Switching from dark and gritty to slice of life writing prompts was a nightmare

I spent two years doing nothing but dystopian sci-fi prompts. Post apocalyptic stuff, cyberpunk cities, murder bots. It got old fast. So I forced myself to try slice of life prompts about a baker opening a shop on a quiet street. For the first week I wrote about flour and cinnamon like I was describing a crime scene. After about 15 days of forcing it I finally wrote a scene that felt real. Has anyone else made a big jump in prompt style and felt completely lost at first?

2 comments

2 Comments

lilyo3017d agoTop Commenter

What helped me was switching to prompts with way fewer sensory details at first. Instead of describing the bakery, I just wrote about the character's morning routine. Coffee, checking the mail, sweeping the floor. Simple actions without any atmosphere or mood. After a week of that, the details started feeling natural instead of forced. Try dialing back to bare bones actions and let the flavor come later.

parker_bailey17d ago

And actually, your baking prompt wasn't your problem. Flour and cinnamon are fine details, you just wrote them like you were still in dystopian mode with that whole crime scene description thing. Dialing back to morning routines like lilyo30 said helped me too, but what really clicked was writing dialogue first before any description at all.