My old workshop teacher said never outline a prompt, just write. Twenty years later I think he was half right.

David Williams · 2026-10-18T02:40:03.672356+00:00

"Outlines kill the spark," Mr. Delgado said to our class at Roosevelt High back in 2004, and I believed him for years. So I'd sit down with a prompt and just start typing, and about a third of the time I'd end up lost around paragraph four with no idea where the thing was going. Then last month I timed myself on ten prompts: freewriting gave me three good drafts, while five minutes of jotting three bullet points first gave me seven. His advice worked fine for flash pieces under 200 words, but anything longer fell apart on me. Now I do a quick three-line sketch before I write, and I keep the freewriting for warmups only. What's the shortest outline you can get away with and still finish a 1,500 word story?

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My old workshop teacher said never outline a prompt, just write. Twenty years later I think he was half right. | Creative Writing Prompts - Guest Forum