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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 2740 prompts

Write a story in which the same line recurs three times.

– 160 stories

Write a story about a character who fails to understand something until they have the full context.

– 75 stories

Write about a character doing something they’ve done hundreds of times — only this time, it’s taken on a new meaning.

– 146 stories

Write a story that involves a secret or magic ingredient.

– 113 stories

Write about a character preparing a meal for somebody else.

– 155 stories

Write about a group of strangers — or people who know each other, but may as well be strangers — eating together.

– 152 stories

Write a story where a meal or dinner goes horribly wrong.

– 199 stories

Start or end your story with two characters sitting down for a meal.

– 261 stories

Write a story about characters going on a summer road trip.

– 103 stories

Write a story about somebody reminiscing on an event that happened many summers ago.

– 215 stories

End your story with somebody stepping out into the sunshine.

– 207 stories

Write about the longest day of the year, or a day that never seems to end.

– 99 stories

Begin your story with somebody watching the sunrise, or sunset.

– 271 stories

Write a story involving a character who cannot return home.

– 318 stories

Set your story on (or in) a winding river.

– 122 stories

Write about someone who’s desperately trying to change their luck.

– 100 stories

Start your story with a character having a premonition, but no one believes them.

– 145 stories

Write about a family with a long-standing tradition, whose members all have conflicting origin stories for it.

– 58 stories

Set your story within a window of opportunity, when a character finally has the chance to do something.

– 142 stories

Start your story with an unexpected knock on a window.

– 138 stories

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