How Not Knowing and Allowing the Energy of Wonder Will Make Your Writing Better: Writing Prompt inspired by Lucille Clifton
Sometimes writers create elaborate schemes and outlines and wildly detailed storyboards regarding where their unwritten story, novel, screenplay or poem will take their reader.
This is fine AND I question writers who are only willing to use this format become stifled by the format itself.
What if the writer instead allowed the magic of the process to carry them and their characters into unexpected places?
As a creative, we may stretch ourselves right into a creative downpour when we veer off-course, like the surprising sites when we take the two lane highway rather than the slightly faster interstate highway.
Today, let’s allow ourselves that special flavor of delight. Let’s invite mystery and wonder into our writing.
Whether you are writing fiction or are journaling or playing with dialogue in your screenplay or journaling: choose this prompt as a way to bring the mystery into the scene. Allow your character work to fill it with breath and light and surprise.
Prompt 1: The fear of being lost is real to me. I remember when I was lost in the…… (share the place where you or your character got lost. Take 5 – 10 minutes to tell the story of being lost – taking care to note each of your senses.)
Prompt 2: The moment it all became clear to me felt like nothing short of a miracle. After all, who would have thought….. (write for 5 -10 minutes about what happened next in your life or in your character’s life. Make it colorful and vivid.
This post is a part of the Women’s History Month Writing Quotes & Prompts series from Julie JordanScott, the Creative Life Midwife, and her Word-Love Writing Community you may join for free on Facebook. During March, there will be daily discussions on the quotes and prompts we present here, too. Join the conversation and improve your writing at the same time!
