Our Weekly Creativity prompts challenge you to make a piece of writing (a poem, a journal entry, a story outline, a review) or art, or music, or a spoken word recording, or other piece of creative work. All the prompts we have written are brought together on this page – see below. The first prompt of the month is also a Flash Contest!
You can find more writing and art activities on our Activities pages.
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Creativity Prompts
Make up at least five terrible book titles (they don’t have to make sense!) and write a story based on the most ridiculous one. Submit your entries here ...
Look at this painting: Promenade des Enfants (Children’s Walk) by Timoléon Lobrichon (1831-1914). Write a poem about it, in a style that reflects your initial response when you first saw it ...
Draw your dream home! Thanks to Stone Soup '20—21 Intern Emily Fleck for this week's prompt! ...
Write a story that focuses primarily on a dialogue between two or more of the objects in the room in which you’re writing. Think about what a day in the life of one of these objects might be like, and in turn think about how these objects might interact with ...
Visit the same place—precisely the same location—multiple times a day, or at the same time every day for a week. Document what you see through photography, other art forms, or writing! To be considered for the the April 2021 Flash Contest, visit our submittable site here and submit by Sunday, ...
Challenge yourself to make a self-portrait every day this week, using a different medium each time (pencil, paint, pastel, ketchup…). Sometimes you might just do it in 5 minutes; other days, you will spend longer. The important thing is to do it every day! ...
Make up a fictional government or country. If you were in charge, how would you want to run things? ...
Write a story about a character with your dream job, but give it a fantasy twist. For example, if you want to be a veterinarian, maybe your character is a veterinarian for magical creatures! ...
Two characters have made a mistake or done something they know is wrong. One wants to tell the truth, and the other wants to lie about it. Tell the story of what happened, and how things turn out. ...
Write a story set somewhere you’ve never been. It could be set in outer space, Antarctica, or even an alternate reality! ...
