Creative Writing Prompts

Taken from Daniel Pink's A Whole New Mind: Why Right-Brainers Will Rule the Future

• Using blank (i.e. no captions) cartoons, create your own humorous captions for the cartoons;
  
• Write a story based on only a title, picture, or title/picture combo, i.e. "The Octopus's Sneakers" (think Chris Van Allsburg's The Mysteries of Harris Burdick);
• Respond to real-life challenges, such as convincing a teacher to let you make up a missed assignment, or going to your first middle school party and not knowing anyone in the room;
• Write a mini-saga: an exactly 50-word story with a beginning, middle, and end;
• "Riff on opening lines" -- use powerful opening line prompts to write a new story, for example, "Call me Ishmael";
• Play "Who are these people?" -- make up stories for the people in line at the bus stop, buying lottery tickets, etc.