Writing a story based on a prompt stretches your  muscles, can help dig you out of a slump, can set you on fire. Playing with words and ideas, simply jumping in and experiementing sends messages to your subconscious that you’re endlessly creative. It nourishes the alchemy of writing. Try your hand at creating an essay, scene or short story based on these prompts, using tangible details to bring the piece to brimming life.

You might want to slip in dialogue, you might want to start in media res–rarely a bad idea. You might want to write for the joy of it.

• • Write about a heavy wind that ravages a place.
  • Write about a wind that announces a new season.
  • Write a story that begins in a train station.
  • Write about cycles of growth.
  • Write about witnessing something that you or a character cannot reveal.
  • Write about missed signals.
  • Write about a cab ride shared by strangers.
  • Write a story about a tap dancer.
  • Write a story that includes these elements: lasso, peanut brittle, orange, blizzard, petroglyph, dog trainer, and war chest.
  • Begin a story with The garden was silent_____________________
  • Write about a person or character who hides behind hats.
  • Write about an Uber ride or airport shuttle shared by strangers.
  • Write about a mysterious illness or coma that brings about psychic abilities in a character. Or maybe a seemingly new personality.
  • Write about a pandemic.
  • Write about wearing something ill fitting.

• Write about a person prone to gaudinessin every facet of life.
• Write about a wanderer.
• Write about sympathy for the devil, but the devil is celebrity, billionaire, tycoon, politician.
• Write about remorse.
• Write about being a geek.
• Write about a person or character addicted to online role playing games.
• Write about an unwilling witness
• Write about emptiness.
• Jot down book and film reviews in your writer’s notebook.
• Write about something that is too good to be true.
• Write about a cell phone jangling at the worst possible moment.
• Write about someone who thinks he or she is always right.
• Write about an obscure language.
• Write about losing a cell phone and then the person finds a new freedom.
• Write about someone with an empowering, yet eccentric personal ritual.
• Write a story about loneliness.
• Write a story that includes these elements: lasso, peanut brittle, orange, blizzard, petroglyph, dog trainer, and war chest.
• Begin a story with The garden was silent_____________________
• Write about a person or character who hides behind hats.
• Write about a mysterious illness that brings about psychic abilities.
• Write about a someone living on the streets.
• Write about someone with a destructive personal habit or addiction.
• Depict a person walking through his/her fears.
• Write about a moment when magic is born.
• Write about a wet blanket arriving at a joyous occasion.
• Write about how a ritual/dinner party/romantic interlude is bathed in candlelight.
• What was Hamlet like as a child? Scarlett O’Hara? What was Holden Caulfield like as an adult? Tom Sawyer?
•  Write a story based on a tarot reading.
• Write a story based on a psychic prediction.
• Write about a hard-to-write letter you never dared to send.
• What risk have you always regretted not taking?
• Write about two middle aged women talking over a drink. One of them is telling her friend, “I didn’t think living alone could be so peaceful.”
• Write about a relationship or friendship that begins on a message board.
• Write about two middle aged women talking. One of them says, “When he left me I wanted to burn down his house.”
• Write a story where a nonhuman character plays a large role—it can be about a pet, cockroaches, wasps, snakes, etc.
• Write an essay or scene that features music from your teenage years.
• Write about how wine or champagne tastes.
• Write about an unsual reaction to chocolate–possibly inspired by Joanne Harris’ Choclat.
• Write about earthy elements– mud, soil, dust, water.
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• Write about savoring a memorable meal or a simple one after you’ve been particularly hungry.
• Write about a scene or anecdote where dense fog cloaks the world.
• Write about an outdoor activity –sport, play, job–that happens in freezing temperatures.
• Write about your favorite painting, photograph, sculpture, statue; interpreting how it moves you.
• Write a piece where you weave weather and its impact on people.
• Write a piece about overhearing an obnoxious cell phone conversation.
• Write a piece where the sky dazzles the person observing  it.
• Write a story or anecdote where a poorly or awkwardly worded e-mail causes hurt feelings or misunderstandings.
• Write about an incident that features a sense of foreboding, intuition, inner knowing.
• Write about issuing an apology under pressure.
• Write about revealing a secret or betraying someone’s trust.
• Write a nonsexual activity that happens in the dark.
• Write about struggling to make a decision.
• Write a story that begins “I am waiting for the plane to land and….”
• Make a list of all the unanswerable questions you can think of.
• Write about a person who struggles with chronic pain or illness.
• Write about an elderly person filled with regrets.
• Write about an unusual happening in the hospital room.
• Write about an elderly person who feels deliciously vital and engaged.
• Write about an obscure legend.
• Write about escaping.
• Write about baking a pie or an elaborate dessert.
• Write a letter to someone from your past and update them on what has happened in your life.
• Write about walking down the hallway of a middle school or junior high when the students have been dismissed for the day.
• Write a story set in a jail or prison. Who is telling the story?
• Write about the many moods and modes of rain.
• Write about being afraid to meet your beloved’s family for the first time.
• Describe a person through a beloved and well-used object—tattered book, worn sweater, frayed handbag, that he or she constantly carries or wears.
• Write about a dangerous thirst.
• Write about being served a specific food or meal that you abhor.
• Write about swimming, ice skating, skiing, snow boarding, or other sports, focusing on what it feels like inside your body as you’re moving.
• Just for fun: Describe a person through his or her surroundings and possessions. Is her apartment or home, clean, tidy, fanatically orderly? What sort of music does she listen to? Will lots of sunlight filter in during sunny days, or are the windows shrouded? What’s in the refrigerator? What about accessories, art, books? What does the bathroom reveal? The bedroom closet?  Describe a car’s glove box or trunk.

In the film Sleeping with the Enemy—starring Julia Roberts and Kevin Kline we find ourselves amid a power struggle and a fight for survival. The Kline character, a batterer, is known by his fanatical orderliness and control—rows of towels in the bathroom lined up like soldiers at inspection and canned goods stacked precisely in the kitchen cabinets reveal his rigidity and need for control.  When Roberts  (Laura) flees his abuse and moves to the Midwest she changes her hair, which she allows to flow loosely, trades in her sleek trophy-wife wardrobe for comfortable long skirts and baggy tops. But she also trades in a sterile oceanside home for a homey Victorian, with comfortable, overstuffed furniture, a porch swing, and African violets tucked onto the kitchen window sill. She purposefully doesn’t align the items in the cupboard, instead it’s a place for baking pies and listening to soothing music.

Inspired by these dynamics, write about a character in hiding. Or write about a character who undergoes a dramatic transformation. Or write about a person escaping an abusive situation. Or write about a person or character starting over.