Why You Should Use Writing Prompts During The Writing Process

We know, really, we know it’s hard sometimes. We know it’s hard to come up with something you want to write about. And sometimes you have an idea and you start to write and the idea just fizzles and doesn’t offer you enough to write about. So, you start off with the best of intentions and you just can't get the words on the page. That's frustrating! And the last thing we want for you is frustration! There are enough things in life to frustrate us, and we don’t want to add to your frustration. So, the mission of this blog is to help you enjoy writing, and adding your stories to History Chip. We are here to help!

The blank white page that looms under your pen or on your screen loses its power to intimidate once you put down a few words. Write a prompt on the top of that page and that page is no longer blank. Voila you have direction, you have heard the starting gun and you are off! A writing prompt focuses your thoughts, sparks ideas and helps get you started filling that page. And we have tons of writing prompts for you!

Writing prompts are great and teachers use them all the time to spark creativity, to stretch our minds to think about things we might not typically write about, like seagulls or eyeglasses or rhubarb. Moreover, we use writing prompts to jump start our writing. Start with a prompt and you avoid that initial fear of what to write about. When you select a writing prompt, it focuses your mind in a new direction away from your frustrations and toward a sort of freedom brought on by focusing your mind on this random word or prompt. Let’s say the prompt asks you to write about your elementary school. You start to think about that school. You remember the building and you remember your favorite teacher. Maybe she was pretty and nice and she made you feel that you were cared for. And you might remember the playground and the games you played and the names of some of your classmates. Maybe you remember when one of them fell off the monkey bars and broke her arm. Maybe you remember when one of them became ill. Maybe there are songs that come to mind when you remember your school. Maybe you were a safety patrol or class president or the teacher’s pet. These are all elements of your story. There is so much to remember and so much to share!

You might still be wondering how to use writing prompts. There are lots of ways to use them. You may want to randomly choose a word, a memory, or something in the news. You may say to yourself, that because Memorial Day is approaching, you are going to write about your father’s experience during a war. Or maybe you just pick a word - snow. You must have stories about snow. You might make a list of things you want to write about and choose one each day. Or, you can go to History Chip’s Writing Prompts page, and choose any of the various prompt offerings on that page. We have a writing prompt generator that will change prompts with a click. There are also tons of sample prompts for you to review. You can use them one at a time - use each one of them and you will soon have a full book of your own writing - or peruse them, pick one and come back another day for a new prompt. We also offer our ebook of Creative Writing Prompts for you to download and keep for easy reference. You will also find a few sample stories on that same page demonstrating the elements of a basic story.

So, try our Writing Prompt Generator, our ebook of Creative Writing Prompts and our story writing guide and you will have lots of tools to make writing your stories easy and fun. You may find yourself wondering why you ever had any fear of that blank white page. Remember, you’ve been telling stories since you learned how to talk. It’s one of the things that humans do best. So, give it a try, we’re here for you. We know you are going to write some great stories and we can’t wait to read them. And remember, Your Stories Matter!