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Best Short Story Writing Prompts

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

Showing 273 prompts reset

This week's contest:
Win $250

Two's a Crowd with Kirsiah Depp

207 contest entries /
89 stories

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View contest
Closes at 23:59 - Jun 05 EST

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

– 57 stories

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

– 54 stories

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

– 47 stories

Write a story that includes change or transformation.

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

– 96 stories

Write a story in the form of a letter, or multiple letters sent back and forth.

– 79 stories

Leave your story’s ending unresolved or open to interpretation.

– 84 stories

Write a story with the aim of making your reader smile and/or cry.

– 70 stories

Include a café, bakery, bookshop, or kitchen in your story.

– 62 stories

Start or end your story with a character making a cup of tea or coffee (for themself or someone else).

– 135 stories

Your character finds or receives a book that changes their life forever.

– 62 stories

Start or end your story with someone opening or closing a book.

– 66 stories

Write a story that includes (or is inspired by) the phrase “Almost is never enough” or “So close, yet so far.”

– 46 stories

Set your story on a remote island, a distant planet, or somewhere faraway and forgotten.

– 86 stories

Write about a character who can rewind, pause, or fast-forward time.

– 58 stories

Write a story with a time, number, or year in the title.

– 59 stories

Include a moment in which someone says the wrong thing — and can't take it back.

– 28 stories

Withhold a key detail or important fact, revealing it only at the very end.

– 63 stories

Your character receives a gift or message that changes their life forever.

– 40 stories

Write a story that ends without answers or certainty.

– 128 stories

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