It’s not an exaggeration to say there is a LOT to like in here, and it will probably take you a lifetime to get through this book, even though individually the prompts don’t require a huge time commitment: you only need to devote 15 minutes to any given one, and it doesn’t need to be quality writing.

 

Some of the categories include:

• ways to begin a story

• genre-specific prompts, 150 (!) for each genre

• plot prompts from classic literature

• character prompts related to, among others: occupation, mood, or big realisation

• indoor and outdoor setting prompts

• dialogue prompts to initiate a scene

• title prompts to inspire a whole book idea

• prompts based on senses

• ‘happy ever after’ prompts

• fight scene prompts

• and even prompts inspired by tarot, means of transport, and unusual/beautiful words

​

For those who blog there are 500 blog ideas, and those who write memoirs - plenty of autobiographical prompts about childhood, identity, beliefs and values. And if you fancy writing a poem, you can take your pick from the 100 poetry exercises.

 

Except for a few basic and unspecific prompts, such as ‘A birth’ or ‘A kiss’, most instantly set up some kind of story and can give you a good creative kick. Whatever the quality of the writing you can produce in those 15 minutes, each exercise will give you a multitude of ideas that you can later combine in any way you see fit. This book keeps you writing even if you don’t feel like it and you don’t know what to write about. You’ll find yourself wanting to write 100 books based on these prompts (although you can probably skip this one: ‘As he looks for clues, the detective falls in love with the dead murder victim.’). And you don’t even have to write anything, you might find a solution to your problem by just reading through all the examples.