WRITING EXERCISE: “The Relentless Prompt”

WRITING EXERCISE: “The Relentless Prompt”

Key Techniques Illustrated by the Quotation

Relentless Revision Mindset: Writing is not performance but transformation. The writer must return to the page with the same intensity they bring to first drafts, questioning every line without mercy or sentimentality. Discomfort as Compass: Pursuing the difficult truth of a character or scene, especially where there is emotional risk, ambiguity, or failure, rather than shaping toward redemption, closure, or comfort. Language as Mirror: Sentences are not decorative but diagnostic. The writer must investigate language as a reflection of thought, ideology, and resistance. Each revision is a reformation.

500-Word Writing Prompt

Write a scene in which a character rewrites a letter they cannot send.

The letter must address a significant rupture—estrangement, betrayal, or confession—but the character will not deliver it. Begin with the first draft: raw, indulgent, self-justifying, or incomplete. Then write at least two visible rewrites, each one more honest, vulnerable, or uncomfortable than the last. The final version must not resolve the conflict. It should expose the character’s shifting language, self-deception, or resistance to the truth.

Include only the letters and minimal stage directions (if needed for clarity). No exposition. Let the transformation emerge in syntax, tone, contradiction, and omissions.

Evaluation Criteria

The revisions show a genuine struggle with truth, not superficial line edits. Each draft deepens character revelation without moral clarity or closure. Language sharpens across drafts: clichés, rationalizations, and platitudes fall away, replaced by specific, concrete, and emotionally loaded phrasing. The final version leaves something raw, unfinished, or haunting—something the character cannot quite say. The piece resists sentimentality and narrative closure, embodying the quotation’s ethic of persistence and self-revision.

Strong Response

First letter blames others and hides vulnerability (“You never cared what I gave up”). Second draft softens into ambiguity and conflict (“Maybe I didn’t listen either”). Final version leaves key things unsaid but implicates the writer: “I can’t decide which silence is worse—yours, or the one I kept when it mattered.” Progression reveals character’s emotional resistance through the shift in voice, length, and what is redacted or rephrased. Final draft is shorter, leaner, more disturbing.

Weak Response

Minimal changes between drafts: mostly cosmetic edits (word substitutions, tense shifts). Character’s emotional state stays static or self-righteous. Final version ties up the conflict or becomes too poetic. Language doesn’t evolve to reflect deeper insight or tension.

Follow-Up Questions for Workshopping/Revision

Where does the language resist honesty? What is still being withheld? Does the final version feel finished, or merely tidy? Should something rawer remain? Are the changes between drafts internal (character voice/insight) or external (surface edits)? What does the character believe they’re saying—and what are they actually revealing?

Recommended Reading

Excerpt from “Soon” by Pam Durban. The protagonist composes and revises a letter to a lost friend, revealing not only her shifting motives but how language both exposes and conceals emotional reckoning. The layers of revision in the text echo the core practice of Mosley’s call to relentless rewriting.

AI Disclosure Statement:

This writing prompt was created in collaboration with ChatGPT, an AI model by OpenAI, to support creative practice. ChatGPT assisted with idea generation and drafting; the final text was edited by the author. The illustration was created using Google Gemini.