Celebrate the seasons with these creative writing prompts.

Today’s creative writing prompts look to the seasons for inspiration. All of these writing prompts come from my book, 1200 Creative Writing Prompts.

Enjoy!

Writers and artists, and human beings in general, have always been inspired by the cycle of nature. The seasons provide a rotating backdrop for our lives. They mark the passage of time, and they represent change — moving on and letting go.

A season can provide a setting for your story or the subject for your poem. Seasons can function as metaphors. They can bring challenges for characters in the form of severe weather and natural disasters. Even the absence of seasons will affect a piece of writing.

Creative Writing Prompts

All writers get stuck. Call it writer’s block, lack of inspiration, or absence of the muse. Sometimes, ideas just don’t come easily. That’s when creative writing prompts and other writing exercises can keep your creativity going.

These prompts are an accessible way to jump-start a writing session when you’re fresh out of ideas. Use these creative writing prompts to write a poem or a story, jot down a few thoughts in your journal, or compose a blog post.

Summer

• A woman is walking alone on a beach in the summer twilight (or at dawn) when something happens that completely changes her life.
• The heat is sweltering and everybody’s indoors. The lucky ones have air conditioners. Everybody’s trying to stay cool. Write a poem about what it feels like at the height of a scorching summer.
• Use all of the following words in a piece of writing: lemonade, cotton, fish, taffy, ripe, saltwater, blackberry.
• A single mother leaves her two teenage children home alone for the summer.

Fall

• The leaves turned gold and amber, and then they drifted to the ground. We raked them into mounds then leaped and landed.
• The protagonist is raking leaves on the lawn. He or she pauses for a breath and glances at the neighbors’ lawn. They never rake their leaves, the protagonist thinks, and their dog is always using my yard as a latrine. The protagonist decides to do something about these inconsiderate neighbors.
• Halloween is just around the corner, and the protagonist has a lot do this year: candy, costumes, and pumpkin carving. The house smells like apples and caramel. While making preparations, he or she looks outside and sees something astonishing.
• There’s a quiet cracking sound, and then an apple falls, twirling to the ground below and bruising itself against the hard earth.

Winter

• While shopping in a department store during the holidays, a child is separated from his or her parents and discovers a portal to a winter wonderland.
• All the kids are looking forward to their winter break. There’s a school-sponsored ski trip, and one girl is aching to go so she can try snowboarding for the first time.
• Puppies and kittens aren’t always born in spring. This winter, a special puppy is born, one that will change people’s lives.
• Even though it’s freezing outside, people are out and about, bundled up and chattering among themselves. Write about pedestrians in the winter.

Spring

• It’s the last snowfall of the year. What do you do? Go sledding? Build a snowman? Head to the pond for some ice skating?
• Write a piece using the following image: a clearing deep in the woods where sunlight filters through the overhead lattice of tree leaves.
• Deer bound across the field, breaking delicate blades of grass with hard hooves, pausing to dine on soft flowers.
• Write a piece using the following image: someone standing in a doorway, soaking wet, with rain pouring in the background.

Have Fun with These Creative Writing Prompts!

If you use any of these creative writing prompts, come back and tell us how they worked for you. Feel free to make up your own seasonal creative writing prompts and leave them in the comments. And keep writing.