Writing Prompts for Pen Pals: The Basics
Whether it’s your first time writing to your pen pal or you’ve simply run out of ideas of what to write about - we’re here to help you out! For today, we’re just going to cover some basics topics to get you started.
• Appearance
How you look could be a complete mystery to your pen pal! Swap your silliest selfies, draw your best self portrait, or write a haiku.
• Favourite Things
What is your favourite colour? These pen pals sent each other pictures of everyday things in each other’s favourite colour.
• Travel
What countries do you want to visit? What is something you really love about them? Something you don’t like? Bring out your creative side and make your pen pal a fake postcard showing you travelling in one of the locations you want to go. You can see team member Janina’s tutorial on how to send a postcard on our Instagram.
• Family
Every family has a fair share of stories to share, write about a time someone in your family did something you will never forget.
• Pets
Who doesn’t love cute animals! Share the love you have for your furry friend with your pen pal! For those who don’t have any pets, what wild animal do you wish you could have as a pet?
• Hobbies
How do you spend your spare time? There are so many hobbies to try out, what’s a hobby you’ve been wanting to start?
• Work
What’s the best job you’ve ever had? Your dream job? Even if you were paid millions of dollars, what is one job you would never do? What’s the strangest job you’ve ever heard of?
• Home
Do you live in a castle, apartment, house, trailer park, tiny home, or are you constantly on the move? What does your room look like? What does your dream house look like?
• Relationships
Share the story of how you first met someone special, awkward dates, or what you want to surround yourself with instead because you’re just not that into anyone.
• Religion
What do you believe in? Is there any special holiday you celebrate? Remember that regardless of your personal beliefs to always be respectful of each other!
• Dreams & Fears
What is something you’ve always wanted to do? What was something that scared you when you were younger, that you’re no longer afraid of?
• Strengths & Weaknesses
Nunchuck skills, bow hunting skills, computer hacking skills… pen pals want to know your greatest skills! Tell your pen pal about something that you’re really good at. Even if it’s just being able to burp the alphabet flawlessly, you can do it and that’s amazing! Bonus points if you can do it in Russian.
• Languages
How many languages can you speak? Teach your pen pal a new word! Only speak one language? Create a fake language (replace each letter with something else) and write your pen pal a secret message for them to decode.
• Nicknames
Sure, your pen pal probably knows your name but do you have any nicknames? If so, who gave them to you and why?
• Likes & Dislikes
There are always going to be things you like and things you don’t. Make a list of your top 10 for both! Likes: Writing letters! Dislikes: When your pen dies halfway through writing a letter.
We hope you enjoyed this list!
Of course there is so much more than what is on this list, so stay tuned for some more Writing Prompts by following Penship (and find some pen pals while you wait for our next blog post)! Feel free to add to this list or share your ideas with us!
P.S. This is our first blog post! In the past, we have only been posting submissions and updates. We know some of you won’t want to see these mixed in with submissions, so you can always use the English Sub tag to filter them out (using tags on our tags page should also filter blog posts out)!
