Discover essential creative writing prompts and techniques to overcome writer's block and refine your work.
Whether you’re new to creative writing and want to learn some helpful tips and tricks to get you on your way, or you’re an experienced writer looking to refine your work for publishing, this guide has everything you’ll need to set you up for success.
Creative writing prompts and techniques are vital for authors to consider before beginning writing any genre of creative writing. Having these tools in their writing arsenal can stimulate the author’s creative inspiration, help them overcome writer’s block and ultimately save them writing time in the long run, as they provide a starting block for writers to build upon.
Understanding the various creative writing prompts, such as character development and narrative structure, empowers writers to unlock their creativity and produce more polished, impactful works of creative writing.
Eliminate writer’s block and refine your work by keeping these key creative writing techniques and prompts in mind when writing any piece of work:
‘Show, don’t tell’, is a key element in creating a more immersive writing style to engage your readers. This writing technique involves telling your story and describing characters and events through sensory details and actions, rather than exposition, allowing your readers to feel as though they are ‘in the room’ with your characters.
For example:
Telling: The forest was eerie at night.
Showing: Shadows flickered beneath the treetops, as the moon’s light cascaded down upon the forest. An eerie breeze murmured through the branches, rustling the leaves which clung to them.
Character development is a crucial technique in creative writing, because well-developed characters drive plot, themes and emotional impact on the audience. A good author will know their own characters inside out; with that in mind, you should consider the below character development questions when in the initial stages of writing.
In order to develop characters that feel real to your readers, you’ll need to truly know and understand them. Conducting a character interview, where you ask questions about your character as if you were interviewing them, is a great technique in order to find out more about them.
Here are some character development questions to consider:
Characteristics: How do you speak? Do you have an accent? How do you style your hair? Do you wear make-up? What is your face shape? Do you have any birthmarks? What is your clothing style? How do you hold yourself when walking/sitting/standing?
Emotions / Mindset: Are you an introvert or an extrovert? What would you consider to be going out of your comfort zone? What keeps you up at night? What does the perfect day look like to you? Are you a glass half full kind of person?
Interests: Are you interested in sport? What do you do for fun? Do you enjoy eating out? How do you feel about socialising? What is your greatest passion?
Relationships: Who would you trust with a big secret? Who are you closest to in your life? How wide is your friendship circle? Are you single/in a relationship? What is your relationship with your parents like?
One of the first things you should consider as a writer, is the narrative structure of how you’d like your story to pan out, and therefore, how the reader will receive it. You may be wondering what is narrative structure? Narrative structure is how the plot is organised. Every story has a beginning, middle and an end, but there are typically five types of narrative structure this can follow, including linear, non-linear, circular, parallel and interactive plot structures.
A huge part of a believable character, who can evoke emotion from your reader, is the dialogue in which they engage in. This could be their internal dialogue, or interaction with other characters. How does dialogue occur within your writing? Do your characters always say what they mean, or could you explore subtext and underlying emotions to evoke hidden motivations or tension? Again, showing, not telling.
Additionally, remember that it can be more impactful to use dialogue tags sparingly while writing. While such tags (e.g., "he said," "she replied") are necessary to attribute speech, avoid overusing them. Tone, emotion and context can be portrayed by what is said, not said, and the surrounding actions of the character instead.
The ability to take constructive criticism from those whose opinions you value, as well as self-editing and revising, is an important part of creative writing. This will allow you to refine your work and ensure that your messaging is effectively communicated to your reader. During revision, you may make subtle changes to your characters, or revise bigger elements such as overall pace, or even parts of the plot.
Transform your passion for writing into the ability to produce prose worthy of public recognition by embarking on the Hull Online MA in Creative Writing. You will look at your own writing, but also examine and critique the writing of well-established authors. Learning these tips and tricks will give you the tools to refine and elevate your writing techniques, specifically in the context of getting published.
The course is part-time and 100% online, with optional face-to-face events, meaning you can work at your own pace and fit the work around your life – not the other way around: