Spent $80 on a prompt generator book and it killed my writing spark

I got this ebook called "5000 Fantasy Story Starters" off a writing forum last month. It was just a list of basic prompts like "a wizard loses his wand" with no depth or twists. I tried using it for a week and every story I wrote felt hollow and copied. Has anyone else bought a writing tool that actually made their creativity worse instead of better?

2 comments

2 Comments

cole_mitchell578d ago

I'm going to be the one to say it - $80 on a prompt book seems like a lot to get upset about. You can find thousands of free prompts online with a quick search. The real issue might be that you expected a book to do the creative work for you. Prompts are just starting points, not magic wands. If one spark can get killed that easily, maybe it wasn't much of a spark to begin with.

dixon.rose8d agoMost Upvoted

Jumping off what cole said... expecting a single book to fix your writing is like buying one cookbook and thinking you'll suddenly be a chef. Sometimes we spend money hoping it'll give us the push we need, but it usually just shows us where we're already stuck. Maybe put that book aside for a while and just write something messy for yourself with no rules.