Our Creative Writing Retreats in Costa Rica and Mexico are close to full now – but some spots remain! In the meantime, we’re offering a series of creative writing prompts – and creative writing tips – for fiction writers, memoir writers, poets and anyone interests in getting their work published, or improving their creative writing skills.

A Creative Writing Prompt…

This prompt works for writing fiction, or poetry. It is particularly helpful for writers interested in fantasy and science fiction…

Go for a walk. Observe your surroundings. Trees, houses, bikes, cars, people. Now, imagine nothing is what it seems. Try to look beyond appearances, for stories. The old man who passes you is a decorated war hero. The car is on its way to a bank heist. The morose teen across the road is running away. The grate in the sidewalk leads to another world. The oak tree on the corner has 200-year-old treasure hidden in its trunk.

Play this game for a few minutes, then settle on the possibility that excites you most. It helps to decide what genre you wish to explore – fantasy? Historical fiction? Science fiction? Find somewhere in the sunshine to write, and begin. Keep going until your idea runs its course, then change locations and – if you have the time – repeat.

Adapting this creative writing prompt for memoir writing

If writing memoir interests you, look for general images and brainstorm all the ways that image relates to your past experience. Write about your life, using only stories that emerge from each image. A example: you see a garden gate. How many garden gates have been significant in your life? What houses and gardens did they open onto? When you put these images side by side, does a theme emerge? A pattern? This is a great way to generate stories based on your life experience.

Happy writing!

Julie

Julie Hartley is the director of Centauri Arts. Her poetry and fiction have been published in literary magazines in Canada and England. ‘The Finding Place’ – her novel for middle grade readers – was published last year by Red Deer Press. juliehartley.ca