Happy March! Writing Prompts Anyone?
We are now in March 2025! Wow, the new year is already in its third month. And how is it that we are halfway through the 2020s already? Things are crazy in the world, though many glimmers of hope endure. Furthermore, spring is soon coming to bloom. A new month and season calls for new writing prompts and challenges. Here are a few to bring to the table. This month, however, we will go a certain twist. Let’s use some wonderful, notable, engaging books as inspiration.
Got Milk? Or What Other Commodoties’ Histories To Write About?
The 2018 book Milk! A 10,000-Year Food Fracas is another riveting work of history by Mark Kurlansky. Drawing from ancient times to the present, Kurlansky explores many facets of this essential human staple to reveal enduring controversies, debates, and stunning details that will leave readers befuddled about their next glass of milk.
Kurlansky has a knack for exploring the perplexing histories of human staples and commodities. Salt, paper, cod. .the author has really been busy in his unique journeys of exploration. With many crops and commodities beginning production in spring, perhaps this is the time for writers to take their own journey into an unconsidered commodities history. What about something like copper or string? How about something sweet like chocolate or cinnamon? One doesn’t need to draft a whole treatise on the evolving production of polyester, for instance. An introductory writing would be riveting enough to meet the challenge.
Mystery Time, Anyone?
August 2024 brought the most recent installment of the famous British fictional character DCI Vera Stanhope’s adventures, The Dark Wives. In this novel, the aging, eccentric, and abrupt chief inspector once again proves herself at the top of her game when a dog walker finds the body of a young man who never made it to his shift at a local youth shelter.
The world can never have enough suspenseful and engaging mystery crime sleuths like novel and television protagonist Vera Stanhope. Do you have a mystery crime investigator who has been developing in your own imagination? Perhaps there is a budding police detective in some corner of the U.S., UK, or some parts unknown? How about a new PI type? Why not take the time to get your juices flowing?
Jane Eyre, Or Other Classics
One of my first immersions into an amazing literary fiction reality was when I came across Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte. I could not get over the protagonist’s unique version of innocence, peculiarity, and unrealized intelligence. Then, her impassioned romance with Mr. Rochester kept me reeling from page to page.
What is your favorite classic novel, whether Jane Eyre, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, Moby Dick, or Don Quixote? You don’t have to choose one from Victorian England or 19th century U.S. It could be something contemporary like the latest John Grisham thriller or Anne Tyler novel. For this challenge, why not revisit one of your favorite novels and write briefly about it? Let’s keep this open-ended, you could write a brief review or even a summary if the novel were to be set to television or film. Each novel truly is a whole world in itself, so there is no time like a new month and season to make another journey.
Delving Into Sacred Texts With the Help of Karen Armstrong
The Lost Art of Scripture, published in 2019, is one of religious scholar Karen Armstrong’s most prolific works of recent years. By examining many of the sacred texts central to many of humanity’s spiritual traditions, Armstrong offers clear methods for 21st-century readers to rediscover scriptures as primary tools to help them connect more deeply with what is divine at the heart of things.
For many different spiritual traditions, spring is a key time of celebration and renewal. How fitting to use works like Karen Armstrong’s as a writing prompt, then? Whether your religious background is Christianity, Judaism, Hinduism, or countless others(or even if you are non-affiliated), why not take some time this new month and season to read your preferred sacred texts and reflect through writing? This activity is typically open-ended. Your writing could be in a journal form over multiple days or just a few reflections that turn into a memoir piece. Again, this is very open-ended. If you are non-affiliated, your preferred text could even be a central work of philosophy or literature like Plato’s Republic or Ralph Waldo Emerson’s essays. Spiritual renewal is as essential to our lives as physical health, so what a way for you to find overall transformation.
Starting Points
So, we have offered a few writing prompts and challenges inspired by some notable books. These are simply starting points. You may remember a few of your own favorite books and return to them for writing inspiration. Is it not amazing how reading and writing go so well together? Why, this piece meant to offer writing prompts is also a great overview of books you should add to your reading list!
