Vent: I swore by random prompt generators, then my friend made me try a 'constraint jar'

For years, I'd just hit 'generate' on those websites and get stuff like 'a detective who is also a ghost', which is fun but kind of all over the place. Last month, my buddy in Austin handed me a mason jar filled with slips of paper, each with a single specific constraint like 'set it in a laundromat' or 'the protagonist must lie three times'. Having that one concrete rule to build around completely unlocked my plotting in a way a random concept never did. Has anyone else switched from a totally open prompt system to a more limited one and found it actually helped?

2 comments

2 Comments

the_piper5d ago

Oh man, that's the whole "less is more" thing in action. I see it everywhere, like trying to cook dinner with a fridge full of random stuff versus having just pasta, garlic, and oil. The one clear rule gives your brain a wall to bounce off of instead of just floating in empty space.

hart.zara4d ago

Yeah @the_piper, that's a solid way to put it. So when does having more options actually help instead of just making things harder?