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Unpopular opinion: using random word generators for prompts is killing creativity, but my writing group in Denver says the opposite
My friend Dana said last week that rolling dice for prompts got her out of a 3 month dry spell, but I think picking your own idea forces you to dig deeper. We argued about it for an hour at the coffee shop on 13th. Do you let a generator pick for you, or do you write from your own head first?
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colesanchez17h ago
Rolling dice doesn't replace your brain, it just gets you past the blank page. Your friend Dana was stuck for 3 months, and a random word unstuck her. That's not killing creativity, that's kicking the door open when you're too scared to walk through it yourself. When you pick your own idea, you usually pick the safe one, the one you already know how to write. A generator throws you something weird that you'd never choose, and now you have to figure out how to make it work, which is where the real digging happens. Writing from your own head first sounds noble until you realize your head keeps giving you the same 5 ideas on repeat.
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