Scotland’s Stories Writing Prompt: Unexpected Friendships

You can also access this prompt in Gaelic.

Scottish Book Trust is asking people all over Scotland to submit their true, personal stories of Friendship. Use this story prompt to find inspiration for your story and ideas of things to write about.

Submit your story

Unexpected Friendships – Journal writing

Sometimes a friendship can appear from nowhere. We didn’t plan for it, or seek it out, it just happened. And suddenly you’ve connected with someone you feel like you’ve known all your life. Maybe it was after you moved to a brand new place, changed careers or started a new hobby. Instant connections are intoxicating, reinvigorating our lives, giving us renewed enthusiasm or purpose.

“A friend may be waiting behind a stranger's face.” – Maya Angelou

This writing prompt will help you explore unexpected friendships through the style of journal writing. 

Warm up: free writing

To warm up for this exercise, get yourself a blank sheet of paper and set a timer for two minutes. Think of the last moment of friendship you experienced and write whatever comes to your mind for the next two minutes. Do not self-edit as you go, simply write the words that come into your mind whilst thinking. Sometimes it is good to not overthink what we are writing and just get words on to the page, letting the words spill out like they sometimes do when speaking to a friend we feel we can tell anything to. Once you have completed this exercise, you can go back to it and pick out interesting words or phrases. You can also repeat this exercise with another friend in mind. 

Brainstorm: what makes them tick? 

Next, think of a close friend. This could be a friend you met in an unexpected way, or someone you were surprised to become such good friends with. Think of the defining features of your friend – what do they wear, what do they sound like, where are you most likely to find them? Write a list of these attributes and any other defining features. Does your friend have a pet, a favourite biscuit or an interesting quirk? Once you have your list, write about how you and your friend compare and contrast. What do you have in common and in what ways are you opposites? 

Start writing: journal writing

Keeping a journal can be a great way to look back at pivotal moments in your life, especially ones you didn’t realise would be so life changing. It can also be a great way to process your feelings without fear of another person reading them. For this exercise you’ll write a journal entry about your friend. It could be about a specific day in your friendship, or a reflective piece on how the friendship has made you feel. The journal entry could be about the friend you wrote about in the previous exercise, or maybe another person you were pleasantly surprised by. Thinking about the friendship, you could touch on the following topics: 

• How you met your friend
• How your life has changed since meeting your friend, or because of your friend
• What surprised you about your friend
• What your life could have been like if you never met 
• A time your friend helped you through
• A time you were there for your friend

Before starting your piece, read over what you wrote in your free writing exercise and how you described your friend in the brainstorm exercise. See if you can incorporate these elements. Once you have written your journal entry, think about any other key moments in your friendship that you might want to write about too.