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My kid told me my prompt notebook was cheating at dinner, and I still don't know if she's right
My daughter is 15 and writes short stories on her phone, and at dinner Tuesday she saw my spiral notebook of 60 story starters and called it a crutch. She said a good prompt should feel like a splinter you can't get out, not a checklist you work down like a job. I built a whole Friday night writing group around my list, 8 people who show up every week, so hearing that stung. Now I'm torn between dumping the notebook or just making every prompt harder and stranger. Does a good prompt box you in or pry you open? I want to hear from people who keep a list too.
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robert_butler1126d ago
Man, I get why that stung. A buddy of mine ran a Tuesday night poetry thing for years with this big list of prompts on index cards, and one night a guy told him the cards were doing the heavy lifting for him. He almost quit the whole thing. What he ended up doing was keeping the list but only using it when the group got stuck, like a spare tire instead of the steering wheel. Couple months later the same guy who complained was the one asking to pull a card because he couldn't get started. So maybe the notebook isn't cheating, it's just a tool, and your daughter is really saying she wants the prompts to bite a little harder.
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