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Writing Prompts

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

Showing 2640 prompts

Write a story whose first and last words are the same.

– 73 stories

Tell a story with a series of calls, emails, and/or text messages.

– 26 stories

Write about someone arriving somewhere for the first or last time.

– 74 stories

Your character is traveling a road that has no end.

– 62 stories

Write about someone who has (or is given) the ability to teleport or time-travel.

– 49 stories

Write a story that doesn’t include any dialogue at all.

– 88 stories

Include a number or time in your story’s title.

– 59 stories

Write a story in which something doesn’t go according to plan.

– 57 stories

Set your story in/on a car, plane, or train.

– 58 stories

Write about someone who must fit their whole life in one suitcase.

– 84 stories

Write a story that includes the words “déjà vu” or “that didn’t happen.”

– 55 stories

Your protagonist is doomed to repeat a historical event.

– 14 stories

Write a story where the traditional laws of time and/or space begin to dissolve.

– 56 stories

Tell a story through diary/journal entries, transcriptions, and/or newspaper clippings.

– 48 stories

Write a story that subverts a historical event, or is a retelling of that event.

– 69 stories

Write a story that includes change or transformation.

LIVE – Reedsy Literary Prize

Write about someone who strays from their daily life/routine. What happens next?

– 68 stories

Start your story with an interruption to an event (e.g., wedding, party, festival).

– 37 stories

Your protagonist faces their biggest fear… to startling results.

– 41 stories

Set your story over the course of just a few seconds or minutes.

– 96 stories

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