Hot take: I was writing all my prompts backwards for over a year

I used to start every story prompt with a big world building concept like 'in a world where magic runs on batteries' and then wonder why nobody engaged with it... Last week I read a post on here where someone started with a single character emotion like 'fear of being forgotten' and got 50 replies. It finally clicked that my prompts were all setup and no hook. Has anyone else had that moment where you realized your whole approach to writing prompts was off?

2 comments

2 Comments

karen_hart22d ago

Hitting people with a wall of setting before they care about a single character is a recipe for crickets. Emotion first, world building later is the only way to get anyone invested. Took me way too long to learn that too.

noah88022d ago

Emotion first, world building later" is basically my writing motto now, though it took me accidentally killing off a character in chapter one before anyone cared to realize that... Yeah, that was a rough rewrite. I've got a whole abandoned novel sitting in a drawer that proves your point perfectly - nobody wants to read twenty pages of geography before they meet someone worth rooting for.