We haven’t dipped into the word box lately, so that’s where we’re going for this week’s creative writing prompt/exercise. It is a good way of finding inspiration if you are otherwise a bit stuck on what to write about.

For those of you who are new here, the word box is pretty well what you think it might be – a box full of words. When I’ve nothing better to do with my time (what?!) I snip words and phrases from magazines and add them to the box. I’ve no idea how many are in there – probably thousands by now, since I’ve been doing this for years.

The word box is a handy device I use to trigger some ideas in workshops and writing group meetings. It is very simple, we just take an arbitrary number of random words from the box and see where they take us.

Today, I’ve made the selection for you. I’ve chosen seven words (I might still be a bit obsessed with the Bangtan Boys, so it has to be seven):

GREAT    HIGH    GOODNIGHT    SUNDAY    BLUES    DRESSES    DOWN

(Yes, ‘Goodnight’ is technically two words, so you’ve an extra one for free…)

There are a few ways you can use these words:

• Use each one as the start of a sentence in a story or a line in a poem. An extra challenge might be to keep them in the order I’ve given them here.
• Try to make a very short flash fiction piece by putting all of the words together in a way that makes sense, using as few extra/linking words as possible.
• Use just one or two of the words to start some free writing (that is, writing whatever comes to mind) for a set time – say five minutes – then look over what you’ve created and cherry pick the best bits for a new piece of prose.

As always, this is just for fun, intended to inspire you to come up with some new material.

Call back next week at 5pm (Dublin time) on Wednesday for another creative writing prompt.