Poet Laureate William Stafford (1914-1993) once said that the best writing prompt is “I remember…” I agree. What prompt could be more inclusive and accepting of a wide range of responses? All you need to address this prompt is a memory (making one up would be okay in my book, too).
I’ve been using this prompt with writers young and old for many years. It’s a generous and friendly prompt. What do you remember? What do you remember about being a certain age or living in a specific place? What do you remember about your friends? Your not-so-much friends? What do you remember about anything?
Such a broad prompt can cause paralysis in some writers. One way to remedy that is to use timelines. Make one of your life. For some of us, the page would have to be quite long. But wait, calibrate the vertical hash-marks in five year (or even ten year – wow, you’re old!) increments.
Next, reflect on your life and think of highlights (and lowlights, too) then jot them down on the timeline in the appropriate places, the highlights above the line and the lowlights below the line. Of course, these don’t have to be the very best and worst things that happened to you. They could be just things you recall. Everyday, usual occurrences can be powerful, too.
Once you have some memories written on your timeline, select one and write about it. Make sure to add quality details to make it interesting to readers. You may be surprised at how additional details, thoughts, and memories flow into your mind as you write. Which, of course, will give you more topics to explore with your writing!
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