Creative nonfiction is one of our oldest forms of storytelling. From the earliest time we told stories of our world, we captured facts in intriguing narrative devices and poetic language. True tales of the world were told, passed on, and written with high adventure and lyrical expression as much for information as for entertainment.

Creative nonfiction can be reflective and personal, or it can be wider, encompassing the meaning of the entire world and beyond. It can be both, situating the individual within the universe and uncovering the value of each in relation to the other.

Creative nonfiction takes many forms. Memoirs and autobiographies, cultural histories, personal essays, articles, or documentaries. It’s one of the most popular genres in the modern publishing landscape, life-changing for authors and readers alike.

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• Look through a newspaper archive starting from the year you were born. Take a headline from your birthday month for ten years (they don’t need to be consecutive years). Write about each of these events together with what was happening in your personal life in those years.

• Commit to practicing something new every day for a month. Keep a journal of your learning experiences.

• Be a tourist in your hometown. Write about your experiences.

• Describe a typical gathering of your relatives. Who are the principal characters? The heroes? The antagonists? The sidekicks? Where are the points of tension? The climax? What’s the moral and theme of the story?

• Write about a long-established cultural custom from the place where you live. Do you take part in it? Why or why not?

• Do you believe in the multiverse?

• Select an item in your house with personal significance. Write about its history, from who invented it to how it came to belong to you.

• Belief. What does it mean to you? What does it mean to your wider culture?

• Compare where you grew up to where you are now. If it’s the same location, write about your changed perspectives of the place.

• Go out early one morning and start walking. Walk for as long as your time and energy allow. This generally works better if you’re walking for several hours. Write about the thoughts you have along the way.

• Write about a time you solved a problem from the perspective of a teacher trying to help others to solve the same issues.

• Hate. Think about the word. What are your associations with it? Write about a personal experience you had with hate. Write about a culturally broader situation involving hate. Write about the relationship between the personal and the broad experience of the concept.

• Choose an event from your local newspaper you know something about. Write about the points of the story the news article didn’t mention.

• Choose a traditional meal from a culture you’re not a part of and prepare it in the traditional way. Write about the history of the meal and your experiences making it.

• Write about a memory from your teenage years that encapsulates who you are as an adult.

• Select a thing you have enjoyed doing since you were young? Write about how that thing has been with you, how you have changed around your experiences of it? How has it or your practice of it evolved?

• Select three random things. Research the invention and cultural use of each thing. Write about the relationship between them. The more separate the objects are, the more interesting this will be.

• Choose a random Wikipedia article and write about how that topic impacts you and the place where you live.

• Your best life. What does that concept mean to you? Are you living your best life?

• Write about a time you connected with something larger than yourself on a spiritual level.

• Write about a time where you have actively changed something in your life.

• What are the most valuable lessons people have learned from the 20th Century? Are we, as a whole, implementing those lessons? Compare this to the biggest lessons you have learned in your life.

• Write an open letter to a cultural group you morally oppose.

• Interview your parents about how they first met and compare that to the ways of dating and relationships now you are an adult.

• Think of the names of all the pets you’ve had in your life. Where did those names come from? Consider the broader cultural application of those names and the custom of naming pets.

• Research the history of a practice you are not interested in.

• Write about the worst piece of advice you have ever received. Did you follow it? Ignore it? What were the implications of your actions either way?

• Have you ever been stereotyped? What are the ways you stereotype others?

• Write about all the weddings you have ever been to and the ways they were different. If you’ve never been to a wedding, interview other people about their experiences.

• Write about something that you and many other people love that has a negative effect on people’s lives.

• Write about your favorite childhood toy. What are the differences between it and toys children have in the 21st Century? What are your predictions for toys of the future?

• Write an open letter to a cultural group to which you belong, offering support and insight on a particular concern common to the community.

• How do you define comedy? What are your favorite examples of comedy? When have you experienced comedy in real-life situations?

• Write the eulogy you would love your family to read at your funeral. Write the eulogy you think they will read based on your current life.

• Choose three reference points that define your most important relationship to you. Write about them and their relationship to one another.

• Write about the different ways we teach children to think about money.

• List the top three most influential books on a particular topic. List your favorite books on the same subject. Explain any differences.

• Pay attention to the birds in your local area. Identify as many as you can on your own and use an app or book to identify others. Pay attention to their calls. Write about your observations. Is the process of observation impacting you in any way?

• Consider a cultural topic of particular relevance to you. Find a fiction book that addresses these topics. Write about the fictional representations compared to your experiences of the reality of the situation.

• List 20 random facts about yourself that few people know about. Write about how each defines you.

• What is your earliest experience of faith?

• Write about a health concern you or someone close to you suffers from. How much of this ailment is known about in wider society?

• What makes a good celebrity? Give examples from your personal fandoms.

• What’s your favorite song? Research how it was written and the impact it has made on the world. Write about that alongside the relevance that song holds for you.

• Is there anything in your life that doesn’t mesh with what people think about you? Write about it, explaining how it all fits together to make you who you are.

• Choose a significant historical event that has occurred in your lifetime and write about how it impacts you personally.

• Choose a significant historical event that occurred before you were born and write about how it impacts you personally.

• Consider a momentous occasion in your family’s past. Write your recollections. Impartially interview a relative about their recollections of the same event. How are they similar or different?

• Write about your name. Interview your parents to find out how and why they chose it. What’s the etymology of the name? Who are some famous people who have shared your name? Do you like your name? Do you think it suits you?

• Choose a familiar statement or common saying. Write about all the ways it’s false.

• Interview other people who share a hobby of yours. Write about the varied experiences of different people all performing that same act.

• How do you think women represent themselves in your neighborhood? How does this reflect wider cultural values about gender?

• What’s your favorite item of clothing? Write about your personal history with that item. Research the history of that fashion. How do your experiences relate to the history?

• Look into your garden and identify an introduced species. How did that plant come to grow in your region? Compare it to your locally native plants.

• Imagine a history of your town as told through the animals people have owned there through the ages.

• Choose a social situation you are mostly impartial to. Write two pieces, one opposing the issue, one promoting it.

• Write about your experiences with a specific medical professional. Was it positive or negative? How is that profession regarded in a

• wider cultural sense?

• Chaos. What does the word mean to you? What might it mean on a wider cultural level? What has it meant historically? To different social groups?

• Write about a cultural artifact that lots of people know about, but few people understand.

• Write about a place you have traveled to that left a lasting impact. Compare your experience with the experience of others visiting the same place.

• Write about a time you have clashed with a loved one over a moral position. Are there any wider social implications of each side’s views?

• How are you raising your children differently to the ways your parents raised you? Are these conscious choices? What’s your reason for choosing this way?

• Are you married? Why did you decide to get married? If you are not married, explain the reasons you either want to or don’t want to marry one day.

• Choose a significant event in your life and write about the before and after of each. What was happening in the world at that time? Write about the before and after of that event. Are there any common themes?

• What does weight loss mean to you? Have you had a personal experience of losing weight?

• Choose a piece of music that has a powerful memory for you. Ask someone who remembers that same event to reflect on the music too.

• How do you feel about your inevitable death?

• Stop using furniture (chairs, beds, tables, etc.) for a month. What effect does this have on your day-to-day movement? How does your body feel?

• Write a personal essay about your history with romance within the context of someone else’s wedding.

• Visit an area of your town that many people frequent—a town square or popular neighborhood coffee shop, for example. Write a fly on the wall account of a few hours there, gathering everything you can learn about your town from your observations alone.

• What makes a person interesting to you? Write an essay about the concept of “interesting” in the context of people in your life.

• Write a detailed account of a past event (one that has happened to you or someone else), that is so bizarre no one would believe it to be true. Every word must be fact.

• What’s the funniest thing you’ve ever done?

• Write about your relationship to retail. Consider your recollections of shopping as a child. How do you shop now? How do your children experience consumer culture?

• Open a personal essay with the following sentence: “A long time ago, chocolate taught me a profound lesson.”

• Have you ever felt unfairly treated because of your age? Write about that experience together with your opinions about age and ageing in your culture.

• Read an autobiography of a person you admire who has died. Write the final chapter of that story.

• Write a recount of the best things you’ve watched in the last year. How have they shaped your thinking and wider experiences?

• Look up the history of the Billboard Charts for the year you were born. Take a few days and listen to every number one album from that year. Reflect on your own life through your reflections on that music. Research the making of that album.

• Write a recollection of your experiences of eating at restaurants as a child.

• Write a list of exotic foods you have never tried. Commit to trying a selection of those foods and write about your experiences with them. Bonus points if you prepare the dishes yourself.

• Write a memoir essay of a personally significant event from the perspective of your pet.

• How old are you turning next birthday? Write a list of that number of things to do before your birthday and commit to doing them. Write about your experiences of each.

• Is there anything in your life that has been bothering you about the way you live? Commit to making a change and write about that experience. For example, decluttering your home, transitioning to eating whole foods. Find others who have made similar changes and document their experiences.

• In your personal opinions, what non-physical part of you defines your experience of gender?

• Write about the experiences of making friends as an adult, contrasted with your recollections of childhood friendships.

• Say Yes to every opportunity and option that comes your way in a month. Write about the experience.

• Say No to every opportunity and option that comes your way in a month. Write about the experience.

• Take a course in something you know nothing about and have no preconceived ideas about. Write about your experiences. What have you learned about that thing? What have you learned about yourself?

• Write about your experiences with any kind of addiction in the context of how your experience was different to what we popularly think about that addiction.

• Choose a topic and give yourself six weeks to become an expert in it through self-directed learning and experimenting. Write about the learning process and how undertaking this research affects your life on a broader level.

• List all the ways you think you could make yourself happier. Commit to experimenting with at least 50% of this list and write about your experiences.

• Try not to buy anything besides essential food, medicine, and toiletries for a specified time. Write about your experiences and the experiences of anyone else you live with.

• Write a personal essay about your relationship with your physical body.

• Buy a coffee for a stranger in the coffee shop. Write about how that makes you feel, and the reaction of the person receiving your gift.

• How many ways have you experienced love? How does your culture approach love? Are there differences?

• Commit to practicing a new sport or exercise every day for a month. Bonus points if it’s something outside of the mainstream. Write about your physical and psychological experiences.

• Research an ancient method of performing an everyday task we take for granted. Attempt to do that task as the ancients did it. Write about your experiences.

• Write a personal essay about your relationship to nature show in your home?

• Write a memoir about your relationship with your best friend.

• Write about a mystery you have experienced. Something you’ve always wondered about. Can you finally find out the truth, or will this be an unsolved mystery forever? If you don’t have a mystery in your life, research a mystery from your local town.