Writing Happiness Prompts

I recently ran a Writing Happiness workshop for the amazing Stay at Home Fringe Fest on the subject of writing happiness with the incomparable Rachel Lewis. My exercise involved using the senses to really get into happiness and ground ourselves in it. There are two ways to take this; you could use the below prompts to think about how to use the senses to evoke happiness in a particular scene or you could use it to personify happiness and think what might happiness be like sensually if it was a tangible thing?

There are some questions below for you to consider as prompts. You could give yourself two minutes for each question and come back to any parts that spoke to you later. Or you could take one question and spend a bit longer with it. Be open and see where it takes you. There is no right or wrong. If you are stuck, you could start by making a list to one of the answers.

Happy writing! Let me know what you think in the comments below.

What does happiness smell like?

This could be literal or it could be much more abstract e.g. it smells like roses or it smells like the start to a new life. Be creative!

What does happiness sound like?

Some things to think about, particularly if you want to play with personifying happiness; does it have a voice(s), does it speak, does it sing, what its cadence, is it loud or quiet.

What does happiness taste like?

For me, taste is so linked to happiness! I think that flavour can be a really evocative way to conjure up feeling in our writing.

What does happiness feel like?

Consider what happiness feels like to touch. You could think about whether it has a texture, whether it’s soft or hard. Or think about its size and whether it is big or small.

What does happiness look like?

Again, this is really interesting to consider if you are thinking about what happiness might be like if it was a thing you could see! Or you could write about what happiness looks like in a particular place or moment to you, focusing on in the details.

If you want to extend the exercise you could (in any form of poetry or prose you like!):

• Write about a particular place that makes you happy, using the different senses you explored above to really get into the physical, sensual aspects of the scene.

• Imagine happiness as something living and breathing. Think about it walking into a room. What happens next?