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Writing prompts that give you a character vs. ones that give you a situation, which one actually gets you to a draft?
Saw two prompt threads last week, one gave me a full character (a night shift nurse in Tulsa who hates her sister) and I cranked out 900 words in a night. The other just handed me a setting, an empty motel pool in February, and I sat there for two days with nothing. So which do you all get more mileage from, a person with a problem already baked in, or a place and let the story find itself?
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raymitchell20d ago
The nurse in Tulsa thing is interesting because you said she "hates her sister" and that one detail is probably what got you moving, not the job or the city. So my question is, when you get a character, is it the want that pulls you in or the flaw? Like if the prompt had just said "night shift nurse in Tulsa" with no sister, no grudge, nothing to push against, would you still have written 900 words that night? Because I'm willing to bet the empty pool sat there for two days mostly because nobody in that image wanted anything yet.
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