Stomp The Prompts And Eggshells! Out-Of-The-Box Writing Prompts and Lessons –

Garth Beyer

It’s winter time in Madison, Wisconsin. It is actually snowing right now and we are supposed to get up to 5 inches. I figured this would be a perfect time to post my writing prompts I created just for you. Regardless if you are living where its snowing, I hope you have some time to do some free writing. Below you will find 15 writing prompts and one bonus prompt that I will respond to. Following the prompts I will give you suggestions on how to successfully write prompts. As much as it is a free writing technique, there are requirements and lessons to learn. It took me a lot of cruddy free writing stories to learn and I am more than happy to share them with you. Without further ado,

15 writing prompts, just for you by Garth E. Beyer: Because getting prompts elsewhere just is not good enough!

  • The tornado sirens are blaring and you are waiting by the window patiently to see if there is actually a tornado nearby. You see a woman screaming and pointing behind her as she runs toward your house. Why do you think she is screaming? What do you?
  • You felt adventurous this morning so you are at the local park which is basically like being in the woods. Not realizing how far off the trail you have gotten, you become stuck between a wolf and the edge of the cliff with raging waters steadily streaming down below. What are your thoughts and actions?
  • A large burly man has you thrown over his shoulder. Since you are not in view of the direction he is heading, all you see is desert land behind him. What do you think is ahead of him? Where is he taking you?
  • You are a bird for a day. What do you do? Where do you go?
  • You have just won the $1000 a week for life lottery. How do you celebrate? What are your plans for the money?
  • Your school field trip leaves you stuck in the hot air balloon with the prissiest girl in your class. How do you survive the 2 hour hot air balloon ride while the fuel slowly runs out?
  • Write a detailed description of where you believe wind comes from.
  • You must use a color in every sentence while describing the beginning, growth, and end of the life of your favorite fruit.
  • Free write with the sole focus of stars. It may be stars on a flag, or the sky, as long as the subject remains on stars.
  • Write in detail of your dream vacation. Where is it? What do you do? How would you describe it to a family member upon return?
  • List different types of hugs a person can give and the significance or subconscious meaning behind each.
  • You are on a roof of a building with your friends and they are pressuring you to jump across to the roof of the adjacent building. What is running through your mind? Do you jump?
  • You have just been in a terrible biking accident down a hill. You are telling your friend the narrative starting from the beginning of your day to how you ended up in the hospital bed.
  • The city has dubbed you head of college applications “Admissions Officer”. Revise and Rewrite the acceptance letter to your liking to be given to all accepted college applicants.
  • You have an assignment for Garth. You need to come up with fifteen writing prompts. Do you obey and write the writing prompts? If so, what are they? If not, why not? (Post them in comments section for me and others)

Toastmasters Bonus Prompt

My bonus prompt is not one I made up like those above. I got it from attending Toastmasters the other night during Table Topics. I was the first to volunteer (always am) to go up and pick a folded piece of paper with the prompt. “Theme: your personal best, real or imagined… Making dinner for a picky eater”. The Table Topics Master focused on positivity and the point of the Topic was to focus on the best parts of an experience, no matter how disastrous it may have been.

When I read my prompt I quickly thought of a cursed friend when she was vegetarian. It was her birthday and I tricked her by telling her that I had to stop back at my house to get my money. How could I purchase her sweet things at the mall if I had no money? To her surprise I had the house pitch black…except for the candles. I had the dining room set up with a table cloth, candles, silverware and wine glasses. After pulling the chair out for her, I came back from the kitchen and surprised her with a huge dish of vegetarian lasagna. She had been begging me to make a dinner for her. I am not the best cook, but beg and you shall receive. I found a lasagna recipe online, but really ended up grabbing whatever ingredients I thought would go good in it. While it turned out to look a bit more like goulash, she loved it. As much as she has begged me to make it for her again, I refuse. I consider that day to be my personal best at making a dinner for a picky eater. I would not want to ruin it.

Yes this was impromptu speaking and I edited it a bit for posting it here. But I didn’t want you to be the only one writing prompts! It’s like having a personal fitness trainer that doesn’t lift weights with you. It just cannot be.

I Prompt You To Learn These Lessons About Writing Prompts Promptly

1. Writing from a prompt is supposed to break you away from your normal writing techniques. I suggest practicing writing with your left hand before you start a prompt, flipping open a dictionary and taking some random words out to use in your writing, and doing your best to not use your memories – use your imagination.

2. I broke up with my prompt and got the better half. Writing from prompts are not meant to flow. You are not writing an essay (unless stated otherwise in the prompt hehe). Be brief and concise in each idea you come up with for the prompt, break them up and find a way to connect them later. The greatest stories from prompts happen when miraculous ideas are dubstepped on paper and get the reader using all parts of their brain to connect them.

3. If you decide to crumple up your paper, you know you are in the right direction – as long as you uncrumple it and keep writing. You have to let yourself fail when writing from a prompt, only then can you figure out the message you really want to get across in the prompt.

4. Having writers block when trying to write a prompt? Others will tell you to force it and push through. They are wrong, never do this when writing from a prompt. What they are asking you to do is break your barrier and find the flow. As stated in number 2, that is not what you want. Grab another prompt that you can actually start and be creative.

5. Really do have fun with it. So many freewriters focus on making their story really important and try to send a message or lesson in their writing from a prompt. Yet again, they are trying to shape what they write, do not do this. If a lesson or theme is supposed to be shared from the prompt, then it will be. The main focus should be to make your writing quirky, unique, and out-of-the-box.

6. Lastly, I want to provide you with one great resource that I found on Squidoo (Created by Seth Godin, one of my heroes). Check out this Writing Prompt Lens

Stay Positive and Egg-on Those Prompts

Garth E. Beyer

Garth Beyer
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