Childhood is the deepest well most of us have access to as writers. It is also the one we avoid, often because we assume nothing interesting happened, or because the memories feel too ordinary to bother with. Neither is true. The texture of an early life — the smell of a school cloakroom, the particular dread of a Sunday evening, the way your grandmother said your name — is exactly the material that makes writing feel alive to a reader. These ten prompts are designed to be gentle rather than forensic. You are not building a case; you are collecting fragments.

Why Start With Childhood?

Memory is unreliable, and that is precisely what makes it useful. You will not recall the exact words of an argument in 1987, but you will recall the shape of the kitchen, the colour of the lino, and the fact that someone left the back door open. Those details are what carry emotional weight on the page. Treat each prompt as a rough sketch rather than a finished portrait. Set a timer for ten minutes, write by hand if you can, and resist the urge to correct yourself. If a sentence goes somewhere unexpected, follow it. The best material usually arrives sideways.

Five Prompts to Warm Up

• The kitchen table. Describe the table you ate at as a child. What was it made of? Was there a cloth, a placemat, a permanent ring stain? Who sat where, and what happened if you sat in the wrong chair?
• The walk to school. Write the route in order, turning by turning. Include the weather, the hedges, the dog that barked, the shop you were never allowed to go into.
• Your pocket money. How much did you get, and what did you spend it on? Recreate one specific purchase in detail — the shop, the counter, the transaction, the walk home.
• The smell that takes you back. Coal smoke, school dinners, sun cream, TCP, a particular washing powder. Write for ten minutes without mentioning the smell by name.
• A rule you broke. Something small will do. What was the rule, who made it, and what did you fear would happen? Write the moment just before you were caught.

Five Prompts That Go Deeper

• Draw the floor plan. Sketch the house you grew up in, then write about whichever room you remember least. That room is usually where the interesting writing is hiding.
• A relative's hands. Choose one adult from your childhood and describe only their hands, then only their voice. What did they say that you have never forgotten, even if you misunderstood it at the time?
• Your first best friend. Where did they live, what games did you play, and how did the friendship end? Write it as a story with a beginning and an ending, even if the real ending was gradual.
• A fright you never told anyone about. It does not need to be dramatic. A lost adult in a supermarket, a sound at night, a television programme you were too young to watch. Write it in the present tense.
• A day out. The car journey, the sandwiches, the rain, the argument in the car park. Write the whole day in under 400 words, then cut it to 200 by removing everything that is not sensory.

Write the Senses First, the Story Second

Most writers reach for narrative too soon. They want the anecdote to have a point, so they tidy the memory before it has had a chance to speak. Try reversing the order: for each prompt, spend the first five minutes listing only physical detail — temperatures, sounds, textures, the weight of objects. You will often find that the emotional centre of the memory is attached to something surprisingly small. A cardigan. A biscuit tin. The click of a light switch. Carry a small notebook for a fortnight and jot these details down as they surface, because memory is opportunistic and rarely waits until you are sitting comfortably at a desk.

Family Stories Are Not the Same as Your Memories

You will notice that some of what you write down is not really yours. It is a story you have been told so many times that you have adopted it, complete with details you could not possibly remember. This is worth noting rather than avoiding. Write both versions: what you were told happened and what you can actually picture. The gap between the two is often where the most honest writing lives. If you can, ask an older relative about the period you are writing about, but ask for specifics rather than confirmation. Questions such as "What did the front room smell like?" or "What did she wear on Sundays?" will yield far more than "Do you remember the summer we went to Devon?"

Keeping the Habit Going

Ten prompts will not last long, so build a system that will. A few practical habits help:

• Keep one notebook for memories only, so you are not hunting for scraps between shopping lists.
• Write on the same day each week, even if only for fifteen minutes, and date every entry.
• Revisit an old entry once a month and add one new detail at the bottom. Memories thicken with return visits.
• Decide now who, if anyone, will read this. If the answer is nobody, write more freely and say so at the top of the page.

Finally, treat the notebook as raw material rather than a finished product. Some entries will become essays, stories or poems; most will simply sit there. That is fine. Their job is to keep the well open, so that when you do sit down to write something with a shape, you have a store of real, particular, irreplaceable detail to draw on.