Writing Prompts for Fall
If we look at the way we move ourselves through the seasons, summer is typically a season of going out. Being visible, the sun warming your skin, collecting adventures. In fall, we harvest. We pick the fruits of what we sowed in spring. An abundance of apples, pears, pumpkins, and if we’re lucky: stories!
Fall encourages moving inside. Literally, as it gets colder we wear more clothes and less of us is visible. Our skin is just ours again. This retreat also comes with a great opportunity to look at all that we’ve absorbed in summer. What poems showed themselves to us? What sentences appeared in our brains out of nowhere, when we were doing something completely unrelated?
Here’s a list of prompts to help you find undiscovered corners of your writing this fall. You can use these prompts to write from personal experience, but you can also use them to learn more about a character you’re writing.
What’s a recipe that you’ve been loving recently?
Write about the process of making this recipe; who you love eating it with most; close your eyes and look for the most intricate details of this meal.
What does the changing of the seasons feel like where you live? What colors do you notice, what smells? Do you like the way the seasons feel, does it make you feel at home?
What are you totally honest about?
Write about your memories that took place beside a campfire or a fireplace.
What do you do when you are lost?
How has this time of year changed for you from when you were young to now?
Spend a few minutes reflecting on what you want from this upcoming season: what do you want to let go of? What do you hope will stay?
When it starts getting darker earlier in the day, write about turning on the lights in your home. What does this moment look like? How does it make you feel?
Write about what’s hidden under fallen leaves.
Write about something blossoming too late.
Images by Eline van Wieren