Light is invented on a Tuesday in a world that never had any. Write the first day.Angle: what is the first thing people want to look at?
Explain why a red apple is red, as the apple.Fact: the color of an object is the wavelengths of light it reflects; the rest are absorbed.
The Moon's shadow crosses a town in the middle of the day. Write the few minutes it is there.Fact: a shadow cast by the Moon onto the Earth is a solar eclipse.
A cat cannot catch the shadow of a bird. Write the afternoon from the cat's side.Angle: what does the cat decide the shadow is?
A kid walking between two streetlights has two shadows. Write how they take turns.Angle: which one leads, and where do they swap?
A mystery is solved by a shadow that was pointing the wrong way. Write the solving.Angle: what time did the witness say it was, and what did the shadow say?
Check your shadow in the morning, at noon and before sunset, and write the day as your shadow lived it.Fact: near sunrise and sunset, shadows can be extremely long.
Collect the shadows you saw today in a list poem.Angle: end with one you could stand inside.
Cross the playground stepping only in shadows, and write the trip.Angle: where do you get stuck, and who lends you a shadow?
The Earth's shadow keeps a diary. Write the entry for the night it covered the Moon.Fact: a shadow cast by the Earth onto the Moon is a lunar eclipse.
Explain what a shadow is to someone who thinks it is a thing stuck to their feet.Fact: a shadow is a dark area on a surface where light from a source is blocked by an object.
Follow the shadow of one tree through a year and write what it lies across in each season.Angle: full leaves, bare branches, snow on the ground under it.
In a story, tell the time all day with a stick in the ground and a ring of stones.Angle: what happens to the clock when a cloud comes?
Look at the soft gray edge of a shadow, the part that is neither dark nor light, and write about living there.Fact: the darkest part of a shadow is called the umbra; the partly lit part is the penumbra.
The Moon's shadow crosses a town in the middle of the day. Write the few minutes it is there.Fact: a shadow cast by the Moon onto the Earth is a solar eclipse.
Plan a shadow puppet show for two hands and a flashlight: the cast, the plot and the ending.Fact: the farther the hand is from the wall, the larger the shadow it casts.
Two friends walk toward each other, and their shadows touch before they do. Write the walk.Fact: when the soft edges of two shadows overlap, the shadows appear to attract and merge.
Your shadow gets a day off. Write where it goes without you.Angle: does it come back on its own, or do you have to fetch it?
A rainbow on the wall 15
A crystal in the window throws spots of color around a classroom. Write what each kid does with the spot that lands on them.Angle: one kid tries to keep theirs.
A kid moves a glass of water around the kitchen table, trying to catch the colors. Write the morning.Angle: what time of day works, and what gets spilled?
A patch of rainbow appears on your bedroom wall one morning. Write the hunt for where it comes from.Fact: when light travels through a prism, it separates into the colors of the rainbow.
Ask the Sun its favorite color and write the answer.Fact: our Sun produces more yellow light than any other color.
The colors on the wall move a little every minute. Write an hour of watching them cross the room.Angle: what do they climb over, and where do they finally go out?
Explain why a red apple is red, as the apple.Fact: the color of an object is the wavelengths of light it reflects; the rest are absorbed.
Find colors where you did not expect them, such as on a bubble or the back of a disc, and write the finding.Angle: tilt it. What changes?
Give each color in the band on the wall a personality, from red at one end to violet at the other.Fact: violet has the shortest wavelength of visible light and red has the longest.
In 1665 a prism bent a beam of light and spread it into colors. Write the scene as someone who walked in with the tea.Fact: an experiment in 1665 showed that a prism bends light and each color bends at its own angle.
Let a prism explain its one trick.Fact: each color is a different wavelength, and each bends at a slightly different angle.
Send a letter from a color nobody can see, just past the end of the band on the wall.Fact: all electromagnetic radiation is light, but we can see only a small portion of it.
The sky answers the oldest question: why are you blue?Fact: blue and violet light are scattered by the air, and our eyes are more sensitive to blue.
Two stars compare colors and work out which of them is hotter. Write the conversation.Fact: the color of stars tells scientists about their temperature.
White light does all the work and the colors get all the credit. Write its complaint.Fact: the full spectrum of visible light, sent through a prism, separates into the rainbow's colors.
Write a poem with one line for each color on the wall, in the order they appear.Angle: the order never changes. Is that comforting or strange?
A world without light 15
A creature has lived its whole life deep in a cave. Write what it thinks the word bright means.Angle: it has only heard the word from visitors.
A lighthouse lamp goes out, and the keeper has one night to invent another signal. Write the night.Angle: every boat gets home. How?
A town deep in a valley gets no direct sunlight all winter. Write the day the Sun comes back over the ridge.Angle: who sees it first, and what does the town do?
A world has light for only one hour a day. Write how people spend the hour.Angle: what is saved for it, and what is done in the dark without minding?
Describe your bedroom by touch alone, as if light had never been invented.Angle: start at the door and keep one hand on the wall.
Every light in the world goes dark for one minute, the Sun too. Write the minute.Angle: who speaks first, and what do they say?
Explain color to a visitor from a world without light.Fact: cone-shaped cells in our eyes act as receivers tuned to visible light.
Hold a debate: is darkness a thing, or only the place where light is not?Angle: give each side one good point.
Light is invented on a Tuesday in a world that never had any. Write the first day.Angle: what is the first thing people want to look at?
One lamp is left on in a dark house every night, and nobody will say why. Write the reason.Angle: who is it for, and have they ever seen it?
Remember the darkest place you have ever been, and write how you found your way.Angle: a hand on a wall, a voice, a strip of light under a door.
Some games only work with the lights off. Make one up and write how a round goes.Angle: how does anyone know who won?
Tell a story entirely in the dark, giving the reader only sounds, smells and touch.Angle: turn the light on in the last sentence.
Thank the first light you see every morning, in a letter.Angle: a window, a clock, a bulb in the hallway.
You wake in the night. Write the slow minute while your eyes find the room.Angle: what shows up first: the window, the door, the chair?
Mirrors and bends 15
A black shirt and a white shirt hang side by side in the sun. Write which one complains first.Fact: darker objects absorb more light energy than lighter ones, which reflect more of it.
A fish looks up at a kid and the kid looks down at the fish, each sure the other is somewhere else. Write both views.Fact: light travels slower in water than in air, and the change in speed bends the light.
A hall of mirrors shows a hundred of you. Write how you find the door.Angle: which one of you is really pointing the way?
A mirror maker polishes a dark stone until it shows a face. Write the last hour of the polishing.Fact: the earliest manufactured mirrors were pieces of polished stone such as obsidian.
A spoon paints two portraits of you, one on the front and one on the back. Write the review of each.Angle: what does each side get wrong?
A straw in a glass of water looks broken. Write the straw's protest.Fact: refraction is when light waves change direction as they pass from one medium to another.
At night the window turns into a mirror when the lamp comes on. Write the switch.Angle: what could you see outside, and what do you see of yourself?
Build a periscope in a story and write what you see over the fence.Fact: mirrors are used in periscopes, telescopes and cameras.
Get a spot of sunlight from the window to the darkest corner of the room with three friends and three mirrors. Write the directions.Fact: reflection is when incoming light hits an object and bounces off.
Leave a secret note that can only be read in a mirror, and write the story of who it is for.Angle: where is it hidden, and where is the mirror?
Long before glass, somebody kneels at a still pond and meets a face. Write that minute.Fact: the first mirrors used by humans were most likely pools of still water.
Look at one small thing through a magnifying glass or a drop of water, and write what you could not see before.Angle: an ant, a thread, the print on a coin.
Speak for the thin shiny layer on the back of a mirror, which does all the reflecting and is never seen.Fact: a modern mirror is glass with a thin coating of metal such as silver or aluminum.
Spend a day as a mirror: who it sees, in what order, and who it likes best.Angle: who looks longest, and who never looks at all?
Your reflection does one thing you did not do. Write the next minute.Angle: keep it funny: a wink, a wave, a different shirt.
How it works
These light writing prompts are about light itself, the science topic: what blocks it, what bounces it, what bends it and what splits it into colors. One group asks what a world would be like with none.
Read the full guide
Shadow prompts, from hand puppets to an eclipse
Fifteen prompts start from a shadow. It plays every part in a hand-puppet show, and one that points the wrong way solves a mystery. Two are as large as shadows get: the Moon's shadow crossing a town at midday, and the Earth's covering the Moon.
Reflection and bending light
In Mirrors and bends a straw looks broken in a glass, a fish and a kid are each sure the other is somewhere else, and a spot of sunlight is passed from mirror to mirror into the darkest corner. The facts under those three are NASA's and say what light does at a surface.
Try it first if you can: hold a hand up to a lamp, tilt a glass of water in the sun. Then write.
In the dark prompts, save sight for the last sentence.
Questions and answers
What is a good light writing prompt?
One you can try before you write. A patch of rainbow appears on a bedroom wall, and the story is the hunt for where it comes from. Or a window turns into a mirror at night when the lamp comes on.
Why does a prism make a rainbow?
Each color of light is a different wavelength, and each bends at a slightly different angle on its way through the glass, NASA explains. White light goes in and a band of colors comes out, red at one end and violet at the other.
What makes a shadow?
An object blocking the light from a source: the shadow is the dark area behind it. Near sunrise and sunset shadows can be extremely long, and one prompt asks for a whole day as your shadow lived it.