6 Creative Writing Prompts for Kids to Spark their Imagination

From friendship and family incidents to travel experiences and emotional rides, vignettes from your own life present the best creative writing prompts

Open your eyes, be alive, feel the moment, and experience the profundity of pain or joy, there are stories and inspirations all around you and within you

Creative writing is a journey! It is a process that helps writers put their imagination on paper, while taking readers on a ride beyond the confines of their mundane daily existence.

Creative writing is an art form that allows writers to express their experiences, thoughts, emotions, and ideas through the clever use of words.

Creative writing is the process of crafting original or inspired works of literature such as, poetry, prose, plays or scripts.

Transcending the conventional barriers of writing, creative writing not just gives writers freedom to explore the ideas, lives and cultures, but also gives authors the liberty to experiment with language, structure, and narratives.

Whether you are writing an inspiring poem, a fascinating short story, or a revolutionary novel, creative writing helps writers share their transformative perspectives with the world through verses, plots and characters that stir the readers. It gives readers insights and inspirations that pluck the strings of their hearts.

Reality

But, creative writing is not about conjuring wild ideas out of the thin air or giving life to outlandish characters. Creative writing stems from what the writer knows and feels and turns it into what the reader can touch, feel and relate to!

A piece of fictional prose or poetry could be inspired from a scene on a street, an image or painting that you see on a wall, a line that you read in a book or magazine or just a thought that springs out of nowhere. It can also come from a trend or event you like or dislike, but not in a way you are sermonising or preaching.

American short story writer, Flannery O’Connor, has warned budding writers from falling into the trap of writing to preach.

He says that the creative writing exercise should not be anything but a real story or poem. It can’t be “a sketch with an essay woven through it, or an essay with a sketch woven through it, or an editorial with a character in it, or a case history with a moral…”

Most creative writers write from what they know, feel and experience, dressing things up and using their imagination to fictionalise reality.

According to Julian Birkett, author of “Word Power – A Guide to Creative Writing,” good imaginative writing is rooted in the particular and it is entirely written from what the writer knows first hand.

Not just writing, any creative exercise does not come out of what is non-existent. Creativity comes from what already exists, what is there for the creative person to know, feel and experience.

Whether a novel, a poem, a designer wear, a painting or any original work of creativity that is produced anywhere in the world, it is inspired by our surroundings – nature, weather, people, events, incidents, relationships etc. We rely on these and other elements to express. Our imagination is aided by all the elements around us and within us. Obviously, this is true with writers as well.

Masters

You can take the example of any established writer, past or present, all of them use their personal experiences to write the fiction or are inspired by what they see or go through in life to write both prose and poetry.

Many of the best literary works are fictionalised autobiographies. They are either their stories or stories of people they know or from their observations on streets, at home or at schools and colleges.

Legendary British author, Charles Dickens’ masterpiece, David Copperfield, was the story of his childhood, narrating the struggles of a country boy coming to terms with the challenges of Victorian London.

Nobel Prize winning author, VS Naipaul shared the story of his life in Africa in his bestselling novel ‘A Bend in the River.’

The classic, Malgudi Days, was inspired by the childhood experiences of RK Narayan in a small town coming to terms with modernity.

Imagination

Imagination is the catalyst that sparks your creativity. It empowers you to breathe life into your ideas and experiences on the page.

Imagination helps you embark on an extraordinary journey of creative expression. It helps you transport readers to distant lands, introduce captivating characters, and craft entirely new worlds through the transformative art of storytelling.

As a budding writer, you need to whet your imagination and the best way of doing it is by giving it a free rein. Do not hold yourself back, do not hesitate, do not shy away from transferring your imagination on paper, no matter how wild or absurd you might think it to be.

You will not write the bestselling stories immediately. In fact, most of your initial work would not even be publishable, but they are extremely important in your journey of becoming a bestselling author.

Tools

Besides being imaginative, a creative writers needs to be a keen observer, sensitive and empathetic. 

If the rustling of the leaves in the morning breeze doesn’t inspire you, if the sight of a poor mother with a suckling infant struggling to make ends meet doesn’t move you, if the giggles of the young girls running around in a playground doesn’t spark your imagination, if you don’t find joy in the simple laughter of a bunch of old men in the park, if you can’t empathise with the struggles of your mother keeping your house in order, then it will be hard for you to be a good writer. 

Creative writing calls for greater degrees of sensitivity and a keen pair of eye that helps you see stories in a seemingly ordinary setting, and a resonant, empathetic heart that triggers your imagination even on the routine events that other people would just pass by.

So, as writers the first thing you need is awareness, the eye and the feel. If you are aware, you will see, and if you will see deeply enough, you will feel and write about it.

Once you employ these tools you will see hundreds of stories around you, wherever you go. Without these you will be walking past a bestselling story and you will not even realise.

Prompts

As discussed already, inspiration for creative writing mostly comes from within or through events around us. The experiences we have, the people we love or hate and the ideas that touch our hearts or stir our souls, could all act as prompts.

Hence, the best prompts for writers will always be coming from themselves, from what they know and experience.

Nonetheless, here are six prompts that could help you embark on a journey of creative expression…

Travel – Travel brings out either the best or worst out of us. A lot of creative writings come out of people’s experiences on the road. That weird feeling you had being under the shade of that big banyan tree. The experience of getting lost while walking in the woods. That kind villager who shared his meal with you. You will have dozens of moments that could help trigger your imagination.

Fantasy – Imagine yourself to be a mighty king in a strange land, or a superhero out to defeat all evil, or a witch who could turn all the world’s pain and transform it into a place of tranquility, or lost in a treasure island with no way out. When it comes to fantasy, you can literally let your imagination run wild.

Image – “An image is more powerful than the thousand words,” so the adage goes. An image or a painting is indeed very powerful. We all come across hundreds of images in our daily live. Some images stay with us and others fade away, but there are a few that are etched in our memory forever. Use your favourite image and try to build a story out of it. Images have had a very powerful relationship with writers, often triggering their creativity and taking them on a journey they had hardly imagined.

Scene – Apart from the visuals that we see on screen or on paper, we all have regular, constant visual experiences, seeing, watching and observing the life unfolding around us. That street view from your balcony, or a random scene out of the school bus window, or a scenic view at a lake or a park or just an image of a bird soaring across the sky or feeding her chicks, we are flooded by hundreds of scenes every day. Good writers use these to create amazing prose and poetry.

An act of kindness or a miraculous escape – Sometimes all it takes is a simple of kindness to trigger a great initiative. Most of us come across life-changing experiences every now and then, that close shave or a narrow escape, that near death experience, an act of generosity from a total stranger, all these could be trigger moments to inspire you to write. Even the simple acts of love and kindness shared by your friends and family members could prompt you, if you give it a deeper thought and not take it for granted.  

Dream – Who doesn’t dream? Dreams are what realities are made of. Dreams could be those that you see while asleep as well as those that you see with eyes wide open. Either way, dreams have been very powerful prompts for successful writers. A scene that stays with you from a disturbing or inspiring dream that you saw at night could be a perfect prompt. Or a dream that helps you see your future could also be realised through a story. With pen in hand, you can make any dream come true, at least on paper!

Conclusion

Creative writing is a remarkable adventure that prompts us to unleash our imagination, express our fantasies, and inspire the people around us. It offers unimaginable benefits both to the writer and the reader.

So, grab a pen and a notebook or get your hands on a keyboard, open the window of your imagination and embark on this thrilling rollercoaster ride that will take you to places you would otherwise never venture into.