August 2025 Freewriting Prompts for Your WIP

20 Creative freewriting prompts to strengthen your manuscript

What is Freewriting?

Have you heard of freewriting? Most authors have at least heard of it, but very few incorporate it into their writing practice. Freewriting is simply writing continuously for a set period of time, ignoring the conventional rules of spelling, grammar, and syntax. It is literally ‘free’ writing, akin to stream of consciousness. The goal is to write any and every thought that comes into your head, no matter how silly, insignificant, or incomplete.

Authors often equate freewriting to journaling. And it’s true that much of your freewriting may not make it into the manuscript. However, even if your freewriting jots don’t add to the word count of your WIP, freewriting will help you to understand your story more thoroughly. Which will enable you to write a more meaningful story when you do sit down to work on your actual manuscript. Read on to discover how to freewrite and to get prompts for your manuscript. 

The Benefits:

Freewriting has many benefits. Firstly, it can help you to overcome writer’s block. Writer’s block often happens because we feel that the words we write should matter, be meaningful, be awe-inspiringly original. But when we throw those limitations away and allow ourselves to simply write; write anything, write silly, write stupid, write boring, it frees us. It helps us to realize that writing anything is the goal. And when we write anything, we boost our creativity. Which brings me to my next point…

Freewriting boosts creativity because it allows for unusual ideas to appear that wouldn’t otherwise during a more structured writing session. There will be lulls in your freewriting, and in those lulls something odd and seemingly disconnected might pop up, and because freewriting requires that you write each thought that comes to mind, you will write about it. It feels very odd at first to write in such an unstructured, random, haphazard way, but doing so brings those disconnected ideas to the forefront of your mind. Allowing you to see connections that you may not have otherwise seen.

And lastly, freewriting helps us to cast off the bowlines of perfectionism. By its very nature, freewriting requires that you write continuously and ignore your inner filter. It mandates that you silence your inner critic and conditions your mind to write freely, to just get those ideas on the page. After doing this habitually, and realizing for ourselves the benefits of freewriting, our inner perfectionist becomes okay with not being perfect during the writing process. Let that perfectionist out when you’re editing, but silence her while you’re writing. Shhhh! 

How to Freewrite?

It is quite easy to freewrite. 

1. Choose your medium. Pen & Paper, or Keyboard & Screen, or Recording Device 

2. Allot a set period of time or words or pages. This is how long you will write.

3. Choose a topic or question to start. But do not adhere to this topic strictly. Allow thoughts and words to flow away from that topic or question. 

4. Write. Ignore all rules of grammar, spelling, and syntax. You must continuously write, even to the point of writing ‘nothing, nothing, nothing’ when you hit a lull. 

Now, you can use freewriting to strengthen your manuscript in one of two ways. First, you can use freewriting to discover your thoughts about your story. Second, you can use freewriting to discover your characters’ thoughts about various things. The former can assist you in reducing anxieties around your story, publication, plot, etc. The latter can assist you in knowing your characters on a deeper level. Both will strengthen your manuscript. Prompts for both are listed below.

Freewriting Prompts

Your thoughts about: 

1. Your Character(s). Write your character(s) names at the top of the page, and write freely about them, whatever comes to mind; their hair color, their eyes, their sense of style, their struggles, their strengths, their odd quirks, how they pass their time –anything! 

2. Your story’s setting. What do you love about the setting? How does it reflect the characters? What unique insights do you share about the setting? What details are you loving about the setting? What details are missing? Which characters are most at home in this setting? 

3. Your audience. Who will enjoy reading this story? Who do you imagine will pick it up at the bookstore and be entranced? Why will they enjoy it? How can you hone in on that audience? 

4. Your story’s inspiration. What inspired your story? When did you know this story was worth telling? Why did you know? Have you kept true to that original inspiration? If yes, how? If not, how can you incorporate elements of that original inspiration? 

5. Your goals. What are your ultimate goals for this story? Why? If this goal is achieved, how will you feel? Are your goals big enough? What goals would you have if you knew success was certain? How do you imagine your life as a published author? 

6. Your anxieties. What anxieties do you have regarding this story? Have you told these anxieties to your cheerleaders? (cheerleaders meaning people who encourage your authorial journey) What did they say? If you have not told them, what do you imagine they will say? Do you feel these anxieties are silly or founded? Why? Is there anything you can do to alleviate those anxieties? 

7. Your story’s good points. What do you love most about your story? Which parts are you most excited to write about? Why? Imagine you meet someone who is just as excited about your story as you are, what elements of your story would you bond and talk over? 

8. Your story’s weak points. Similarly, what areas of your story could use more work? Why do you feel these areas need more work? Imagine you could sit down with your favorite author and discuss these areas with them. How might they suggest fixing these weak points of your story? 

Your characters’ thoughts about: 

1. Their appearance. Imagine your character looking in a mirror or the reflection of a pool’s surface, or in a train window. Imagine they catch sight of themselves; what do they see? What faults? What do they like? What do they wish was different? Why do they wish it was different? Who are they trying to impress? Why? What steps will they take to change their appearance? 

2. Their family. Imagine your character gathered around a dinner table. What kind of table is it? TV trays? A small farmhouse table? An antique oak dining table? What does this tell your character about their family? What type of food do they eat? How do they eat? How’s the conversation? Imagine your character taking all this in, what do they think or see? And if your character has no family, then imagine the time that they did have a family, or perhaps their “family dinner” is a TV tray and Antiques Roadshow… describe it through the characters’ eyes.

3. Their daily routine and life in the setup of your story. (Setup meaning before the inciting incident) What is their life like? What do they like and/or dislike? What do they want to get better? What is their daily routine? What does a typical todo list look like? What are they thinking about as they get ready in the morning? Which parts of their daily life do they like or dislike?

4. Other people. What does your character think about other people in general? Imagine your character sitting at a coffee shop, what do they notice about the people around them? What is their general attitude towards those people? Are they annoyed by the baby staring at them or are they enchanted? Do they say something to the person talking loudly on their phone or do they move a few seats away? Are they frustrated by the barista’s mispronouncement of their name? What is their general attitude towards people around them?

5. Other characters. Once you know their general attitude towards others, how does that translate to the other characters in the story? Which characters do they like or dislike? Love or hate? Why? Are there any characters they are blindly loyal to, or obliviously annoyed by? How do they respond to those characters’ actions? Do they try to get close to other characters? Do they avoid them? When characters step into their life, what is their immediate reaction?

6. Politics. Whether your character(s) are living in our world or a world setting of your own creation, where do they fit in politically? Do they care about politics? How much do they care? How do they view particular world leaders? What do they care about? Why do they care about that specific thing? 

7. Tough decisions. What tough decisions has your character had to make in their life? Why did they make that decision? What was at stake? Why were they in that position where they needed to make that decision? How did those decisions impact them? Did that decision change their life or their friendships? 

8. Food. What types of food do they eat? Do they eat often or just a little? What is their beverage of choice in the morning? What do they go to in the afternoons for a pick me up? Are there any foods that comfort them? Any foods that inspire a memory? What is that memory? 

9. Places. Which areas does your character frequent and why? How do they feel in that place? Which rooms of their home do they love? Why? What feels cozy or peaceful to them? Are they drawn to coffee shops or bookstores or parks? What do they do there? How do they feel? What do those places remind them of?

10. Fairy Tales or Children's Books or TV shows that moved them as a child. Which elements of those stories stick out to them? Why? What parts of those stories were cherished? Again, why? Did those stories help them through anything? Did any of the characters remind them of someone in their childhood life? Are there any attributes of those characters that they now imbue? Does their life parallel anything from those stories? 

11. Dreams. Imagine your character wakes up with an odd dream in their head, what was that dream? What happened? Who was there? What feelings did that dream leave in your character? How does it make them feel about their life? Do they ever have recurring dreams? What might those dreams be about? 

12. Future. Imagine your character in an interview and being hit with the ‘where do you see yourself in 10 years?’ question. What do they think? What flashes through their mind? How much information passes through their brain in the 10 or 20 seconds before they finally answer that question? How do they feel about their answer? Is their interview answer in accordance with their true answer? What do they actually want for their future? Who do they imagine in their future? Where are they? What have they accomplished? 

There you have it, 20 freewriting prompts that will strengthen your manuscript! These freewriting exercises will help you to really dig in deep and get to know your character(s). 

Thanks for reading and happy writing! 

-Bridget Hosey 

*As a side note, these prompts are all original and made by yours truly without the use of AI. So if this post was helpful, feel free to share this with your writer friends. 

**And if you want to see prompts like this as you scroll instagram, give me a follow at @inkstainsediting on instagram. It will really help me out.