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Prompt generators felt like cheating until I actually used one
I always thought prompt generators were for writers who couldn't come up with their own ideas. Then I hit a 3 week block and tried one from writingprompts.com. It gave me a weird scenario about a lighthouse keeper who gets voicemails from the future and I wrote 12 pages off it. Anyone else have a tool they swore off but ended up using?
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kellyjones27d ago
Is it really cheating if it breaks a three week block? I'd say that lighthouse keeper story earned its keep. I spent two days staring at a blank page once, then used a random weather report generator just to get a single sentence down. Ended up writing a whole scene about a town that only got mail when it rained. Sometimes our brains just need a weird little jump start, not a whole map.
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noahmartin27d agoTop Commenter
Right, because nothing says "real writer" like torturing yourself for three weeks over a blank page. That sounds like a great system, really sustainable. You know what's cheating? Charging someone for a writing class that tells you to just "feel the muse" while you're stuck in a loop. A weather report generator is just a tool, same as a thesaurus or a dictionary. If your town rain-mail story is good, nobody cares how you got the first sentence. You could have rolled dice for it and it wouldn't matter. Take the win, Kelly, and tell your brain to shut up about it.
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hannahsingh27d ago
That town that only got mail when it rained is such a cool concept. I used to think any kind of prompt or generator was basically cheating, like you weren't a real writer if you didn't pull everything from pure guts. But reading this, I get it now. A weird little jump start is just a tool, not a shortcut, and sometimes the tool is the whole reason the story shows up in the first place.
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