start me thinking about a new route from the norm. This is a book I will keep close because of the interesting prompts.
Some of the prompts are pretty funny and certainly made me think. I enjoy using writing prompts to start me thinking about a new route from the norm. This is a book I will keep close because of the interesting prompts.
January 26, 2012
I stumbled upon this neat little book from the author's website, after looking up "writing prompts". The author offers a Writing Prompt Generator on his website, which I quite liked. So when I saw that he also had an e-book with 500 prompts, I was quite interested.
The book is, as the title suggests, a compilation of writing prompts - 500 of them to keep you going. The premise behind the prompts - and (pun intended) what prompted the book - is that a lot, if not the majority, of the writing prompts out there are very dry, giving you a word or a vague concept to work with. One notable example taken from Maxwell's book is "The Sea". Yeah, that wouldn't be very inspiring to me neither - at least, not in the aim of overcoming a writer's block!
Therefore, in his book, Maxwell proposes to give us a series of actually functional prompts, that should get your creative juices going. But he doesn't stop at that. After a brief description of the major genres of fiction, he then proposes us a story generation - with instructions and a couple of examples on how he used it with his own prompts. If your really blocked, you can use his exercise and ask yourself the right questions from the prompt to up with the basis for characters, location, conflicts, climax, etc. I personally found that very informative and useful - I know I'll be using it!
Follows 3 short stories from 3 other authors using the prompts, along with a commentary on how they used them. And throughout the book, it is always emphasized that the prompts an ideas on how to use them are only there to get us started - ultimately, what we decide to do is up to us, and the sky is the limit.
Overall, I quite enjoyed this book, and would recommend to anyone who enjoys writing and might need a bit of extra inspiration and a push to stop procrastinating - be them a seasoned writer or a newby, like me.
The book is, as the title suggests, a compilation of writing prompts - 500 of them to keep you going. The premise behind the prompts - and (pun intended) what prompted the book - is that a lot, if not the majority, of the writing prompts out there are very dry, giving you a word or a vague concept to work with. One notable example taken from Maxwell's book is "The Sea". Yeah, that wouldn't be very inspiring to me neither - at least, not in the aim of overcoming a writer's block!
Therefore, in his book, Maxwell proposes to give us a series of actually functional prompts, that should get your creative juices going. But he doesn't stop at that. After a brief description of the major genres of fiction, he then proposes us a story generation - with instructions and a couple of examples on how he used it with his own prompts. If your really blocked, you can use his exercise and ask yourself the right questions from the prompt to up with the basis for characters, location, conflicts, climax, etc. I personally found that very informative and useful - I know I'll be using it!
Follows 3 short stories from 3 other authors using the prompts, along with a commentary on how they used them. And throughout the book, it is always emphasized that the prompts an ideas on how to use them are only there to get us started - ultimately, what we decide to do is up to us, and the sky is the limit.
Overall, I quite enjoyed this book, and would recommend to anyone who enjoys writing and might need a bit of extra inspiration and a push to stop procrastinating - be them a seasoned writer or a newby, like me.
June 4, 2015
Also see this review at: http://karissasbookblog.blogspot.com
If you are an aspiring writer, or just want some tips on how to be better at it, I recommend this book.
I couldn't give this book 5 stars because of the grammatical errors here and there, plus I wasn't a huge fan of the authors writing style, but the content itself is solid.
The book starts off with an introduction of why it was created, then goes into the various forms that you can choose when writing. They range from six word stories to novels and the author does a good job describing what each form is and how they are different from one another.
He then went on to explain how to build a story from your mind using a specific structure and creating from there. I found this part to be the most interesting and actually took notes from it.
After that there are examples using the prompts and the structure he stated before.
Finally we get to the prompts! They are very unique compared to prompts I've seen in the past. Not only that, but there really are 500 unique prompts I have yet to see. Here's a few examples:
"297. The sleepwalking had never been a problem for her until now."
"441. He countermanded a direct order, sir. We must take action immediately or goldfish all over the world could suffer the same fate."
"87. You'll never guess who's on my toilet."
There's 497 more where those came from. While some of them are a little to obscure for me to pull an idea from (#441 for example), #87 and #297 really draw me in as something I'd like to write.
Overall, I'm pretty happy with having this book. If I ever feel the desire to write again (I haven't in a while), you bet this will be the first place I go for ideas.
If you are an aspiring writer, or just want some tips on how to be better at it, I recommend this book.
I couldn't give this book 5 stars because of the grammatical errors here and there, plus I wasn't a huge fan of the authors writing style, but the content itself is solid.
The book starts off with an introduction of why it was created, then goes into the various forms that you can choose when writing. They range from six word stories to novels and the author does a good job describing what each form is and how they are different from one another.
He then went on to explain how to build a story from your mind using a specific structure and creating from there. I found this part to be the most interesting and actually took notes from it.
After that there are examples using the prompts and the structure he stated before.
Finally we get to the prompts! They are very unique compared to prompts I've seen in the past. Not only that, but there really are 500 unique prompts I have yet to see. Here's a few examples:
"297. The sleepwalking had never been a problem for her until now."
"441. He countermanded a direct order, sir. We must take action immediately or goldfish all over the world could suffer the same fate."
"87. You'll never guess who's on my toilet."
There's 497 more where those came from. While some of them are a little to obscure for me to pull an idea from (#441 for example), #87 and #297 really draw me in as something I'd like to write.
Overall, I'm pretty happy with having this book. If I ever feel the desire to write again (I haven't in a while), you bet this will be the first place I go for ideas.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews