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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 2675 prompts

Write about someone facing their greatest fear.

– 107 stories

Write about a character who breaks free from a tradition to create a new one.

– 25 stories

Make a character perform a ceremony to set something or someone free.

– 53 stories

Write about a character who develops a special ritual to cope with something.

– 89 stories

Make your protagonist go through a rite of passage.

– 52 stories

Start your story during a full moon night.

– 80 stories

Write a story about someone seeking revenge for a past wrong.

– 71 stories

Write a Western-inspired story in a new genre or setting (e.g. a space western, fantasy western, etc.)

– 77 stories

Write a story about someone undertaking a long, dangerous journey.

– 39 stories

Set your story in a desert town.

– 51 stories

Write a story about a stranger coming to town and shaking up the order of things.

– 55 stories

Start your story in the middle of the action.

– 68 stories

Write a story that experiments with tone — perhaps a difficult subject dealt with in a playful way, or an ostensibly happy scene that hints at darkness lurking beneath.

– 62 stories

Write about two friends getting into a fist fight.

– 30 stories

Write about how a single event affects a seemingly unrelated area of a character’s life (their friendships, career, romantic relationships, etc.)

– 35 stories

Write a story during which two conversations happen simultaneously.

– 28 stories

Write about two people striking up an unlikely friendship.

– 92 stories

Write a story about two friends who find themselves competing for something: a job, a prize, a love interest, etc.

– 15 stories

Set your story at a wedding reception, where a group of high school friends are meeting for the first time in years.

– 16 stories

Write about two friends who were once inseparable, but now find themselves growing apart — or even friends turned enemies.

– 78 stories

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