75 nonfiction writing prompts for memoir, creative nonfiction and the book you know you should write

Memoir prompts (1 to 15)

1. Write about the day you knew something had to change. Start with where you were standing.
2. Describe a room from your childhood so clearly a stranger could walk through it.
3. The first time someone trusted you with something that mattered. What was it, and did you deserve it?
4. A meal you still remember. Who cooked, who was at the table, and what was not said?
5. Write about a mistake that cost you something. Do not explain the lesson yet; just tell what happened.
6. The person who taught you the most without meaning to.
7. A door that closed: a job, a relationship, a place. What did you do the next morning?
8. Write about a time you were afraid and did it anyway.
9. The object you would save from a fire, and the story attached to it.
10. An argument you lost and were glad to lose.
11. Write about a place you left and what you took with you.
12. The moment you realized your parents were ordinary people.
13. A phone call that changed the rest of the year.
14. Write about something you have never told anyone in your family.
15. The version of yourself from ten years ago. What would you tell them, and would they listen?

Creative nonfiction and personal essay prompts (16 to 30)

16. Write about an ordinary object until it stops being ordinary: a key, a coat, a coffee mug.
17. Describe your daily commute as if you were seeing it for the last time.
18. Take a belief you held at twenty and trace how it changed, one event at a time.
19. Write a scene from your life entirely in dialogue. No description, only what people said.
20. A place you know better than anyone. What do visitors always miss?
21. Write about a word that means something different to you than to everyone else.
22. The strangest job you ever had, told through one shift.
23. Write about a photograph. Describe what is in it, then what happened just outside the frame.
24. Something you are an expert in that nobody pays you for.
25. Write about a habit you cannot break, and what it does for you.
26. A sound that takes you back somewhere. Start with the sound and let it lead.
27. Write a letter you will never send, to someone you will never see again.
28. An overheard conversation that stayed with you. Why that one?
29. Write about the weather on the most important day of your life.
30. A rule your family lived by. Where did it come from, and do you still follow it?

Prompts for writing about your expertise (31 to 45)

For business books, professional books and anyone whose book comes from their work.

31. What is the one thing people in your field get wrong most often?
32. Describe the client, patient or customer you think about most. What did they teach you?
33. Write about the moment you stopped being a beginner at your work.
34. What do you know now that would have saved you five years if you had known it at the start?
35. The worst advice you were ever given in your industry, and why people still give it.
36. Walk through a decision you make every week that an outsider would not understand.
37. Write about a failure at work. What exactly happened, and what did you change afterward?
38. What question do people ask you over and over? Answer it as fully as you can.
39. Describe how your industry has changed since you entered it, and what most people have not noticed yet.
40. Write about the best mentor or boss you had. What did they do that others do not?
41. Tell the story of a problem you solved that others had given up on.
42. What would you tell someone on their first day in your job?
43. Write about a time you were sure you were right and turned out to be wrong.
44. What part of your work do you still love, and why?
45. If you could fix one thing about how your field works, what would it be, and what is stopping it?

Prompts for teaching what you know (46 to 60)

For how-to books, guides and methods. Each prompt draws out a step, an example or a warning.

46. List the steps you follow without thinking. Now explain step one to a beginner.
47. What is the first thing a beginner should do? Why that and not something else?
48. Describe a person who followed your advice and what happened next.
49. Write about the most common mistake beginners make, and how to spot it early.
50. What tool, habit or checklist makes the biggest difference? Show how to use it.
51. Explain your method to a twelve-year-old.
52. Describe what "done well" looks like, in enough detail that a reader could check their own work against it.
53. What should a reader stop doing before they start your method?
54. Write the before and after for someone who has used your approach.
55. What objection do people raise when you explain your approach? Answer it honestly.
56. Describe the hardest part of the process and how to get through it.
57. Write a short exercise a reader could do in fifteen minutes to try your idea.
58. What does progress look like in the first week, the first month and the first year?
59. Tell the story of how you discovered this method, including what did not work.
60. What will a reader be able to do at the end of your book that they cannot do now?

Prompts for ideas worth arguing (61 to 75)

For books that make a case: big ideas, commentary and books that challenge how people think.

61. What do you believe that most people in your world disagree with?
62. Write the strongest argument against your own position, then answer it.
63. What problem do you see that almost nobody is talking about?
64. Describe the moment you changed your mind about something important.
65. What will people think is obvious in twenty years that sounds strange today?
66. Write about a popular idea you think is overrated, and what should replace it.
67. Who is hurt by the way things work now? Tell one person's story.
68. What question do you wish more people would ask?
69. Write the opening of a talk you would give to a room that disagrees with you.
70. Describe a small change that would make a large difference, and why it has not happened.
71. What did your parents' generation get right that yours has forgotten?
72. Write about a word or phrase people in your field use that hides more than it explains.
73. What would you fight for, professionally, even if it cost you?
74. Describe the world if your idea were widely adopted. Be specific.
75. Finish this sentence ten different ways: "The real reason this keeps happening is..."

How to turn a prompt into pages

• Write a scene, not a summary. "My first job taught me patience" is a summary. "The manager handed me a mop at 6am and said nothing" is a scene. Scenes give you details; summaries run out after a sentence.
• Set a timer and do not stop. Twenty minutes is long enough to get past the first, safe answer. Do not fix typos or reread until the timer goes off.
• Ask "and then what?" When you stall, write what happened next, or what you thought, or what someone said.
• File it. If you are writing a book, put each answer under the chapter it belongs to. An answer that fits nowhere goes in a "maybe" file, not the bin.
• Count the words. Twenty minutes of steady writing is a real day's work. Log it, and come back tomorrow.

The 30-day challenge gives you a prompt for every day, matched to the stage of the book you are on: week 1 finds the book and builds a story bank, and week 2 starts the chapters. If you have never written a book before, start here; if you are stuck, see writer's block for nonfiction writers.