­­­­­­­­­­­­­­Ask your resident robot what to write?

While sitting here looking at the blank page, I was wondering what to write for my writing prompt article. My mind wasn’t helping me come up with anything profound, or even half decent for that matter. A familiar feeling.

Over the last year or two, when I’ve been in a bit of a professional rut, whether from a creative or executional standpoint, I’ve turned to ChatGPT to help get my cogs moving, from a creative brainstorming session, to a prickly email that needs to be sent. Though of course I would get there alone in the end, ChatGPT allowed me to get the work out quickly and efficiently, minimising my incessant brain farts.

Now as I sit here wondering what to offer as a writing prompt, enduring another familiar brain toot, I wondered what would happen if I asked ChatGPT what kind of writing prompt it would like to give me. Here’s what I asked it:

“I need to write a blog for my creative writing group on the subject of writing prompts. For this article, I need to offer a writing prompt to the group, inspiring them to pick up the pen and try it out. I don’t want you to write the article for me, but it would be great if you had 5 writing prompts from which to choose.”

Curious about what the 5 options were? Of course you are…

1. The Locked Drawer
You find an old wooden desk at a second-hand shop. Every drawer opens except one. Inside that locked drawer is something that will change your life forever. What is it?

2. The First Lie Ever Told
Imagine a world where lying has never existed. Then, someone tells the first lie. Write about the consequences—big or small—that follow.

3. A Letter Across Time
One morning, you receive a letter addressed to you—but it’s dated 100 years in the future. Write the letter and your reaction to it.

4. The City That Disappears
Every night at midnight, your city vanishes. Every morning, it reappears as if nothing happened. Tonight, you decide to stay awake and see what happens at 12:00 sharp.

5. A Stranger at the Door
You open your front door to find a stranger who looks exactly like you, right down to the scar on your knee and the tone of your voice. They insist you are the imposter.

Now, I’m not saying these are the best possible prompts ever, and the point of this exercise wasn’t really to run with these 5 exercises. It was more to acknowledge that if you are staring at a blank page for a painful amount of time, you can have a chat with ChatGPT to get the engine warmed up. Who knows, your resident robot might give you the creative spark you’ve been looking for.