Watched 4 people in my writing group waste 40 minutes because they thought a prompt had to be a full plot

Jessica Williams · 2026-10-11T09:20:04.605947+00:00

Last Thursday at the Panera on High Street, our group got a prompt that was just the line "the key didn't fit." Two people immediately started outlining whole novels and the other two sat there stuck, saying they couldn't start without knowing who, what, where. I grabbed a napkin and wrote one paragraph about a guy trying the wrong key on his own apartment door after 2am, done in 5 minutes. A prompt is a first line or a tiny scene, not a book report waiting to happen. Does your group also turn a 6 word prompt into a whole plot meeting, or is that just mine?

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Watched 4 people in my writing group waste 40 minutes because they thought a prompt had to be a full plot | Creative Writing Prompts - Topic Shares