Everything's a Writing Prompt Part 10: Work
I usually mostly enjoy being a freelancer—more than I've enjoyed any past jobs, if nothing else. Even so, there are those days that it just feels like a personal affront that it's 2025 and we still have to work for a living. No matter what you do for money, there are times that it's just a grind.
And I get why a lot of writers neglect work in their stories. If you're the kind of person who writes (or reads) as an escape, then your job is probably one of the primary things you want to escape from. It already sucks up 40+ of your hours every week. Does it really need to take up real estate in your creative writing, too?
My push-back against this is: if you have to spend that much time doing something, why not try to get a little creative inspiration out of it? On top of that, work can be a very useful tool for writers. The majority of adults need to work for a living, which makes work-related conflicts and frustrations highly relatable for readers and grounds the piece in reality (the characters need to work! They're just like us!).
A job can also provide stakes, a ticking clock, and a convenient setting where it's logical for your characters to interact with strangers, or spend an extended amount of time (even if they're not doing a whole lot or don't seem to want to be there). Giving a character a job can also be a shorthand for their skills or expertise, quickly adding depth and layers to their identity.
So, with all of that in mind, here are 4 work-related writing prompts to get your creative juices flowing.
Prompt 1: What else could go wrong?
We've all had those days at work when it feels like the universe is conspiring against you. Those days suck—which means they have a lot of potential energy to give a story.
Here's how you can turn those into a prompt:
Choose a job. It doesn't have to be your current job, though the exercise will probably be easier if it's something you've done before.
Brainstorm a list of at least 10 things that could go wrong during a typical workday for that job.
Choose two items from that list and start your story on the moment that both of these things go awry, either simultaneously or as close to it as would be realistic.
Continue the narrative, aiming to include as many of the problems you brainstormed as possible and ramping up your character's frustration, anxiety, etc. with each new shitty twist.
Prompt 2: The unexpected customer.
When you work a job for long enough, you get a sense for who its typical customers are—and, when someone unexpected walks through the door (or sends a message to your inbox), it's an instant source of intrigue, or at least curiosity.
The steps for this prompt:
Choose a profession. It can be the same one from the last prompt or a new one, whatever strikes your fancy.
What are the typical traits you'd expect from a customer or client in this line of work? How would a marketing professional in this niche define its target audience? Brainstorm a few typical traits.
Now, let's go the opposite way. What don't you expect to see from customers or clients in this line of work? You can stick to real-world human things or go speculative on it (e.g. you wouldn't expect to see a minotaur browsing a china shop).
Develop your unusual character profile. Before you start writing, think about potential points of conflict or tension this unexpected character could trigger. Would other customers be put off by them? What about the employees—how would they react?
Set a timer for 10 minutes a freewrite a piece that starts with this unusual character either walking into a physical place of business, or contacting an employee in that line of work via phone, email, etc.
Prompt 3: Working through the chaos.
I used to manage a cafe in the Pittsburgh neighborhood of Shadyside. The summer would be bookended by two community-wide events. In May, the street out front was part of the route for the Pittsburgh Marathon, which would mean swarms of people with noisemakers and signs and a seemingly complete lack of understanding about how coffee shops functioned. On the other end of summer, in August, the street would close for an arts festival that drew far more people than should reasonably be in that neighborhood at any given time.
The cafe staff prepared for both of these events like we were heading off to battle: staffed to the gills, obscenely overstocked, braced for the barrage of unfamiliar faces in an establishment more accustomed to regulars. I think about those days whenever I go someplace for a festival or conference today. Sometimes, I'll look at the people behind the counter of an overcrowded restaurant and see a very familiar thousand-yard stare in their eyes. Because it's a strange thing, to be just going about your daily life when everyone around you has broken from their usual routines.
For this prompt, you're going to start the same way as the last two: choose a profession. In this case, it will probably serve you best to pick something in a public-facing establishment, though you could also play with something like the office workers still bent over their computers while the Mardi Gras parade goes by on the street below, for instance.
Once you've picked your profession:
Choose a chaos-inducing event. This could be a planned, fun occasion like a festival, parade, etc. Or you could go a different direction: someone who's working through a massive protest, or a natural disaster, or even go off-the-wall with an alien invasion, zombie apocalypse, etc.
Before you start writing, take some time to frame your narrator's perspective. Were they prepared for this event to happen? Why or why not? What is the most stressful part of the whole ordeal for them? Are there any aspects of it they actually get a perverse joy out of?
Once you've established that context for the character, set a timer for 10 minutes a freewrite a scene that starts on the moment the chaos begins.
Prompt 4: New people, same drama.
Any workplace where people share a space is going to have some kind of drama, even when everyone generally gets along. And that's great for a writer, because drama is by definition conflict, and that's what puts gas in your storytelling engine.
When you pick a job for this prompt, you'll obviously need to choose something where multiple people work together. Again, something where they share a physical space will be easiest, though you could also explore the drama in a remote workplace if that piques your interest.
Once you've picked your workplace, decide what Big Drama is currently afoot. Is someone having an affair? Are there one-time best friends who now can't stand each other and perpetually gossip about the other? Does the boss play favorites? Are there workplace bullies? This is another situation where it's probably easiest to draw on drama you've seen or been a part of in past workplaces.
Finally, plop an outsider into this setting, like a new hire or a transfer from another store. They have been brought into the workplace just as the Big Drama is reaching a peak. Write the situation unfolding from the perspective of someone who doesn't have the context for how the situation develops. Bonus points if you can get them each side's perspective without making it explicit who (if anyone) was really at fault.
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