Writing Prompts 101 – Part 1: How to Use Photo Prompts

Writing Prompts 101

Part 1: How to Use Photo Prompts

In one of my posts, I talked about The 5 Most Important Things You Need to Start Writing. There we agreed that once you have all the tools to start writing, you need an idea to get started. Sometimes that’s the hardest part. So today I’m going to talk about some things you can use to find writing ideas.

What Is a Writing Prompt?

A writing prompt can be anything that gets you thinking and imagining something. It can be something you see, like a photo, a painting or a video clip. Your job is to look at this and start asking yourself questions about it and imagine the answers. For example, lets try one. This is a photo I took last year.

Photo by Abby – Help Kids Write HQ

How to Use a Photo Prompt

Question:

“Where is this bike?”

Let’s say it’s in a lake.

Question:

“Why is it in a lake?”

We’ll say it’s because it doesn’t work anymore.

Question:

“What happened to it?”

It was hit by a truck.

Question:

“How did it get hit by a truck?”

A boy didn’t lock it up at night. Someone stole it and they left it in an alley where a delivery truck ran over it.

Question:

“Who stole the bike? Why did the steal it? How did the bike end up in the lake?”

See how this works? There is no right or wrong answer to these questions because this is your imagination. You use the object to create a setting, action and a story behind each. What is even more fun is that you may decide not to write about the the bike at all. You may choose to write about the man driving the truck who ran over the bike. Or maybe you want to tell the story of the person who stole the bike. Or, you might write about the lady reading the ad in the paper announcing that someone is missing their bike. Even more interesting, you could write about what happened to the bike from the bike’s point of view. If you use your imagination, one photo can help you create just about any kind of story.

This is just one example of a photo writing prompt.

To view more than five hundred writing prompt photos, visit this Pinterest board. You can also visit Young Poets Portal for more writing prompts.

In my next post, I’ll be talking about standard writing prompts. To be alerted when I publish the post, feel free to subscribe to Help Kids Write HQ.

Writing Prompts 101 – Part 3: How to Use Musical Writing Prompts

Writing Prompts 101 –

Part 3: How to Use Musical Writing Prompts

What Is a Musical Writing Prompt?

Have you ever noticed how you can hear a song and it will change your mood or remind you of someone or make you think about something that happened? Music is very powerful. The melodies, rhythms, and lyrics can create different emotions and atmospheres. That’s why I love using music when I write. The music I choose to listen to helps me write about specific things. It’s kind of hard to explain so let me give you an example.

How To Use a Musical Writing Prompt

You need a piece of paper and a pencil or something to type on for this little exercise. I want you to listen to this song called “Havana” by Jesse Cook. While you listen, I want you to write down whatever thoughts or feelings come to you. Do you think of a place? Do you feel happiness, sadness, excitement, or fear? Does this song take you on an adventure? You may be shocked at how quickly you are seeing a story or forming a poem while you do this. (Sometimes a song is too short but it’s perfect for whatever I am trying to write. So I just play it over and over again until I am finished.)

Now what? Look at your notes. Use the words and images to create your poem, story, or essay. When I hear this song, I think of a trip to South America where I am invited to a party with lots of fun music, excellent spicy food, and tropical humidity.

What did you come up with after hearing this song? Nothing? Well, here’s another secret of mine: play the song again, but this time, get up and dance. Something about dancing to the music may help you shake the ideas loose and make it easier to write them down.

More Musical Writing Prompts

I’m pretty confident that you didn’t have trouble using this musical writing prompt. It will be easy to use others. You can find several YouTube channels and websites created for this. *As a side note, parents will want to preview some of the music videos ahead of time and turn on the ‘Safe Browsing’ feature to make sure there’s no inappropriate content in the videos.

There are also some basic music apps like Amazon Music, iTunes Radio, Pandora and others that I like to use to create stations for writing. Amazon Music lets you create your own playlists that you can enjoy offline and I like this feature for those times when I’m out of the house without internet.

So now, go have some fun! Experiment with different types of music and see what kinds of things you can write while you listen. Listen in the car or when you’re out for a walk. But don’t forget to carry paper and a pen to write down your ideas!

I hope you enjoyed this series of articles about Writing Prompts. Please share with your friends on Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest.

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Writing Prompts 101 – Part 2: How to Use Standard Prompts

Writing Prompts 101

Part 2: How to Use Standard Prompts

Peanuts by Charles M. Shulz

What Is a Standard Writing Prompt?

Today I want to show you standard writing prompts. These can be as simple as a word, a phrase, a sentence or a paragraph. They help you create ideas about what to write. In the last post, I said that a writing prompt can be anything that gets you thinking and imagining something. We looked at photo or picture prompts and how to use them. It was pretty easy. We just ask ourselves questions about the photo and then answer them using our imaginations.

How to Use a Standard Writing Prompt

In the cartoon above, we see that Snoopy likes to start a story with the words, “It was a dark and stormy night.” If you think about it, that sentence is already part of a story. How? We have to ask ourselves questions and answer them. Let’s try it.

Question:

Where is it a dark and stormy night?

Let’s say it’s a dark and stormy night in my home town.

Question:

What time of the year is it? Spring, Summer, Fall or Winter?

Let’s say Fall.

Question:

When does this story take place? Hundreds of years ago, this year or many years into the future?

I’m going to say this year.

Question:

Is the story taking place outside in the storm or inside a warm house?

It takes place outside in the storm.

Question:

Who do you see? What is happening?  What is going to happen?

I see an old man and a little girl. They are both wet and cold. They need something to eat and a place to stay for the night.

Question:

Who are they? Why are they walking in a storm? Where will they stay? Will they find something to eat? Will people be kind to them?

Again, you can see how much fun this is. You can try this using just one word which is a lot easier because you can do almost anything with one word. Try it. Write down the word “horse” at the top of a piece of paper and then start asking yourself questions like we did here. Where is the horse? What is it doing? What is its name? What color is it? And so on until you have enough to start a story or poem, or whatever else you want to write.

More Standard Writing Prompts on the Web

To find more than one hundred and fifty standard word prompts, you can look at this Pinterest board.

Here are some other websites with standard word prompts you can use:

The Teacher’s Corner

 Daily Teaching Tools

Scholastic Story Starters (this one is pretty fun)

Journal Buddies

In my next post, I’ll be showing you how to use musical writing prompts. These are my favorite prompts yet.

To be find out when I publish the post, feel free to subscribe to Help Kids Write HQ. You can also follow me on Twitter, Facebook or Google+.

A Simple Writing Prompt App (It’s Free!)

For those of you with Android smartphones, I found this basic writing prompt app on the Google Play Store. I like it because it’s easy to use. Check it out.

Writing Promps by ARC APPS