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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 248 prompts reset

This week's contest:
Win $250

Love is in the Air

177 contest entries /
73 stories

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View contest
Closes at 23:59 - Feb 20 EST

Tell a story in the form of a police report, news article, or journal entry about an incredible (or impossible) event.

– 43 stories

Center your story around someone who has (or is given) the ability to time travel.

– 105 stories

Write a story that includes the line "Can you keep a secret?" or “My lips are sealed."

– 50 stories

Include the word “hero,” “mask,” or “truth" in your story’s title.

– 61 stories

Write about a second chance or a fresh start.

– 63 stories

Set your story before dawn or after midnight. Your character is awake for a specific reason.

– 71 stories

Write a story with an age or date in the title.

– 36 stories

Your character meets someone who changes their life forever.

– 47 stories

Write a story that includes the word “birthday,” “birth,” or “party.”

– 67 stories

Write a story that includes the line “I can’t sleep.”

– 86 stories

Center your story around one of the following: stargazing, lethargy, or a myth/legend.

– 53 stories

Write a story from the point of view of a canine character or a mythological creature.

– 100 stories

Begin your story with “It was the hottest day of the year...”

– 65 stories

Write a story set during a heatwave.

– 67 stories

Begin your story with someone saying, “Are you there, God? It’s me...”

– 67 stories

Write a story where two characters talk around an important subject without ever mentioning it directly.

– 56 stories

Start your story with a non-visual sense. Use a certain scent, texture, sound, or taste to ground the beginning before continuing the narrative.

– 64 stories

Write a story that includes the line “Are you real?” or “Who are you?”

– 107 stories

One character is an artificial intelligence. The other is a human being. Your reader must struggle to tell which is which.

– 61 stories

Using only dialogue, depict a conversation between a non-human entity and a human being about what it means to tell a story, or to be alive.

– 63 stories

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