Took a writing workshop at The Loft in Minneapolis last weekend and something felt off

I went to a free creative writing prompt session at The Loft Literary Center last Saturday, and the moderator kept pushing us toward these super dark trauma based prompts... like every single one. It was supposed to be about developing character voice, but by the third prompt everyone was writing about loss and grief. Has anyone else run into workshops where the prompts feel way too heavy for a general group?

2 comments

2 Comments

mary8363d ago

Ugh, that's such a bummer! I feel like those heavy prompts can be so limiting, especially when you're just trying to explore something fun or light. It's like the moderator assumes everyone's walking around with a deep well of pain to draw from, you know? I went to a similar thing once where every exercise was about "betrayal" and I just wanted to write about a grumpy cat or something.

lindaw293d ago

Oh man, I just read this article the other day about how creative writing groups can actually stifle creativity by pushing everyone toward the same dark themes. It said something about how we need room for silly stuff too, like the grumpy cat thing you mentioned. Totally makes sense to me.