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A guy at my Tuesday writers group in Cleveland said prompts are for beginners and now I think he's full of it
This guy Marcus, who has been coming to the Cleveland Public Library writers group for like 8 months, told me straight up that real writers don't need prompts and they are just training wheels for people who can't come up with ideas. At first I was kinda embarrassed because I use prompts almost every day, but then I looked around the room and realized half the people nodding at him hadn't written anything new in weeks. So now I'm wondering if prompts actually make us better writers by forcing us to practice, or if Marcus is right and we're just avoiding the real work. Has anyone else run into this weird gatekeeping around using prompts, and did it ever make you question your own process?
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claire_hart536d ago
Ugh, writers groups can be so weird about this stuff. I mean, who cares what tools someone uses to get words on the page? If a prompt gets you writing when you'd otherwise be staring at a blank screen, that's a win. I've seen people use prompts and crank out amazing stuff, and I've seen people who "don't need them" write the same boring story over and over. It's not about the prompt, it's about what you do with it. Marcus sounds like the type who needs to feel superior more than he needs to actually write. Maybe it's just me, but I'd rather hang with the prompt users who are actually producing pages.
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