writing prompts – Andy writes!

One lesson the professors at journalism school drilled into my head was the importance of crafting a compelling first paragraph (aka the lede in news parlance).

The opening paragraph is the most important element of your story. It must grab readers’ attention and get them to read more, so it must be finely crafted and honed to its sharpest possible point.

The same applies to more literary writing–whether a novel, a short story, or a creative nonfiction essay. These five opening sentences from some recent stories and essays do a good job of hooking the reader. Each example below comes from The Pushcart Prize XLIX: Best of the Small Presses 2025 Edition. And while there are other notable pieces I could have pulled from this anthology, I chose these five because they are great and because you can also read them online, for free.

Writer Brittany Ackerman recently shared what she calls a “rapid-fire” writing prompt just in time for the Thanksgiving holiday. I found this exercise helpful — not only as a way to practice writing but also as a way to practice gratitude. Because gratitude is what Thanksgiving is all about, right?

In her post — “Rapid-Fire Gratitude | Writing Prompt” — she writes:

Write a rapid-fire list of 24 (because we are closing out 2024!) things you are grateful for. Choose 1 (or more) from your gratitude list and free-write a scene, a poem, dialogue– whatever comes to mind.

There you go. If you’re anything like me, you’ll think at the outset of this freewriting exercise that coming up with 24 things to be grateful for is a piece of cake (or pumpkin pie). But, reader, it’s harder than you think.

But don’t give up. Keep at it until you get a cornucopia full of gratitude. And then, get cooking — er, I mean, write!

Image by Jill Wellington from Pixabay

Tag: writing prompts

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A Thanksgiving season writing prompt