Pop Prompts Showtunes

Pop Prompts Showtunes uses musical theater classics to awaken your creative spirit.

Every writing prompt in this book was inspired by a specific showtune. Listen to the song at the top of the page before you write. Let the song set a tone for your writing session. Think about what the song means, think about what the songwriters want you to feel. Feel those emotions! Let the song fill you up. Then read the accompanying writing prompt and start working.

For every showtune, there are four writing prompts. Depending on what you're writing, you'll follow a different path through the book:

If you're a songwriter, focus on the Musical Prompts. All you need to do is develop a song from each chapter and you're well on your way to creating your own musical.

If you're writing a book, play, or screenplay, look at the Fiction Prompts. They'll take you on a journey through character and plot development, and help you find your voice. Do one prompt from each chapter and you'll have the skeleton of your story in no time.

If you want to think deeply about yourself and the world around you, dive into the Journaling Prompts. These prompts pose questions that will take you on an introspective journey. Forget about shadow work-I'd rather have my trauma healed by showtunes!

If you're a drama student, the Stagecraft Prompts give a framework for understanding how musicals function. These showtunes represent the development of musical theater over more than 100 years. Discover how to make drama through song. Listen, learn, and write.

You can deviate from your path. If you're writing a musical but you want to do one of the fiction prompts, do it. If a fiction prompt inspires some self-reflection, get journaling! If one of the journaling prompts inspires a song for your musical, wonderful.

The book ends with a Master Class, where we'll take a close look at the musical Fun Home.

Wake up your inner theater geek and get creative. It's time to make your writing pop.

"An inspired and inspiring invitation to creativity, this book is a gift to any writer facing the twin terrors of the blank page and the blinking cursor, and an expert guide to the how and why of great musical theater storytelling." - Steven Levenson, writer, Dear Evan Hansen, 2017 Tony Award Winner

"Erik Patterson is a brilliant, hilarious, and soulful writer as well as a gifted writing teacher. With Pop Prompts Showtunes, he channels his wit and intelligence into clear, focused, actionable mini-writing assignments that will infuse your writing process with joy. Looking for inspiration? It's right here. This book will change your life." - Bridget Carpenter, writer, Freaky Friday: The Musical

"Erik's writing prompts have been vital in breaking me out of creative confinement and into inventive thought. For any writer who wants to breathe life into their stories and characters, this book is a game-changer." - Sydney Lucas, writer and actor, 2015 Tony Award Nominee, Fun Home

"What a treat. On a single page you get a perfectly distilled look at a song's structure and function, followed by multiple angles and perspectives from which to approach that same song-getting your creativity, individuality, and emotional life fired up!" - Rebecca Naomi Jones, actor and singer, Passing Strange and Oklahoma! on Broadway