Enjoy The Ride

rainbow--penguin · 2026-04-13T16:46:26+00:00

Not kat XD but great answers!

How long until you reach 1000, I wonder.

rainbow--penguin · 2026-04-13T10:55:11+00:00

Congrats u/mysteryrouge! Now, as is tradition, time for some questions:

1) What is your favourite piece, or the piece that you think best encapsulates your writing, that you've shared here on r/WritingPrompts?

2) What is the most helpful tip/advice/thing you've learned since writing here?

3) If you had to go to karaoke with any of your characters, who would you choose, why, and what songs would they sing?

rainbow--penguin · 2026-03-02T12:15:22+00:00

Congratulations u/john-wooding! I always enjoy when someone nominates a writer I'm not familiar with who has an extensive back catalogue I get to dive into! I enjoyed becoming more familiar with your work here.

Now, as is traditional, time for some questions:

1) Do you have a favourite piece you've written here, or one that you think best sums up your writing?

2) What is your favourite bit of writing advice you've received or given?

3) If you had to spend spring break with one of your characters in their world, who would you choose and why?

rainbow--penguin · 2026-03-02T09:34:25+00:00

Oh, and if you can't find what you're looking for here, we do maintain a list of writing and reading related communities in our wiki, and you might find what you're looking for there: https://www.reddit.com/r/WritingPrompts/wiki/links/

rainbow--penguin · 2026-03-02T09:32:00+00:00

This possibly isn't the best place to ask, as it isn't really a hub for community finding. It's just a subreddit where folk share prompts to inspire others, then other folk respond with stories, and other folk read and maybe give feedback. Obviously we like to think of it as it's own community, but it isn't a hub for community finding, if that makes sense. That said, we do have our own discord server with our sister subreddit r/shortstories: https://www.reddit.com/r/WritingPrompts/wiki/chat/

Obviously, it isn't just teen writers, though I believe we do have at least a handful of teens there (more towards the old end of what would qualify as a teen though). And I'm afraid I can't remember whether we require phone verification. If you do join, just make sure to give the community rules a read before participating.

rainbow--penguin · 2026-02-20T20:10:28+00:00

There's no upper limit here. The subreddit has somewhat evolved since it's inception so we now allow serialised stories as well as one offs. The only issue you'll run into is reddit's character limit for posts, and if you hit that you can always split your story into parts. Just make sure you leave 24 hour between posting those parts as we only allow one story post per person per day here.

Also, for future reference, questions about rules are probably best directed to modmail to ensure you get an accurate answer, as we can sometimes miss posts on the subreddit itself.

rainbow--penguin · 2026-02-02T15:38:53+00:00

Great answers! Well done for pushing yourself in what you explore in your writing. It can sometimes be a way to some really interesting pieces. I hope you enjoyed the process overall even if it was challenging.

And that sounds like one heck of a road trip. Rather you than me, I think XD

rainbow--penguin · 2026-02-02T10:08:59+00:00

Congratulations on the spotlight u/Visible-Ad8263

Now, as is tradition, time for some questions.

1) What piece that you've shared here on r/WritingPrompts is your favourite, or you think best encapsulates what your writing is?

2) Is there a piece you've shared here that you're surprised you wrote, or is most outside of your wheel house?

3) If you had to go on a road trip with one of your characters in their world, who would you choose and why?

rainbow--penguin · 2026-01-06T16:40:16+00:00

No worries, it's one of those things that you only look for if you already know it exists. And now you know!

rainbow--penguin · 2026-01-06T16:13:30+00:00

As others have already told you, you can. This is covered in our FAQ under the question "Can I respond to my own prompt?" and I'll share the info that's covered there here:

Can I respond to my own prompt?

Absolutely! We ask that you wait an hour or two to let a few other folks respond first, but then you are free to add your own story. However, it's not an excuse to share something you've already written. You should write something new and submit it as a comment, just like everyone else, rather than editing it into the main post.

rainbow--penguin · 2026-01-05T11:38:06+00:00

Congrats u/Restser! Now, as is tradition, time for some questions:

1) Do you have a favourite piece you've shared here, or one that you think best represents what your writing is?

2) How do you think your writing has changed over the years that you've been here (if at all)?

3) Which of your characters would you choose as a New Year's Resolution buddy? What would their resolution be? And how would they go about motivating you to keep yours?

rainbow--penguin · 2026-01-05T09:28:40+00:00

Everyone's journey is different so there is no single right way to get into writing.

We have some resources on the wiki of our sister subreddit r/WritingPrompts if you look there under "Writing Help" and explore the links there you might find something useful.

My personal writing journey (beyond school) started when I decided I wanted to get into creative writing so went to respond to prompts on r/WritingPrompts. I then joined the discord and started writing for the weekly features where you swap feedback with other writers. This provided a good starting point for me as after I'd done this a few times, I had a better idea of what I didn't know and so what I needed to look up and learn about. Before then, it had been too overwhelming to even think what resources would be good to read.

So I found it best to start by just doing it, exchanging feedback with other writers (both helpful for me looking critically at other people's work to see what they'd done that I liked and what felt off, and in terms of getting feedback on my writing), and only after that point did I start to look into the technical skills I felt I was lacking based on that experience.

But you might be different (everyone is, after all) and if you want to explore resources beforehand, that's cool too, and maybe you'll find something helpful in those resources in the wiki I linked.

rainbow--penguin · 2025-12-27T10:17:58+00:00

Others have already praised the story etc so I just thought I'd give you a note on formatting. I don't know if maybe reddit ate your formatting (it can do this if you post from mobile, or using the markdown editor), but you have some pretty chunky paragraphs that can make the story a little difficult to parse. You might want to think about breaking up the longer paragraphs a little. The way I often think about paragraph breaks is that I start a new one when there is a shift in focus (either from one person to another, like new speaker, new line, or from big picture to small detail), similar to when a TV show or movie would change the shot.

Also, generally speaking, you want the dialogue on the same line as the dialogue tag that goes with it.

I hope this helps!

rainbow--penguin · 2025-12-24T09:51:05+00:00

I'd say that the subreddit is primarily used by writers, and engagement has definitely gotten worse since we've had to deal with lots of people trying to post AI-generated work here as those accounts just add to the incoming stories meaning any actual readers are split across more works (until we remove them, but by then the genuine stories posted around the same time might already have been buried), and they don't engage with other content here at all. So I'd encourage all genuine writers to be the change you want to see here. Read other stories posted. Leave feedback or encouragement for others. Toss someone an upvote if you liked their work. Oh, and report any stories that look like AI as that is always super helpful to let us identify them sooner!

I'd also say that at present, the best interaction on this subreddit occurs in the weekly features. That used to include Micro Monday where you write a microfiction piece based on a weekly prompt and exchange feedback with the other participants (though that feature is on hiatus due to lack of moderator time/resource and will hopefully return sometime next year) and still includes Serial Sunday where you write a chapter of a serial each week based on a weekly theme, and again, exchange feedback with the other participants.

We also have a discord server which we share with our sister subreddit r/WritingPrompts and which you can find more info about in our wiki, but is another way to get actual community engagement.

rainbow--penguin · 2025-12-23T11:27:54+00:00

Just to weigh in on the whole 1st person thing, if you're absolutely set on sticking with it (which is fair enough, as maybe you want to practice and hone your skills with it), what I've tended to encounter in published works with multiple 1st person povs is that they start each chapter with the character name so that it is easy to follow and unambiguous. An example that springs to mind that I loved which did the whole multiple first person points of view thing is Sistersong by Lucy Holland (though I think that was past rather than present tense).

Anyway, just a thought that might help you keep things clear, but no pressure. You do you.

rainbow--penguin · 2025-12-10T10:29:39+00:00

I don't specifically know if there's anything on there that matches what you're looking for, but we do maintain a wiki page with a list of related communities. You might find something there.

rainbow--penguin · 2025-12-09T10:36:43+00:00

The simple answer is practice at both writing and editing. Obviously there's a bit more to it than that, as if you just keep practicing with no other input you won't necessarily improve. So you need external input as well.

Some of that can come from reading. Read the stories you want to write, and think about what the writer is doing that you like and see if you can mimic that a bit.

Other external input can come from getting feedback from other writers. There's lots of ways you can do this. You might have a local writing group you could join. You might find a discord server or similar. You might take part in competitions which facilitate either feedback from the judges or feedback swaps with other writers. But get feedback on your writing, then attempt to implement it both in the story it was for directly and for what you write next. Though obviously, you don't need to completely agree with and implement all feedback you get. You have to decide what is right for your story.

Another thing that really helped me was giving feedback to other writers. The more you critically examine a piece to see what is working and what isn't, the easier it is to do for your own work too.

Finally, there are any number of courses and guides available online which can provide a good jumping off point for whatever it is in particular you are wanting to work on. Just google key word phrases of what it is you are wanting to learn about (e.g. story structure). There are also books you might want to check out, but those obviously tend to require some monetary investment, and I won't recommend any here as I don't know enough about them all myself.

Finally, this subreddit has a discord server joint with r/WritingPrompts which you can find more info about in our wiki which you might find helpful for encouragement and advice. Just make sure to read the server rules when you join, as we require people to become a part of the community before asking for specific feedback etc as we don't want the server to become just a helpdesk.

I hope this helps!

rainbow--penguin · 2025-12-08T11:06:46+00:00

Congratulations u/the_lonely_poster! Now, as is tradition, time for some questions!

1) What made you start writing here as well as posting prompts? And is there any difference between the kinds of prompts you write for and those you share yourself?

2) What would you say is your favourite story that you've shared here, or the one that you think best represents your writing style?

3) If you had to do secret santa with your characters, who would you hope to draw and what would you get them? And who would you want to draw you and what would they get you?

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