How to Use a List to Generate Writing Prompts

Using a list can be an effective way to generate writing prompts for yourself for poetry, fiction, or life story writing. Just like when we write a shopping list to make sure we remember what to purchase at the grocery, we can also lists of many kinds to inspire our writing times.

There are several ways you can incorporate writing lists in your day-to-day writing life.

1. Reflect on whom you’ve significant spent time with over the last week (at least an hour) and write notes on who was with you, what you did or talked about, where you were, how you felt. You can use the people as inspiration for characters, where you were as a starter for describing your setting in your current writing, or your conversation and how you felt as prompts for practicing incorporating dialogue.

2. Keep a food journal. Sometimes a nutrition coach or medical doctor may ask you to keep a food journal, too. Using it as a writing prompt generator might look like recording what you ate, how you prepared it, notes using all five senses, how you might alter the recipe, where you’d like to eat next, who was with you, what other food you thought or talked about while you ate, etc. Writing about food can inspire you because it can engage all of your senses and it’s something that most people can relate to.

3. List specific events in a timeline of your last 24 hours. Start by writing 7pm, 6pm, 5pm, etc. till 6pm yesterday in a column on the left of your page. Once you’ve made the list, then you can choose one hour that stands out to you to write about in more detail. After you do that once, you might choose another hour to freewrite about, or you might choose to stick with your current prompt and select a refined moment from your first part of freewriting.

For example (your 24-hour list might look something like this): 
6-7pm – Made stir fry dinner, talked to Max, listened to podcast, started class
5-6pm – Class prep, emails 
4-5pm – Read “The Bookwoman of Troublesome Creek”, talked to Sandi
3-4pm – Talked to England friends
2-4pm – Talked to England friends
1-2pm – Worked on Em’s commission circle painting, Lucy’s birthday video
12-1pm – Put groceries away, ate lunch, listened to podcast
11am-12pm – Grocery shopping
10-11am – Art talks with Kelly
9-10am – Art talks with Kelly
8-9am – Get ready for the day, drive to Kelly’s
11pm-8am – Sleeping
10-11pm – Watching Supergirl with Max
9-10pm – Watching Supergirl with Max
8-9pm – Prep and eat dinner & watching Supergirl with Max
7-8pm – Strength training, stretching, showering

Generating lists can help you find inspiration for characters you are developing in a piece of fiction for a novel or short story. Lists might also help you remember a moment in time and bring you back to a vivid image you would like to capture in a poem. Using your life of mundane tasks might yet inspire you to find specific details, all five senses, or moments of conversation that you might otherwise forget, but could include in a memoir piece or personal essay. However you use a list to generate prompts, I hope that you are inspired to make creativity a habit in your everyday writing life.

Want free inspiration for your creative life delivered regularly to your email inbox? Sign up here.

What are some other lists you could generate to get inspiration for writing prompts? Let me know in the comments!

Happy writing!