Features — April 2026

Essays | Themes | Research

How a Writing Prompt
Encourages Writing

–— Liesse Chable

I’ve been a volunteer writing teacher with OLLI since 2017. Writing is a craft you get better at the more you do it. The same is true for being a teacher of writing. The more I teach, the more I master my own writing. That’s the secret plus factor of volunteering for OLLI.

After a few years, rather than working together with semester breaks between classes, some of my long-time students and I started an ongoing, year-round, shared-interest group called Community of Readers and Writers. Now I am part of this peer group of 14 writers, at diverse levels of experience, who energize each other as we develop our individual skills and writing projects.

If the term ‘writing prompt’ is new to you, think of it as step-by-step instructions that ‘prompt’ you to move through a writing process. It answers the questions, “How do I begin writing? And How do I stop staring at a blank page? The questions asked in our type of writing prompt leave lots of room for individual creativity, and keep your story moving forward.

Recently we tried the Five Questions Prompt to create a personal essay or opinion piece. With authors’ permission, we’re sharing three examples by writers in our group, as well as some feedback notes for each with an inside look at our writing process. The first example by Mary Painter is pure fiction and comical; the second by Rose Matuszny is about juggling caretaking for an aging parent with professional career and life changes; and the third by John Milton Bunch is a man’s teenage memories of an iconic blond rock’n’roll singer in a poster on his bedroom wall.

Click on photos to link to the three stories. Feedback notes for each one are included in the grid below. Use “Return to Features” button at end of each page to revisit this index for the next story.

Headline News
by Marcy Painter

Marcy jumped at the opportunity to try the Five Questions Prompt. We had a group Zoom discussion about the myths associated with Groundhog Day that piqued her curiosity. She found a wolf image online that illustrated her story. She copied the meme’s no-nonsense language and developed the powerful character of a wolf fed up with our writing group.

Marcy followed the prompt’s questions and used them as subtitles for each part of her story. When I suggested she could remove the subtitles and see what happens, she was amazed.

“It’s a complete story!”

Marcy gained that insight hands on. I couldn’t resist adding a little metaphor and magic:

“It’s like a magician pulling a tablecloth out from under a China place setting.”

Beyond requiring a title, we now follow Marcy’s lead and look for visual illustrations to attach to our stories or essays.

A Glorious Challenge
by Rose Matuszny

Many adults have to face caring for aging parents at critical moments in their own careers and personal relationships. It was hard for Rose to write this piece about her mother. A writing prompt can help organize your thoughts, but words keep flowing and you suddenly find yourself writing way past the 1,500-word limit. Rose wrote over 2,500 words. You don’t want to stifle the creative flow but, at some point, you have to cut words. Making choices, that was something that Rose knew she had difficulty with.

Cut words can be archived in a digital file temporarily. You can always use them again in a longer version of your story or in a completely different one.

One of the best hands-on lessons you can learn in writing is how much better your story or article reads with non-essential words cut. The power of a strong through-line, with no side distractions, is what modern readers look for. Knowing how difficult it is to cut your own words, I offered to help Rose. Two hard-earned hours later we were under 1,000 words and enjoyed each other’s company.

I Will Still Love You
by John Milton Bunch

John is an experienced wordsmith. His choice of words and phrases like doomscrolling; star of my teenage bedroom wall; mutated nostalgia; and bumrushing the golden light are breathtaking. I learned something new with the bumrushing word. To bum rush is to take someone by the scruff of the neck and forcefully eject them; also, to rush at someone, storm a stage, or barge in. As you read John’s piece for the second or third time, you appreciate the way he draws us readers into his dilemma and apologizes if he affronts us. John makes skillful contradictions about aging, memory, and time passing: 1) memories are shadows behind a fire that drag you into the mud and 2) be happy that you can’t remember them. The tension between contrary thoughts is what makes good writing zing.

In preparing John’s piece for our Zoom feedback, it had no title. We searched Cherie Currie’s discography for one. In her first debut solo album in 1978, there was a song that fit perfectly. After John read his story out loud, the group listened spellbound to “I Will Still Love You.”

The audio experience added much to the emotion expressed in John’s piece. As a result, we now want to share with you our newest writing prompt.

Liesse Chable has a bachelor’s degree in Anthropology and Linguistics from Hunter College in NYC and did graduate work at McGill University in Montreal. She taught Special Education in Upstate NY in the Adirondacks for five years and worked another five years for the NY State Department of Health managing newsletters and the annual report. Liesse started two New York non-profits, the Center for Early Learning in Glens Falls, and later Guilderland Study Circles, an environmental interest group. Liesse was accepted into a program with the New York State Writers Institute and has been teaching and studying writing for many years.