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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 2705 prompts

Set your story at a gathering or event (a wedding, gala, celebration, court feast, etc.) where personal, political, romantic, and/or familial stakes collide.

– 42 stories

Include an argument between two or more characters that seems to be about one thing, but is actually about another.

– 28 stories

Set your story on the night before a battle or an impossible mission. Show what different characters are thinking and feeling.

– 30 stories

Include a wake or funeral in your story where the mourners have conflicting feelings about the deceased.

– 67 stories

Set your story at a dinner where two or more people share the table. Each is carrying a secret, or hiding something about another person in the room.

– 33 stories

Include the line “I remember…” or “I'm sorry…” in your story.

– 56 stories

Center your story around a character who doesn’t know how to let go.

– 50 stories

Write a story about someone who’s grappling with loneliness.

– 80 stories

Start or end your story with a character seeing something beautiful or shocking.

– 49 stories

Write a story about someone coming back home — or leaving it behind.

– 72 stories

Write a story that connects mythology and science.

– 35 stories

Center your story around the last person who still knows how something is done.

– 31 stories

Write a story from the POV of a mythological creature or a natural (not human-made) object.

– 55 stories

Write a story that includes (or is inspired by) the line: “The earth remembers what we forget.”

– 58 stories

Write a story where the line between myth and reality begins to blur.

– 51 stories

Set your story in a place that has lost all color.

– 65 stories

Write a story in which a character can taste, smell, hear, and/or feel color.

– 21 stories

Start or end your story with someone looking out at the sky, the sea, or a forest.

– 59 stories

Set your story during — or just before — a sunrise or sunset.

– 36 stories

Write a story with a color in the title.

– 86 stories

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