WRITING PROMPT
September Writing Prompt on Engage: ‘Fears Kill Dreams’
The best writing prompts have one thing in common, they are founded on universals.
Life, death, and love are great prompts, but in today’s “pleasure-centric” content economy, that alone doesn’t drive engagement.
If you want to be read, you have to enlist the reader and trigger an emotional response.
There’s no one-size-fits-all answer to the million-dollar question:
How the heck do I do that?
Every reader experiences emotion in their own personal way.
What you can do is put yourself in your readers’ shoes and look for those universal topics.
I’ve been an avid reader since I was a child. By age ten, I had read all the books by Dumas and Jules Verne sitting on my grandparents’ shelves.
Hence, I know a great read when I see one, and it doesn’t take long to spot it. Title, subtitle, and hook. The way writers craft these three elements is usually enough to get a better idea of whether a story engages or flops.
So don’t hold back and nail those attention-grabbing segments of your story.
Fears kill dreams
I was going to make this prompt about the end of the “silly season” and prompt you to write about anything related to this transitioning period. But I guess you’ll get a lot of prompts centered on “going back to school” memoirs.
However, that’s not universal. Fear is universal. Fear is what makes you read the news every day. Fear is what makes you care for your loved ones so much. Fear is what keeps you out of harm’s way. Fear is what keeps you awake at night.
So there you have it, this September, Engage will be the place to talk about everything fear-related.
I don’t want to narrow down this prompt, but lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about social fear. FOMO (fear of missing out) plagued us for generations, but the post-COVID reality has introduced new social fears: FOGO (Fear of Going Out) and FONO (Fear of Normal).
I’ll probably write a story or two around these topics, and I invite you to share your thoughts with us.
There you have it; now it’s back to our desktops, laptops, or other mobile devices, September is just around the corner, and we’re eagerly awaiting to read your stories.
Share the word, join the challenge, and add “Fear Kills Dreams” as one of your five tags.
Closing thoughts
Don’t forget, in this new engagement-centric digital publishing world, you have to place yourself in the story so it feels personal, genuine, and authentic. In three little letters, if you want to see engagement soar, then I encourage you to go RAW!
Engage is open for submissions, so if you’ve got an engaging story to share, we invite you to join us and engage.
