100 Prompts for Writers and Creators

Most prompts written by writers fail in the same way. They hand over a topic and get back the average of everything ever written about it. Four things were missing. No constraint, so the answer regressed to the mean. No stake, so it defended nothing. No reader, so it wrote for everybody. And nothing of you, so it could have carried any byline. Every prompt here closes one of those gaps, which is why most of them ask you for something before they give you anything. Ten sections, a hundred prompts. Finding what to write, including the audit that surfaces the obsession you keep backing away from. Research, with the claim auditor you should run before every publication. Structure, where most pieces actually fail. Drafting without losing your voice, built on contrast pairs and a list of the things you never do. Revision, line editing, and a hunt for the specific tells that make readers feel machine assistance before they can name it. Titles, openings and endings. Fiction and narrative, from character interviews to the sagging middle. Pitching, launching and replying to criticism. And the business: rates, contracts, chasing payment. Prompt one hundred is not a prompt. It is the list of things this should never touch: your lived experience, quotes from real people, a sensitivity read, and the first draft of the work that matters most to you. There is also an appendix on building your own prompts, which will outlast every specific prompt in the book. No product names and no version numbers. Tools change. Good prompting does not.

• The four gaps that make a prompt produce writing nobody would sign
• Teaching your voice through contrast pairs and a list of what you never do
• The claim auditor: finding every fact in your draft that you have to check
• Diagnosing structure, pacing and the exact line where a reader stops
• Hunting the specific tells of machine assisted prose, and reversing them
• Fifty titles, fifteen openings, five endings, and how to choose
• Character interviews, scene audits and the sagging middle
• Pitches, rates, contracts and the payment chase
• The self test that catches your voice narrowing before anyone else notices
• Building your own prompts, which outlasts any list

• Writers whose assisted drafts come back smooth and unusable
• Newsletter writers, bloggers and journalists working to a schedule
• Novelists and narrative writers who want diagnosis, not generated prose
• Freelancers handling their own pitching, contracts and chasing
• Anyone worried that using these tools is quietly narrowing their voice

1. 01Introduction: Why your prompts produce writing you would never sign
2. 02Section One: Finding what to write
3. 03Section Two: Research and interrogating a subject
4. 04Section Three: Structure
5. 05Section Four: Drafting without losing your voice
6. 06Section Five: Revision
7. 07Section Six: Line editing, and removing the AI tells
8. 08Section Seven: Titles, openings and endings
9. 09Section Eight: Fiction and narrative
10. 10Section Nine: Publishing and audience
11. 11Section Ten: The business, and the limits
12. 12Appendix: Building your own prompts
13. 13Closing: The four gaps, one more time

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