101 Writing Prompts to Inspire You

101 Great Ideas to Get You Inspired

Compiled here are 101 great ideas to get you inspired and working on your next writing project. Want to tell a story, but have no idea where to start? That’s where writing prompts come in. Think of it like training wheels or the handrails on a staircase. These are here to support you in your endeavor, so use them often, use them well, and use them wisely to create the most creative pieces of writing you can!

1. Focus on a memory of a game that you played when you were a kid. It could be chess, it could be paintball, it could even be Cowboys and Indians– anything where you really got into the game. Start by writing about the experience itself, and then make it more real. Suddenly you are the king, the soldier, the intrepid native out to reclaim his lands!

2. Think of a buddy or a relative and then focus on something that always reminds you of them (like their perfume, their sense of style, maybe something they love to do) and then write a story that centers around that.

3. Think of a memorable quote from a book, show or movie, remove it entirely from its original context, streamline/improve it, and then write a story around it using a completely different plot, completely different characters, and even a completely different world!

4. Pick up an object near you and look at it. Really study it. Try to find some aspect of it that future generations might change or improve on it. Now imagine that it’s your job to market this new and improved object to the public. What do you say? How do you approach the futuristic masses with this item that could go so far in making their lives better?

5. Choose a mythological tradition (e.g., Norse, Judeo-Christian, Babylonian, Greek, Roman, etc.) and look it up on Wikipedia. Next, follow links until you track down a specific god, goddess, angel or spirit that sounds particularly interesting. Write a story that includes this entity and incorporates elements of the mythology surrounding them in a way that preserves some of the ambiance and flavor that attracted you to him/her/it in the first place.

6. Pick three words of things that you like or that sound good when you say them. They could be colors, places, even names. Now, write a story using these three words in creative ways. You can combine them, use them for section headings, use them as character names, etc. The possibilities are limitless!

7. Go for a walk. While you’re out, look for something interesting (it could be a car, a pamphlet, an unusual rock, a chicken, etc.). Sit and think about it for a little while, look at it and really appreciate it, then follow that thought pattern, see where it takes you, and write about it.

8. Take a pad of paper somewhere where you can people-watch (a park, a coffee shop, a restaurant) and write down quick notes about the people you see. Now– make up stories about them. What kind of life do they lead? What’s important to them? What sorts of troubles or joys do they come home to at night?

9. Think about a symbol. It can be a peace sign, a star, a cross, a flag, or anything else you’ve seen in the past. Consider what it means to you, really deeply think about it, then put those thoughts into words. Next, write a story using those words.

10. If you have a pet (a cat, a dog, a snake, a chicken, etc.), take a moment to study them. Look at their features, their eyes– then write about them. Next, take it all a step further and write a story where the main character is a person that has all (or even just some) of those features!

11. Look through the newspaper for a particularly interesting line like “It was a day like any other for Joe Everyman...” Ponder it for a moment, bend it around in your mind and explore the possible places a line like this could go... then write one of them.

12. Write down the basic elements of a whodunnit murder mystery– the name of a guilty person (e.g., Miss Scarlet, Colonel Mustard, etc.), the object they’ve committed the murder with (e.g., a candlestick, etc.) and the place where it was done. (e.g., in the conservatory). Make each element as random as possible (e.g., Bob Dole with an overfed goat in the Soyuz module) and then write a story that ties it all together. Feel free to make it more fun than believable!

13. Interesting things happen when different cultures come into contact for the first time. Sometimes contact is peaceful, and sometimes it brings disease, war, famine, or other dire consequences. Envision two distinctly different cultures, then write a story where they meet!

14. Type two random and seemingly unrelated words into a google image search (like uncle fuzz) and look through the images that come up. Prepare to be surprised, and if you’re under 18 or easily offended, make sure the family filter is on. Now, find an image that strikes you, then write a story around it.

15. Politicians are masters of spinning sentences of ambiguous commitment that ultimately mean nothing. Look through the speeches of one or two that have had something to hide or get excited about lately and pick apart their words. Find a particularly vague sentence or one teeming with doublespeak and then use it as the backbone of a story.

16. Take a famous line from a famous piece of literature and run it through several different languages on an online translator (like Altavista’s Babelfish) with Korean or Chinese as the last language, and then translate it back to English. Look at what comes out, consider the new meanings hidden within it, and then build a story around it.

17. Walk through an unfamiliar aisle of the grocery store or visit an ethnic grocery (Indian, Chinese, Mexican, etc.) and look for a product (or several products) that leap out at you as either strange, neat, frightening or wonderful. Now, use that image as the key motivator or focus for a story. Maybe people are passing the product back and forth while they talk. Experiment, try new things!

18. Write a story where a character is faced with a decision that is very difficult for him or her to make. This is no ordinary decision– it’s hard to make, and it needs to be made soon. The stakes should be high (or maybe just need to seem high to the character) and you can even go so far as action if you want. Whatever happens, more focus on the tension of the decision than on something else (like people’s looks or action-packed shoot-em-up scenes.)

19. People act differently on camera. Write a story from the perspective of someone watching a film where another person reveals a secret that is shocking or frightening. Try to capture the mood of being afraid or angry or reluctant to put the secret into words, make the character in the video real, make them believable.

20. Relationships are full of games, especially when the people in them are young or the connections that have been forged are superficial. Write a story where relationship games are being played between the two people who make up an otherwise loving couple. Put in action, make it real, scream and smash some things. Make it exciting, and let the ending determine on its own where it will go.

21. Take a classic tale from any period (from the Odyssey to Ivanhoe or anything Dickens to anything Spielberg or Romero) and turn it on its head by thoroughly integrating some new element into it (as done in works like Pride and Predjudice and Zombies)

22. You’re on your way to a perfectly ordinary day at work when suddenly a sign looms up before you that says “Road Closed.” You’re forced to take an unmarked detour down an unfamiliar road that seems unusually devoid of traffic. Is it an ordinary shortcut, or is something more ominous going on? What awaits you around the next corner? Will the pavement suddenly and inexplicably end? Have you crossed into the proverbial twilight zone?

23. Write a piece where physical “imperfection(s)” in a body or an object ultimately add to its beauty as opposed to making it merely “less than perfect”, and therefore “less than beautiful.” Consider the patina of age or the ancient chipping of a Grecian urn, for example, or the beauty of a more “average” woman compared to the “perfection” of an over-the-top supermodel. There are a lot of ways you could go with this, both creative and sentimental.

24. Create a story filled with unexpected, unsettling and unexpected twists that still ultimately seem logical and/or realistic while being incredibly jarring. (Maybe a man accidentally takes as hostage the one person who could easily disarm him, or maybe a typical, cliché event [man slips on a banana peel] ends on a different note [man keeps his balance and uses momentum and slipperiness of peel to get to work on time.]) Be creative!

25. Close your eyes and take a moment to focus on the sounds around you. Listen to them, shuffle them around in your memory and use them as key points with which to drive a story forward. What are the sounds of? What do they remind you of? Anything from your childhood?

26. I once had a Spanish teacher whose mother thought that the main reason why America is such a big player in the world today is because every time you leave the freeway, you see a sign that says “exit”. (you see, exito means “success!” in Spanish) and she assumed (as many Americans seem to) that the only difference between Exit and Exito was that Spanish seems to add an “o” to the end of a lot of words that either came from English originally, or that we stole wholesale from Spanish and other Latinate tongues over the centuries. Write a story where a mistaken translation creates an erroneous assumption (or judgement) that has either comedic, dangerous, or otherwise interesting consequences.

27. Take a song you’re really into, listen to it, then incorporate elements, concepts or themes from it into a story. If it’s an instrumental piece, think about how it makes you feel, what it reminds you of, and then create a story that uses those images and impressions as part of its most key aspects.

28. Take a hike. Literally. Keep an eye out for a particular place (like a clearing, a meadow, a thicket, a glade) any place that inspires you. Once you find a good spot, sit down and imagine a scene that might have taken place there. It could be a romantic one, an argument, a scene from some world of high fantasy, a murder or anything else. Next: Put pen to paper and write!

29. Everyone has their taboos, phobias and things that disgust them. By playing off these concepts, some of the most terrifying horror is created. Think about what frightens you most, then create a story which incorporates and confronts those elements. If you’re claustrophobic, write about an unlucky someone trapped in the narrow darkness of a cave, alone, unable to escape the stifling pressure of the deep earth no matter how hard he or she tries, etc.

30. If there is one constant in the universe, it is change. Think of a profound change or transformation that has occurred in your own life, then use it as the central theme for a piece more fiction and fantastic than fact. Be creative, and feel free to twist the change or transformation until it is wholly unrecognizable from the event that inspired it.

31. Consider a process of ordinary living that goes unseen by most people (like what happens to a letter when it’s between mailboxes, or how meat gets from the cow to the plastic box of the microwave dinner) and make it fantastic! Maybe the postman puts the letter into an interdimensional pocket on his coat where it falls down a rabbit hole and lands in a heap of similar envelopes waiting to be sorted by spirits or to be carefully considered by a special ops detachment of Santa’s Elves. (The CEA: Central Elf Agency)