1200 Creative Writing Prompts

by Melissa Donovan

Perfect for writers who are feeling uninspired or who simply want to tackle a new writing challenge, 1200 Creative Writing Prompts has something for everyone. Whether you write fiction, poetry, or creative nonfiction, you’ll find plenty of fresh ideas inside this book.

The fiction prompts cover a range of genres, including literary, mystery, thriller, suspense, science fiction, fantasy, paranormal, horror, romance, historical, humor, satire, children’s and young adult.

Poetry prompts offer poem starters, subjects, word lists, and images.

The creative nonfiction section provide inspiration for journaling, memoirs, personal essays, and exploring your writing goals and habits.

This book doesn’t come with rules. Use a fiction prompt to inspire a personal essay. Use a creative nonfiction prompt to inspire a poem. Combine prompts to come up with interesting and unique story ideas. As long as you engage your imagination and have fun, it’s all good!

Genres: Writing

170 pages, Paperback

First published January 3, 2014

About the author

I have been inhaling books for as long as I can remember. I started writing poetry and keeping a journal at thirteen and haven't stopped writing since.

I studied creative writing at Sonoma State University, earning a BA in English with a concentration in creative writing. Since then, I have worked as a technical writer, copywriter, professional blogger, and writing coach.

My blog, Writing Forward, is packed with creative writing tips and ideas.

Check out my books: The Adventures in Writing series includes 101 Creative Writing Exercises, 10 Core Practices for Better Writing, and 1200 Creative Writing Prompts. The Storyteller's Toolbox series includes What's the Story? Building Blocks for Fiction Writing.

Reviews

[Dawn Fable · Rating 2 out of 5]

There are plenty of interesting, inspiring prompts in here. However, there are some that seem like watered down plots from recent movies.

[Aenea Jones · Rating 3 out of 5]

A nice, but not outstanding collection of ideas.

[Sally Hannoush · Rating 5 out of 5]

I absolutely love these writing prompts. My collage ruled notebook is filling up with my "rantings" when I randomly pick one out. I hadn't actually made anything out my ramblings but it made me smile when I dug out old memories to use. If anything, it makes me feel like I am going through old photos and found that my mind was working without forcing it to write something. We all know that the more you try the harder it gets for words to form. Writers block is nothing but evil and this is a great weapon against it. Thanks for great ideas.

[Maria · Rating 4 out of 5]

An excellent book with masses of prompts to aid you in your writing. Whether it is for writing practise or finding ideas for a competition, or for inspiration for a short story or even a novel, this book has it all. I have many books containing writing prompts. What makes this one a cut above the rest is the fact that it is divided into three parts; with prompts for fiction, poetry and non-fiction. I was especially taken by the poetry prompts. Having wanted to write poems, but never confident in finding the ideas, the variety of prompts in this part particularly inspired me. This book is a resource that I will be delving into regularly. Well done, Melissa for another great book.

[Djanderson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Practical Journal Prompts and More

I am writing this review after reading and using many of the journal prompts. The book is conveniently divided into three sections: fiction, poetry and nonfiction prompts. It is an easy read, is suggested to highlight favored prompts. The variety and creativity of some of the prompts provides an excellent.resource for priming our own creative juices. The book is easily adaptable for solo, group and classroom projects. I enjoyed the book and started a list writing topics after reviewing the different sections.

[Nisha · Rating 4 out of 5]

DISCLAIMERS:
1. I received this book for free for an honest review.
2. This is an unbiased review
3. What works for one will not work for the other
4. Reviews are subjective and are based on the individual reviewer.

- the introduction is written in a conversational tone.
- how to use the book is not too complicated to understand
- this is sectioned off as Fiction Writing (500 prompts), Poetry Writing (400 prompts), Creative Nonfiction (300 prompts).

There's a little bit of something for someone out there.

[Bree Salyer · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is a Godsend. I have the grammatical aspect of writing down, but sometimes the ideas just aren't there. I have spent the last several years combing the web trying to find good story starters and writing prompts but have never been able to find more than a few here and there.

By the first page, I realized that I will probably never have to look elsewhere. I didn't find myself skipping over them to get to the good prompts... they are ALL good. Well developed. Unique. Interesting. Everything I was looking for.

I am 100% satisfied and would recommend this book to anyone who is struggling to find the right story to tell.

[Lozzi Counsell · Rating 5 out of 5]

Thank you for being my university guardian angel. I study creative writing and turn to your book whenever I get writers block. managed to write a short story tonight because of you. definitely going to be keeping this book close! I will never truly finish reading it because I will always come back to it. Love the variety of genres too!

[Miriam NietD · Rating 3 out of 5]

Sometimes the promots were not really creative. However, I found this book very useful. I would introduce though some pictures, starters and spefic words to push writers' imagination and inspiration.