Pro tip: Try writing prompts from other people's grocery lists

I was stuck on a short story for 3 weeks and nothing clicked. I grabbed a crumpled receipt from my car that had a weird list on it: "bananas, 2% milk, duct tape, glow sticks, rosemary." That mix of random items turned into a whole plot about a guy trying to fix a camping disaster. Has anyone else found weird real world stuff like this that kicked off a scene?

2 comments

2 Comments

seandavis1d ago

I get why that works for some people but I've never been able to do it myself. Random lists just feel like a puzzle I have to solve instead of a story I get to tell. Every time I try it I end up forcing the items to fit into a plot that doesn't feel natural. The duct tape and glow sticks end up being the whole point of the scene and it just reads like a writing exercise. I'd rather start with a character in a situation and let the details come from there instead of trying to build around weird objects. Different strokes though, if it got you unstuck then that's what matters.

john_murphy23h ago

Some years back I did a workshop where the instructor made us pick three random words from a hat and write for ten minutes. I got "mailbox, saddle, and pancake" and spent the whole time trying to figure out how a mailbox ends up on a saddle next to a pile of pancakes. Ended up deleting the whole thing because it was nonsense.