Writing Action (Lit Starts)

A book of writing prompts from the San Francisco Writers’ Grotto, authors of the best-selling 642 Things series.

Focus on a single aspect of the craft of writing with help from the San Francisco Writers’ Grotto. Writing Action kicks off with a foreword by an award-winning author and journalist Bonnie Tsui, who offers pointers for creating page-turning prose. The rest of the book consists of prompts and space to think, providing opportunities to explore how both high-stakes and low-key moments can be action-packed. Among other ideas, you’ll be asked to write an account of:

• a highly competitive game of hopscotch 

• an orange being peeled as if it were the last one on earth 

• a car ride with an overly confident student driver 

• a meal prepared by a cook who is really depressed 

• the step-by-step process of opening a long-awaited piece of mail 


Take to a café, on vacation, or on your morning commute, and practice your creative writing a little bit at a time.

Special Features

• Advice from a published writer, followed by prompts
• Part of a collection of single-subject writing prompt books by the San Francisco Writers’ Grotto

Check out the other books in the Lit Starts series: Writing Character, Writing Dialogue, and Writing Humor