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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 2715 prompts

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

– 80 stories

Write about two people who just can’t seem to understand each other, no matter how clearly they think they’re speaking.

– 79 stories

Write a story told exclusively through dialogue.

– 344 stories

Write about two characters who each want to change the same thing, but resolve to go about it in very different ways.

– 83 stories

Write about someone who doesn’t remember their past — and doesn’t want to.

– 203 stories

Start your story with one character making a vow that they never would have made the year before.

– 101 stories

Write about someone whose job is to help people leave their old lives behind.

– 242 stories

Write about someone who has finally managed to succeed at a long-standing New Year’s resolution.

– 97 stories

Write a story in the form of a top-ten list.

– 113 stories

Write a story that takes place across ten seconds.

– 253 stories

Write a story that takes place across ten days.

– 100 stories

Write about someone keeping track of time with tally marks on a wall — until one day they discover that all the marks are gone.

– 132 stories

Write about someone scrambling to finish a goal in the last few hours of the year.

– 122 stories

Write about a backup dancer who’s on tour and just wants some peace and quiet for the holidays.

– 54 stories

Write about a young nobleman whose greatest wish is to become an Olympic long jumper.

– 20 stories

Write about a drummer going to a Halloween party for musicians.

– 53 stories

Write about someone who gets proposed to five times on Christmas Eve.

– 166 stories

Write about someone who is given a bird for the holidays but doesn’t know how to take care of it.

– 196 stories

Write a science fiction story where all human behavior can be predicted — until your character does something the algorithm did not expect.

– 137 stories

Write about someone who gets an inheritance from a relative they’ve never heard of, but they’ll need to do something completely outside their comfort zone in order to collect it.

– 143 stories

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