Unpopular opinion: writing prompts with strict word counts kill creativity

Last week in a workshop at the community college in Eugene, the instructor handed out prompts with a 100 word limit. Everyone else loved it, said it forced them to be concise. I think it just chokes out any real depth. You can't build a character or a setting in 100 words, you just get a sketch. Has anyone else found that cutting loose on word limits leads to better stories?

2 comments

2 Comments

william32024d ago

Total agreement here. That kind of tight limit forces you to just outline a scene instead of actually writing it. Stories need room to breathe and characters need space to feel real.

grant13024d ago

Hear me out on this one. I actually get more done with a tight limit because it forces me to pick the exact right detail. You know how some people ramble for three pages about what a room looks like and you still don't care about the character? With a word cap you have to reveal personality through action and dialogue instead of description dumps. Like I wrote a whole scene once with just "She set the coffee down. Hard." and everyone knew exactly what mood she was in without me spelling it out. Sometimes space to breathe just means space to wander off topic.