Just found out how many writing prompts are in a single library book

I was at the downtown library last week looking for a book on story ideas. I picked up one called 'The Writer's Block' and flipped through it. I counted over 500 different prompts in that one book alone, which really surprised me. I guess I always thought those books had maybe 100 ideas at most. Has anyone else found a book with a crazy number of prompts in it?

3 comments

3 Comments

jennifer_jenkins16d ago

500 prompts" made me rethink those books too.

the_linda15d agoProlific Poster

Oh man, that whole idea of prompts just unlocked a memory for me. I had this old sci-fi paperback I loved as a teen, full of weird space politics. Tried re-reading it last year and just kept thinking, "What if the main guy had just asked a different question in chapter three?" The whole plot would have folded in half. Makes you look at every character choice differently.

elizabeths5115d ago

That's a wild number of prompts in one place. It makes you wonder how they even come up with that many without repeating themselves. Like, do they have a whole section just for "what if your cat was a detective" versus "what if your detective was a cat"? @jennifer_jenkins is right, it does make you rethink those books. I used to see them as kind of a last resort, but having that many options is actually pretty freeing. You could open to a random page and just go.