Writing prompts for creativity
Feel like getting creative? Want to write a poem or short story and don’t know where to start? Start here!
Write about your favorite teacher.
Write about the first time you held someone’s hand.
Write about the last thing/person that made you smile.
Write about a time you were lost.
Write about your first job.
Five years from now, I will be…
Write about your dream vacation.
A conversation you and a stranger have on a plane.
A time you or someone you love was scammed.
If I knew then what I know now…
If you could travel back in time, where would you go?
You’ve discovered a new planet. Describe what you see.
If you could do anything for work, what would you do?
Write about a time you failed.
You’re a dog, describe your interaction with a human.
Write about someone you admire.
None of your friends remember you, describe yourself to them.
The door you had locked is wide open.
Just as you fall asleep, the phone rings.
You have the power to stop time, what do you do?
The sun rose for the final time.
The birds didn’t go south for the winter.
Write about two people who grow up together, eventually part ways, move to different sides of the country, and somehow still end up unintentionally running into each other very frequently for the rest of their lives.
Write about someone who is reincarnated over and over again and remembers all of his/her past lives, but no one else on earth remembers theirs.
Write about two people who are physically unable to be awake at the same time.
Write about a character who can taste people’s emotions through the food they prepare.
Write about two people who dream about each other before they actually meet.
Write from perspective of a mythological siren stuck on the rocky shore of an ocean, trying to lure sailors to their deaths.
Write from the perspective of an “inside guy” (jury member, lawyer, judge, etc) during an important court case.
Write from the perspective of an inanimate object in nature, like a rock or the wind.
Imagine you have to hide documents essential to national security somewhere in your office or bedroom and write a story about wherever you think is the best place.
Imagine you’re cleaning out your desk and find a secret message carved or written on the bottom of one drawer.
Open a book, turn to a random page, blindly point to a word, and use it as the very first word of your story.
Take a familiar scene from a book or movie and rewrite it, adding yourself in as a character (spectator, narrator, background figure, etc).
Reset a scene from a book in a drastically different time period.
Write a different story using the same title as a familiar book.
Take a book you know well and write an alternate ending that is the exact opposite of the real ending (whatever you think “opposite” means).
Write about a painter who is commissioned by a family member to paint a dead man/woman using no pictures, only descriptions from other people.
Write about two strangers who each grab one end of extremely rare record at the same time in a secondhand vinyl shop.
