I used to get stuck trying to write a whole story from a prompt

For years, I'd see a cool prompt and just freeze up trying to figure out the ending before I even started. It felt like homework. Then, about six months ago, I read a tip from a writer on a blog. She said to just write the first 200 words of the scene the prompt gave you, and then stop. No plan, no ending. I tried it with a prompt about finding a key in a library book. I just wrote the character finding it and feeling the cold metal. I didn't know where it led. But having that little chunk written made me want to figure it out later, and the story actually got finished. It turned a big, scary task into a small, fun one. Has anyone else found a simple trick like that to get past the blank page?

3 comments

3 Comments

wesley782mo ago

Wait, is it really about not knowing the ending? I always get stuck because I try to make the first 200 words perfect. Your trick works if you can just write them messy. I have to tell myself it's a draft, not the final thing. That's the real hurdle for me. Letting it be bad so the story can even start.

wendy_wilson2mo ago

Exactly, that draft mindset is the only way forward sometimes.

the_hannah27d ago

There's a writer named Mary Robinette Kowal who said something about this that really stuck with me. She compared writing a first draft to building a sandcastle at low tide. You know the tide is coming in to wash it all away anyway, so you just build the thing as fast as you can without worrying about details. That idea helped me get over the perfection thing. I used to spend hours on the first paragraph trying to get the wording exactly right. Now I just dump the words on the page like wet sand and tell myself I can reshape it later. It sounds dumb but it actually works for me. The key is knowing you're going to rewrite it anyway so there's no point stressing over the first version.