Picture Writing Prompts and How to Use Them

Source: https://www.freeimages.com/photo/the-road-through-the-woods-1449194

Do you know what writing prompts are? They are anything that can help a writer get an idea for a scene or a story. What are picture writing prompts? Literally, pictures.

Take a picture, like the one above. It can be something as simple as a picture of the highway. A blacktop road. A yellow line down the middle to divide the lanes. Trees line the edges of the road. There is a curve. Pretty basic picture. Nothing out of the ordinary.

Don’t let the plainness of the picture fool you. There is much to help a writer here. Consider these questions.

• Who is driving down this road?
• Who would walk down this road?
• Has anyone had a wreck here?
• What is just around the bend?
• What is on the other side of the trees?
• What is behind you?
• What would happen if a car broke down with coworkers in it? A fighting couple? Two teenagers who are late getting home?
• What would you do if you saw someone needing a ride? What if they were dressed odd?

Do you see how this works? You look at any picture. You ask questions. What are people saying? Put them in situations and think of how they would react. Above, I gave you the picture of a road. What…