31 Writing Prompts For March 2022

Writers Write shares writing prompts and writing resources. Use these writing prompts for March 2022 to get you writing.

[If you want to find out more about creating a daily writing routine, read: All About Writing Prompts & Writing Practice]

Last month, I mentioned that we will be using our daily prompts to improve our writing. This month I want to focus on scenes.

Let’s Practise Writing Scenes

Scenes are the building blocks of our novels. If you are starting out on your journey, and if the idea of 80 000 words is overwhelming, try breaking up the writing into smaller sections. Those sections are called scenes. There are two kinds of scenes. We have action scenes and reaction scenes.

Some writing instructors break them down even further, but I find it just confuses us in the beginning. I like to stick to two.

Action scenes, as the name suggests, is where the action happens. The bullets fly, the insults land hard, the tires screech. The conflict is usually external and the characters most often are in a flight, fight or flee situation. The fourth F is also an option. (Read more about sex scenes here. Hehe.) But you will agree the character does not have a lot of time to consider their life choices when the world is literally falling apart around them.

You may have a sequence of two or three action scenes. These will be followed by a reaction scene. A reaction scene is where the character deals with the emotional aftermath or repercussions of the reaction scene. This is where they question their life choices.

We have fewer reaction scenes in a novel, but the amount of page time we give to reaction scenes can vary from genre to genre. We spend more time on emotions in drama and romance. In Action-adventure and crime, we still want reaction scenes, but they may be a little shorter.

Read these posts to learn about scene structure:

Craft book:

Save the Cat and Save the Cat Writes A Novel are books that delve into scenes. They discuss the pivotal scenes all stories need and will help with scene ideas (but they are all still action and reaction scenes).

Homework:

Once you have read the posts I added above, use your daily writing prompts to practise writing scenes. Try using the specific structures and use your prompts to write action and reaction scenes.

I hope this will inspire you to try writing scenes.