Category: PromptsPage 18 of 27
Prompts are story ideas that inspire you to get writing. When you are overdrawn at the idea bank, you can always pick up some ideas from the muse. Take our ideas and run with them. Make them yours. Turn prompts into best sellers. Turn prompts into stories for fun. Browse prompts for ideas. If our collection can help you find inspiration or new ideas – then these prompts have done their job.
Have a character tear their clothes at the least opportune moment and have to somehow avoid embarrassment but continue with a vital task.
Get dragons in your story. Perhaps as a figurine or maybe real fire-breathing dragons. Bonus points if the setting is not a fantasy novel. Double Bonus points if…
A simple spelling mistake leads your characters in an unrelated direction where they stumble upon facts they might never have discovered otherwise.
Add sheep to your story in the least likely place that sheep might ever be expected to be found.
Two significant characters have a serious disagreement over how to approach something. As they argue over the specifics, it slowly becomes apparent that they are both totally wrong.
A character says something innocent but it sounds so very dirty that everyone is shocked.
How many spoons (or references to spoons) can you get into a chapter unrelated to food or eating?
A humiliating secret that your character has kept hidden most of their life becomes public knowledge.
Have one of your characters steal something random on an impulse only for it to turn out to be significant later on.
Your character eats some undercooked chicken. As a result, at the critical moment they are locked in the bathroom and decidedly unavailable to take action.
Have a character tell a whopping great lie with the purest of intentions and the worst of all repercussions.
Include a reference to The Fires of Mordor from Lord of the Rings in a description unrelated to fantasy fiction.
A character discovers an old grimy mirror. The reflection it shows is not the room it is on.
Your character begins to notice that someone is following them. No matter where they go, it seems someone is watching. They don’t know why.
In the same day, your character meets seven different people all apparently with the same name.
One of your central characters (perhaps the protagonist) has a short dream concerning the events of the day ahead. The day unfolds just as they dreamed.
How many times can you surreptitiously get lyrics from David Bowie songs into your story? Bonus points if you make them fit so well, readers may not notice?
A character is given one seemingly simple job to do. Due to one of their flaws, they screw it up with disastrous consequences for all involved.