Are Creative Writing Prompts a Help or Hindrance?

Let’s look at the pros and cons of using writing prompts to decide if we’re fostering creativity or frittering away time.

I remember the pleasure of writing about ladybugs for my high school freshman English class based on the prompt written on the board.1

And then there was the book I found a year or so at the library: Write to Discover Yourself. The author suggested we “portrait” the important people in our lives.2 I wrote pages and pages about my dad based on that prompt.

Prompts continued to play a big role in my creative writing journey when college professors supplied our class with poetry prompts.

Those prompts did exactly what they were designed for: they sparked creativity, teased out long-buried memories, and helped me spin creative storylines I would never have imagined on my own. Prompts have so effectively opened me up, I decided to gather a collection for others to use called 52 Creative Writing Prompts, to help get pens moving and ideas flowing. 

Do Prompts Distract or Delight?

But am I doing a disservice? Are prompts mere distractions, diverting writers from purposeful, goal-oriented writing?

Some argue we need to stop using prompts and only write toward public-facing projects. Why waste time on writing prompts that fill notebooks and journal pages, when we’re struggling to find time for the writing we claim we want to do? Why write in response to a random prompt instead of composing the essay we want to submit, the book we want to draft, the article we want to pitch?

Let’s peek at arguments for both sides, the pros and cons of prompts, to see if we need to embrace or abandon them in our creative writing life. 

Pros of Creative Writing Prompts:

On the plus side we have benefits of creative writing prompts, such as how they:

1. Spark Fresh Ideas

Creative writing prompts inspire writers who struggle to generate any ideas at all by giving them an energizing starting point. Prompts also spark fresh ideas in writers who tend to return again and again to topics they’ve written about before. Prompts press writers to explore subject matter outside their comfort zone, breathing new life into their rotating collection of pet topics and pillar content. 

2. Overcome Writer's Block

Prompts offer a lifeline to writers grappling with writer's block—they invite a “stuck” writer to write freely for ten, 15, or 20 minutes without those words needing a destination or purpose other than to get the ink flowing.

3. Provide Low-Stakes Practice

Writing prompts intended as practice serve as low-stakes exercises, encouraging writers to play and experiment without the pressure of immediate evaluation by editors or readers. Prompts allow writers to refine their craft and explore techniques in the safety of their writing notebooks and journals. In time they may develop a more captivating style.

4. Prepare for Assignments

Freelancers who’ve been assigned a topic for a magazine or essayists who have entered themed writing contests benefit from writing from prompts.