Divining Your Divergent Interests: The Card Oracle Method
The oracle part sounds mysterious, but it just means drawing cards from a shuffled deck and treating the results as an answer key for generating new writing.
The oracle part sounds mysterious, but it just means drawing cards from a shuffled deck and treating the results as an answer key for generating new writing.
Learn how to devise a rough concept for a magical realist story with this prompt from classes instructor Jessica Reidy.
Thwart your own impulses toward one genre or another with this generative writing exercise from Ben Purkert.
Try out Atom Atkinson’s speculative artist’s statement, developed to help their students pivot from past educations to a utopian future of their own design.
Sanjena Sathian thinks the most interesting writing material comes from locating mystery in our own lives. Try out this writing exercise to write into that mystery.
Storytelling is like the TARDIS in ‘Doctor Who’—the narrower and more specific we get on the outside, the bigger it gets on the inside.
Poems and stories are only two sorts of lies, but they’re the ones Steven Duong tells most often. Try out his writing exercise to generate new work.
There’s comedic gold all around you—if you know how to mine it. Check out this writing prompt used by Catapult instructor Caitlin Kunkel in one of her classes!
When I’m feeling stuck and lonely, I try to remember that I’m in conversation with the world—that I am alive in it and it is alive through me.
Simon Han shares an exercise to help make your sentences stronger and more surprising during the revision process.
The detritus of our lives can serve as a cannon for fiction or nonfiction writing.
It’s hard to talk about love without clichés, but what about images you associate with love? Poet José Olivarez shares lessons on imagery learned from country music.
Check out this writing and reading exercise from classes instructor Poupeh Missaghi
Try this writing exercise from Madeleine Watts: Sometimes the restrictions and limitations imposed by a given structure can help you more than complete creative freedom does.
How do you write a character’s particularity in a way that ensures it’s different from your own? Check out this writing prompt from Ryan Chapman!
Try this writing exercise from Simon Van Booy if you feel you need help finding your voice, whether you are writing nonfiction or fiction.
Are you a bilingual writer? Try this prompt from Catapult instructor and poet Chen Chen.
Explore your scene writing or begin a flash fiction piece with this prompt from Catapult instructor Christine Sneed.
If you’re starting a new personal essay or you’re working on a memoir, try this writing exercise shared by our instructor Brian Gresko.