In a scene from Mary Gaitskill’s novel Veronica, the protagonist reflects on an innocent moment from her childhood: “When I was a young child, my mother told me that love is what makes the flowers grow. I pictured love inside the flowers, opening their petals and guiding their roots down to suck the earth.” This week write a story based on a myth told to you as a child, whether it be storks delivering babies, the tooth fairy trading money for teeth, or that chewing gum would stay in your stomach for seven years if you swallowed it. Were there good intentions behind these stories or did they cause more harm than good?
Writing Prompts & Exercises
The Time Is Now
The Time Is Now offers three new and original writing prompts each week to help you stay committed to your writing practice throughout the year. We also curate a list of essential books on writing—both the newly published and the classics—that we recommend for guidance and inspiration. Whether you’re struggling with writer’s block, looking for a fresh topic, or just starting to write, our archive of writing prompts has what you need. Need a starter pack? Check out our Writing Prompts for Beginners.
Tuesdays: Poetry prompts
Wednesdays: Fiction prompts
Thursdays: Creative nonfiction prompts
Get immediate access to more than 2,000 writing prompts with the tool below:
The Language of Trees: A Rewilding of Literature and Landscape edited by Katie Holten is an anthology of poems, essays, quotations, song lyrics, recipes, and other texts offering a variety of perspectives on trees and their relationship to human life. With contributions from writers such as Ross Gay, Robin Wall Kimmerer, and Carl Phillips, the book also includes a “Tree Alphabet” created by Holten translating each letter of the English alphabet into a drawing of a different type of tree. “When we translate our words into glyphs, such as trees, it forces us to re-read everything,” writes Holten in the afterward. Inspired by this “rewilding” of language, write a short story in which a forested area plays a major role. How will the trees speak in your story?
“I tell my audiences over and over, you should rethink the old gray women in your life that you take for granted,” says Luis Alberto Urrea about writing his new novel, Good Night, Irene (Little, Brown, 2023), in the May/June 2023 issue of Poets & Writers Magazine. “My mom’s own madness wrecked her. But you try and you try to give something back, and in this book, I finally gave my mom a happy ending.” Inspired by the most important women in his life, his mother and his wife, Urrea began a journey of research and exploration to tell this personal tale. Write a short story that reimagines the biography of someone close to you. How would you offer grace or a new perspective?
At the end of the nineteenth century, French impressionist painter Claude Monet repeatedly painted the water lilies he planted in the pond of his famed water garden in Giverny, France. According to the description of his “Water Lilies” at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, after nearly sixteen years Monet achieved “a completely new, fluid, and somewhat audacious style of painting in which the water-lily pond became the point of departure for an almost abstract art.” This week write a story in which an artist reaches a turning point in their practice. What are the conditions in their life that lead to this needed transformation? For inspiration, read Rachel Cusk’s story “The Stuntman.”
In Nathacha Appanah’s novel The Sky Above the Roof, translated from the French by Geoffrey Strachan and out now from Graywolf Press, a family drama unfolds through the eyes of several characters. After seventeen-year-old Wolf steals his mother’s car to search for his estranged sister, he causes an accident for which he is arrested and incarcerated, forcing his mother and sister to fight for his release. Instead of using a linear narrative to tell the story of what led to this event, Appanah builds the family’s fractured lives into the novel’s structure, each chapter offering a new version of events. As the novel progresses and more details about the characters are revealed, the reader is able to piece together the story. Taking inspiration from nonlinear narratives, build a story around a single life-altering event. First, try listing the characters affected by the conflict then write into their individual perspectives, taking into account each distinct tone, diction, and background.
According to a 2022 YouGov online poll, half of Americans consume true crime content, and one in three say they consume it at least once a week. Popular podcasts such as Serial as well as television shows and streaming series such as Unsolved Mysteries and Dahmer are proof of the continuing trend. The suspenseful genre invites enthusiasts into the lives of serial killers, kidnappers, law enforcement, and in some cases, the victims of the crimes. The poll showed that many enjoy the genre for the sense of suspense and excitement, but also to understand criminals and their motivations. This week, write a story inspired by true crime dramas. Whose perspective will you write from?
In a recent New York Times article, reporter Gina Kolata writes about a series of medical discoveries and family secrets surrounding eighteenth-century German composer Ludwig van Beethoven. An international group of researchers published a paper last month after DNA analysis of what were known to be strands of Beethoven’s hair. Their report debunks many long-held myths about the composer including his cause of death, how he lost his hearing, and his living descendants. Inspired by this scientific and historical drama, write a story in which a scientific discovery reveals intimate secrets about a famous person. With the steady rise of genetic research being conducted, consider the intersection between science and personal history.
In response to a series of pension reforms by French president Emmanuel Macron, municipal waste collectors began a strike earlier this month, leaving over 10,000 tons of trash to collect on the streets of Paris. Viral videos have documented the City of Light transformed into a strange landscape of black bags, abandoned toilets, strewn furniture, and cardboard boxes. This week, write a story in which a set of events triggers a city’s landscape to change dramatically. The setting can be based on real events or surrealistic, as with Donald Barthelme’s short story “The Balloon,” published in the New Yorker in 1966.
Adam Mars-Jones’s novel Box Hill: A Story of Low Self-Esteem (New Directions, 2020) explores a relationship between two men: naive eighteen-year-old Colin and his decade-older lover Ray. Told from the point of view of Colin, whose self-deprecating remarks diminish his image and idolize his partner, readers are brought into his view of the world. In one scene, Colin refers to his partner’s sweat as “an elixir” and his own as “no more than a waste product.” Mars-Jones uses Colin’s unique voice to develop his character as well as mimic his role in his relationship with Ray, setting up his emotional arc. Inspired by this narrative technique, write a story in which your narrator has an extreme view of themselves, whether narcissistic or self-deprecating. What effect does this have on how your story develops?
In the period of late antiquity, the ides of March was typically the day when citizens in Rome celebrated New Year’s festivals, such as the feast of Anna Perenna, honoring the goddess of long life and renewal, and Mamuralia, a ceremony in which an old man wearing animal skins was beaten with sticks and exiled from the city, symbolizing the shedding of the old year. Many may now associate the day with the ominous phrase from Shakespeare’s play Julius Caesar: “Beware the ides of March.” Taking inspiration from these myths and rituals, write a story in which a powerful figure is celebrated and then meets their demise. How will you flesh out this character’s personality while setting up the rise and fall of their reign?
In the film Tár, written and directed by Todd Field and starring Cate Blanchett, a world-renowned orchestra conductor is caught in a scandal surrounding a series of sexual abuse allegations. The Oscar-nominated film uses persuasive world-building and parallels to news stories surrounding cancel culture, the #MeToo movement, and the culture of artistic fame—including an integral scene with a cameo by New Yorker staff writer Adam Gopnik—to create a realistic portrayal of a complicated character. This week, write a fictional story that attempts to convince the reader that the events actually happened in real life. For further inspiration from uncanny depictions of reality in fiction, read Miranda July’s short story “Roy Spivey.”
In a short essay for Literary Hub’s “Craft of Writing” newsletter, novelist Rebecca Makkai argues that setting is the most underutilized tool in fiction. Makkai explains that a setting should “give the reader enough ambience and context that they can extrapolate a world” as well as take an active part in offering characters something to react to and “trap characters together, destabilize them, provoke change, or provide refuge, urgency, or danger.” Keeping this definition in mind, draft a short story by starting with a clear and time-specific setting. Try to delineate the time period, the physical location, and the relationship this setting has to your protagonist so it can make an impact on your story.
In the latest installment of our Ten Questions series, Colin Winnette discusses the inspiration behind his surreal dystopian novel Users (Soft Skull, 2023), which follows a troubled technology designer mired in a controversy surrounding a virtual-reality program he creates. When looking for ways to shape the book, Winnette was struck by a series of tweets by entrepreneur, and cofounder and former CEO of Twitter Jack Dorsey about his ten-day silent meditation retreat in Myanmar. “There was something so striking to me about the then-leading personality behind one of the noisiest places to exist online making such a dogged pursuit of silence,” says Winnette. This week write a story set in a silent retreat in which tensions start to rise. How will you sustain the story’s conflict despite there being little to no dialogue?
In “When the Novel Swiped Right,” Jennifer Wilson, a contributing essayist for the New York Times Book Review, tracks the effect dating apps have had on contemporary literature. In the essay, Wilson points to writers who have creatively used dating apps as a narrative device, such as Sally Rooney, Brandon Taylor, and Sarah Thankam Matthews, and encourages more writers to take advantage of how the apps “make possible encounters among characters who might not otherwise come into contact by virtue of differences in age, race, or class.” This week, write a story that involves two unlikely people meeting on a dating app. What do they discover as they get to know each other?
Depths of Wikipedia is a popular series of social media accounts dedicated to posting obscure facts published on the free online open-source encyclopedia Wikipedia. Posts include Jimmy the Raven, a raven actor who appeared in hundreds of films including The Wizard of Oz and It’s a Wonderful Life; Mr. Ouch, a hazard symbol developed by the National Electrical Manufacturers Association with children’s safety in mind; and the dinkus, a typographic symbol consisting of a line of asterisks often used as section breaks in a text. This week write a story that incorporates one of these curious Wikipedia facts into your plot.
“On stage, bodies in motion paired with words deliver both language and emotion. I have that same hope for the novel I’m struggling to write,” writes Kathryn Ma in a recent installment of our Writers Recommend series about the impact watching live theater has on her writing. “Dialogue travels, reaching me in the dark. I’m not taking down notes, but my ear is. If I’m open and lucky, the magic might follow me home.” This week write a story in which your character is moved by watching a live theatrical performance. What is the play about? How does the performance taking place on stage mirror the struggles your character is enduring?
Noah Baumbach’s film adaptation of Don DeLillo’s White Noise, Sam Esmail’s forthcoming film adaptation of Rumaan Alam’s Leave the World Behind, HBO’s miniseries adaptation of Emily St. John Mandel’s Station Eleven—novels with apocalyptic themes are appearing on screen more and more. Whether through satire or stark realism, this suspenseful setting allows writers to explore profound themes of survival, friendship, trust, hope, and resiliency. Inspired by apocalypse novels, write a short story that imagines the end of a modern civilization. Will you lean more toward satire, realism, or another form of expression entirely?
It’s awards show season for the film and television industry, but behind the camera are all the hardworking folks that make these shows happen. From florists arranging dramatic centerpieces, to chauffeurs driving celebrities from venue to venue, to the graphic designers of the envelopes holding the winners’ names—each individual helps make these one-night-only events possible. Consider what happens behind the scenes at one of these massive events and write a story from the perspective of someone working for an awards show. Imagine the mounting pressure throughout the night, the unexpected responsibilities that may arise, and the difficult celebrities one might encounter for the details in your story.
The multitude of popular astrology apps—such as Co–Star, the Pattern, and Time Passages—exemplifies how the ancient study of celestial bodies predicting what happens on Earth is still very relevant. Many rely on astrological readings for career and dating advice, financial decisions, spiritual guidance, and even for what books to read. Write a short story in which a character relies on astrology to make a major life decision. How does their relationship to this divinatory practice change once things are set in motion?
In the intricately imagined novel Sula, Toni Morrison tells the story of Sula Peace and Nel Wright, who meet as children in the Bottom, a Black neighborhood in the fictional town of Medallion, Ohio. The two characters embody the rich and complicated textures of a lifelong friendship as they move through their lives with dark secrets to keep, resentments, betrayal, and ultimately, forgiveness. This week, write a short story that captures the beginning and end of a friendship. Try to incorporate a strong setting that symbolizes and evolves with this relationship.
In the Catholic tradition, December 28 is known as Holy Innocents’ Day or Childermas, and it is celebrated differently from country to country. In Trinidad and Tobago, children’s toys are blessed while in Spain, it is a day to play pranks on friends and family. No matter how it is celebrated, the day commemorates the jovial and happy-go-lucky nature of children. This week, write a story in which the cast of characters consists solely of children. How will you adapt the dialogue to meet the energetic and irreverent personalities of kids?
In 2018, Chilean author Isabel Allende became the first Spanish-language author to receive the Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters from the National Book Foundation. In her acceptance speech, Allende spoke of how her writing comes from “nostalgia, loss, and separation, from an incurable desire to belong in a place.” Lightheartedly and hilariously, she continued by noting that she not only writes in Spanish but cooks, dreams, and makes love in Spanish. “It would be ridiculous panting in English. My lover doesn’t speak a word of Spanish,” said Allende. This week, write a story in which two people from vastly different backgrounds connect through an unexpected similarity. How do they bond through their own language?
In the preface to Whorephobia: Strippers on Art, Work, and Life, an anthology of essays and interviews published by Seven Stories Press, editor Lizzie Borden writes about her experiences as a young filmmaker in the late 1970s and early 1980s in downtown New York when she worked at a brothel to support her art. Borden writes: “My way of justifying working at the brothel was to tell myself it was part of what I considered my ‘real work’ of writing and directing, so I always went to work armed with a tape recorder.” Years later Borden would run into old friends on the street who worked with her at the brothel and exchange coded looks that, as she writes, were a result of their “internalized societal whorephobia.” Write a story in which tensions rise when two characters decide to keep a secret. Try to paint a picture of the before and after of these characters’ lives and how the secret forever connects them.
What is the relationship between good art and bad behavior? In the essay “What Do We Do With the Art of Monstrous Men?” published in the Paris Review in 2017, Claire Dederer breaks down the mixed feelings she has when enjoying the art of abusive men, including her experience watching the films of Roman Polanski and Woody Allen. Using anecdotes from conversations with friends, Dederer also reflects on her own sense of “monstrosity” as a writer. “A book is made of small selfishnesses. The selfishness of shutting the door against your family. The selfishness of ignoring the pram in the hall. The selfishness of forgetting the real world to create a new one. The selfishness of stealing stories from real people,” she writes. Inspired by this moral quandary, write a story from the perspective of a writer considering their own monstrousness.
As November ends and December begins, decorations make their appearance on storefronts, front lawns, stoops, and avenues while classic tunes play over loudspeakers marking the start of the holiday season. While some get into the holiday spirit early, others start lamenting the packed department stores, crowded city streets, and nonstop cheer. Inspired by the “most wonderful time of the year,” write a story in which a character is tormented by the start of the holiday season. Do all the twinkling lights and festivities bring about bitter memories?