Writing Prompts
2026 Prompts
Writing prompts by Judy Darley, co-judge of Clevedon LitFest Flash Fiction Award
If you’re keen to enter Clevedon LitFest Flash Fiction or Poetry Award, but simply haven’t found the right idea, don’t worry, we’ve got you covered. Flash Fiction Award co-judge Judy Darley is sharing some of the things around the coastal town of Clevedon that catch her eye.
Ready to enter? Head to the Competitions Page.
Writing prompt – Bike and boats
On the Pill just beyond Clevedon’s Poets’ Walk, you’ll see a boatyard where it seems boats are resting, perhaps hibernating, until their next opportunity to greet the water.
Today someone is here: their bike is propped just outside.
Why are they here? Are they planning to take a boat out on the estuary? Are they simply checking in on the boats and doing repairs? Or is this more about seeking peace from friction at home? Maybe they’ve cycled here to find some time alone.
The sky is blue. All seems calm. But what happens if you add a high tide and roll a storm in from across the water in Wales?
Writing prompt – Metamorphosis
Remember the influx of ladybirds that rampaged in UK gardens thanks to 2025’s uncommon heat and masses of aphids? Walking along a Clevedon riverbank I spotted that almost every nettle and bramble was sheltering a small striped nobble – pupa quietly transforming larva into the winged adult ladybirds. They’ve clearly had another great spring.
Imagine if other creatures went from infant stage to adult through time zipped in a self-made duvet or sleeping bag. Lambs might lounge in pupal sacks under hedges while squirrel kits could dangle from trees.
Actually, perhaps that helps to explain teenagers. Pupa aren’t that chatty either.
Could you shape this into a tale of 500-words or fewer or a poem under 40 lines?
Writing prompt – Pier
Walking along the seafront on a sunny, blustery day I passed a family where a small child spied Clevedon Pier for the first time. “Look at that massive bridge!” she exclaimed.
It made me understand she’d probably never seen any kind of pier before, but had seen plenty of bridges. The idea of something that stuck so far out into water but failed to reach the other side was possibly baffling.
The pleasure of walking out along that beautiful structure only to stand surrounded by the waves and sandbanks of the Bristol Channel before turning on your heel and marching back to shore isn’t easy to explain.
What other things in modern life could confuse someone encountering it for the first time?
Can you use this as the seed of a story or poem?
Writing prompt – Bunting
Strolling through Clevedon town centre towards the area known as The Triangle, I’d noticed without properly looking at the colourful bunting flapping overhead.
Glancing up I discovered the streets were strung with an abundance of underpants, bloomers and knickers that looked knitted and crocheted.
Can you dream up a tale that explores the people who created these vivid artworks, or on someone who sees the crafted underwear and is enchanted or offended? Think about the reasons behind the making or reaction and build your story or poem from there.
Writing prompt – Sluice
Where the Blind Yeo river meets the Severn Estuary in Clevedon, extraordinary structures tame the water and shape the land. This man-made river is an extravagant drainage ditch excavated in the 1950s to prevent farmland flooding while providing a habitat for egrets, grey herons, mute swans, moor hens and moor. Warblers warble in the reeds and fish leap while dragonflies hunt and flit. Otters have been spied here.
Even the sluice, which seems so industrial, attracts grey-backed wagtails.
The thing that intrigues me here is the mix of natural and man-made, and how the two interact and merge. Could that prompt a story or poem?
Writing prompt – Blue plaque
Clevedon abounds with blue plaques signifying the places where significant people have lived or spent time. My favourite, however, is this one, representing the very British sense of humour of its residents.
Can you imagine the characters who put this up?
Do you think all the people living in this home agree nothing of note happened here? What might they want the plaque to show? Or what, alternatively, would they hate the plaque to reveal?
Writing prompt – Sighting
Spied from the top of Clevedon’s ZigZag path, Clevedon Pier is just visible but resembles a spindly tooth-pick-built construction, while the famous Waverley paddle steamer could be a bath toy. In actuality, the Victorian pier is a dramatic 312 metres or 1,024 feet long, while the Waverley is 73.13 metres and 239 feet 11 inches long and carries up to 860 people.
For this height it looks like it could only carry 860 ants.
Can you write a creative work playing with scale?
Alternatively, add in a pair of binoculars and have a character spy something they might have preferred not to see by looking down on the seafront from this elevation.
What might they discover that they’d have been better off not knowing in this way?
2025 Prompts
Writing prompts by Judy Darley, co-judge of Clevedon LitFest Flash Fiction Award
As a writer, I’m constantly on the lookout anything that might lead to a story idea. From an overheard snippet of conversation to a glimpse of something that ignitesmy curiosity, the world is teeming with imaginative possibilities.
Flash fiction allows you to dip your toe into writing river. At less than 500 words in the Clevedon LitFest Flash Fiction Award, this compact form asks you to create a condensed story in little more than a handful of paragraphs.
The prompts here are sightings that have intrigued me in recent times.
Writing prompt – Real estate
Exploring my new home town, I strode uphill to an area of ‘mini’ Gothic mansions valued at £1m+. The property that caught my eye, however, was a gorgeous treehouse with a seaview.
Now horse chestnut leaves are flourishing that may obscure the view, and some prickly conkers could soon invade this cosy home, but in my heart I still covet this space.
Is there a type of home that fills your inner (or outer) child with wistfulness or glee? A caravan, cave or haunted house perhaps? Can you turn this yearning into a tale?
Writing prompt – Bubbles
At a nearby sculpture woodland called Ty Sculpture Trail, one of the highlights is a natural phenomenon rather than human-made artwork. At the Bubbling Pond, silvery bubbles rise from the depths to cast circular ripples. It's a gloriously tranquil setting.
The trail makers claim no one knows what causes the bubbles, and suggest it could be a dragon snoozing in an underwater cave.
What myth or bubble-blowing science could you attribute the bubbles to? Can you create a character who shares this idea as a tale within a tale, and give them a someone to tell it to?
What might the consequences be?
Writing prompt – Afoot
Trees are magnificent natural sculptors. This particular specimen resembles a rooted foot contemplating a Shakespeare-esque or Tolkien-worthy march through the woods in North Somerset.
Or perhaps I've accidentally taken a photo of Roald Dahl's BFG without his slippers on, and he really needs to trim his toenails.
Whatever the truth, something’s afoot…
Can you let your imagination run free and turn this into a tale?
Writing prompt – Gulls
Living on the coast means the weather is often unsettled – some days are calm and sunny, while others storm from dawn to dusk and beyond. While smaller birds like sparrows take shelter in coastal bushes, these gulls are riding the rioting wind and look like they're loving every moment.
Add in a human with a bag full of birdseed, and the mayhem increases.
Can you imagine yourself as a gull, a sparrow, the person with food, or a bystander?
Why not use this cast to create tumultuous tale?
Writing prompt – Comma
I encountered this gorgeous butterfly sunbathing beside the Blind Yeo River.
It seems like an unimpressive patch of mud, and yet this butterfly, known endearingly as a Comma, found exactly what it needed here.
In punctuation, commas offer a pause and a moment to simply breathe, which makes this sighting particularly apt.
I love how its wings look storm-torn or artfully picot-edged, depending on your viewpoint.
I looked up the species on the Butterfly Conservation website, where it states "Polygonia c-album, the comma, is a food generalist butterfly species belonging to the family Nymphalidae."
The Comma butterfly population declined terribly during 20th century, but is now thriving throughout southern Britain and is being seen further north as well.
Its adaptability, both in what it feeds on and how and where it lives, must have contributed to its survival story. What can we learn from this? Can you harness this as a fluttering off point for a hopeful story or other creative work?
In the meantime, I'm looking forward to spotting my first semi-colon butterfly or ellipsis butterfly...
Writing prompt – Tide
The small coastal town where I live sits on the edge of one of Earth's greatest tidal ranges. It re-sculpts views and terrains, providing the perfect habitat for wading birds one day and fish the next.
Last week, I strolled towards the path to a rocky beach and discovered it had been swallowed by the sea... Yet I know that in the next few days it will shrug off its driftwood and seaweed to reappear as though it was never hidden.
Can you write a story inspired by this variance? How do these dramatic changes impact your characters?
Writing prompt – Private
On the UK's coastal path between Clevedon and Portishead, North Somerset, there are lovely woodlands, but not all of these are open to everyone. This one is privately owned, yet I've never seen anyone enjoying this area.
I found myself feeling annoyed they were keeping it to themselves – surely trees and greenery are for all of us?
But then I thought about how I would feel if that rule applied to my own tiny garden. Imagine looking out of your bedroom window to see a family picnicking on your lawn below? The smaller the space, the weirder and more intense that would be.
How could you persuade them to leave? Something about this is so absurd it hovers between comedy and horror.
Can you turn this into a story or other creative work?