Two writers at my library workshop split hard on whether prompts should come with a genre attached | Creative Writing Prompts

Matthew Jackson · 2026-10-22T18:05:04.009587+00:00

Last Saturday at the Bloomfield library workshop, one guy said a prompt like "a character finds a locked door" is useless unless you also say it's a mystery, and the woman next to him said naming a genre just makes everyone write the same story. Half the room nodded at each of them, and the argument carried into the parking lot for 20 minutes. So which is it: does a prompt with a genre attached help you start, or does it just hand you the ending before you've written a word?

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Two writers at my library workshop split hard on whether prompts should come with a genre attached | Creative Writing Prompts - Chatter Central