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Best Character Writing Prompts

Join our ongoing contests and win up to $1,500. Flex those creative muscles with these writing prompts.

Showing 189 prompts reset

This week's contest:
Win $250

In Real Time

23 contest entries /
10 stories

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Closes at 23:59 - Sep 04 EST

Write about a character who’s always thinking of things they’ll say to people, but who ends up saying very little when they finally get the chance.

– 219 stories

Write about a character who is incapable of telling even the smallest lie or half-truth.

– 80 stories

Write a story about someone who’s famous for something they never actually did.

– 119 stories

Write a story about someone who's haunted by their past.

– 252 stories

Write about someone who returns as an adult to a place they last visited as a child.

– 235 stories

Write a story that features a protagonist with an archnemesis.

– 112 stories

Write a story that takes place in a writer's circle.

– 69 stories

Write a story that starts with a character-revealing something unusual about themselves.

– 140 stories

Write a story that starts with someone returning from a trip.

– 111 stories

Write a story that starts with two characters saying goodbye.

– 248 stories

Write a story about one event from the different perspectives of multiple friends.

– 121 stories

In the form of diary/ journal entries, write a story that provides glimpses into a person's life at different ages.

– 133 stories

Write a story about someone walking through a park on a spring evening, told only through internal monologue.

– 140 stories

Write a story about a character who can't make up their mind about something.

– 63 stories

Write about a character who goes by many different names throughout their life.

– 50 stories

Write a story about a character who would be described above all else as "logical."

– 30 stories

Write a story about a character experiencing anxiety.

– 82 stories

Write a story about a character who starts out as a pessimist and ends as an optimist. (Or vice versa.)

– 46 stories

Write a short story about someone based on their shopping list.

– 48 stories

Write a story about a very skilled pickpocket. 

– 63 stories

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