50 Creative Writing Prompts

Whether you’re a teacher looking to spark students’ creativity or a writer searching for inspiration, creative writing prompts offer a solution when ideas run dry. While writing daily remains solid advice, everyone faces moments when the words just won’t flow. For educators, these prompts provide alternatives to formulaic assignments, while for writers, they can serve as a playful and low-stakes writing practice.

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What are creative writing prompts?

Creative writing prompts can consist of one or multiple sentences, and they instruct you on what you need to write about. They may ask you to describe objects, characters, or worlds, real or imaginary.

Some prompts contain a fragment of dialogue that you need to continue, while others ask you to reflect on real-life experiences or situations. There is no hard-and-fast rule when it comes to what makes a good prompt; some people prefer vague, open-ended ones, while others prefer to stick to a specific genre, like fantasy or romance.

How should I use writing prompts?

The beauty of writing prompts lies in their flexibility. Depending on your writing goals, there are different ways you can integrate prompts into your creative process.

If you’re looking to establish a daily writing routine and stop overthinking your writing, setting constraints like “write for 10 minutes, without interruption, without editing” can be effective. But if your goal is to write a full story based on a prompt that intrigues you, you’ll probably spend more time writing and editing.

For educators, prompts serve different purposes. You may want to use them to gain insights about your students’ opinions or knowledge of a subject without directly asking them. Alternatively, prompts work well as group activities where the first student writes a few sentences and passes them on to the next student to continue the story.

Creative writing prompts by age group

Writing prompts can be a great tool in the classroom. Whether you want to boost your elementary schoolers’ writing skills in a fun way or find ideas for your creative writing classes, the following collection of age-appropriate prompts is a good starting point.

Creative writing prompts for kids

Simple writing prompts are a great way for elementary school kids to express their creativity and build their self-confidence when it comes to writing skills.

1. One day, you open an old book and suddenly get transported to a jungle full of animals that start with the letter A. What are these animals? What adventures do you go on together, and how do you find your way back home?
2. Describe your dream bedroom. What would it look like?
3. I wish my teachers knew that …
4. What superpower would you like to have? Why?
5. Write a letter to your favorite character. What do you want to tell them?

Creative writing prompts for middle school

In middle school, students might feel unmotivated and uninspired when it comes to writing. The following prompts can help students stretch their imagination while working on their writing skills.

1. A door in your school has always been kept locked. One day, as you walk past, you discover the door is open. Write a story about what happens next.
2. Whom would you approach if you could ask for advice from anyone, living or dead? Write them a letter.
3. Write a fictional diary entry from the point of view of a historical figure.
4. Start your story with the line “Better late than never.”
5. Write a story that begins with a line from your favorite song.

Creative writing prompts for high school

Communication, critical thinking, and creativity are great transferable skills that high school students can practice through creative writing prompts.

1. You have a difficult decision to make. Describe a conversation you might have with yourself about it.
2. Write a story that centers around an Instagram post.
3. Explain a computer to someone from the 16th century.
4. Would you rather be able to change the past or change the future? Why?
5. It’s the summer before college, and your character has one last goodbye to make.

Creative writing prompts for adults

Once upon a time, you loved writing, but then … you grew up. Rekindle your love for writing with the following prompts.

1. A future world where AI technology controls everything.
2. Write a story based on these words: whisper, compass, bread, mosaic.
3. Write about a character, animal, or human who is reborn as something totally different.
4. Write a scene or a story set in an airport. Who is there, where are they going, and why?
5. Write a story that rhymes.

Creative writing prompts by purpose

Writers at any level can use a good writing prompt. That’s because they give you a low-pressure testing ground to try new ideas. Think of them as a playful way to explore new and unexpected directions in your writing, without the weight of your main project hanging over you.

Fun creative writing prompts

You have a writing project, but you’re open to trying new ideas that might seem out of place in your usual writing? Try the following prompts and see what comes up. You might actually find something valuable that you can use in your story or novel.

1. Think of some of the mondegreens—misheard song lyrics—you’ve encountered over the years. Choose your favorite and use it as the title of a new creative writing piece. Write a story, scene, or poem inspired by this title
2. Look around you and pick an inanimate object. Write a story from its perspective.
3. Pick your favorite classic story. Now tell a different version of that story, changing the genre or the main character’s occupation.
4. What does your shadow do when you’re not around?
5. Write a story including the line: “Had I known I was going to have guests at 3 am, I would’ve tidied up.”
6. Crew members of a spaceship sent to explore a new planet discover that it’s exactly like Earth. Except for one fundamental difference.

Writing prompts to start a story

You want to write. You have the time and space, but no idea where to begin. Here are a few writing prompts to help you start your next story.

1. Write a story or scene about someone cooking something. What dish are they making, who are they cooking for, and what significance does it hold? What does it smell and taste like?
2. Write a rags-to-riches story where the protagonist’s rise to success comes at an unexpected cost
3. A scientist discovers a way for us to read the minds of dogs—and it turns out they weren’t man’s best friend after all!
4. What is your favorite pair of shoes? Why? Where have they taken you?
5. You wake up one day only to find out that you’ve turned into a garden gnome. What happens next?
6. An artist you follow on Instagram starts painting landscapes identical to places from your dreams—places that only exist in your mind.

Writing prompts to overcome writer’s block

Feeling stuck? Try this freewriting exercise using the following prompts. Sit down and start writing for a set amount of time; it can be three minutes or ten—you decide. Write non-stop about your topic without worrying about grammar, punctuation, or structure.

1. Describe a normal object from the perspective of an alien. Take a normal, everyday object and write about it from the point of view of someone who’s seeing it for the first time and finds it very strange.
2. You’re in a waiting room at a clinic that promises to cure writer’s block.
3. Write a short story about anything. However,  you can’t use the letter “i.”
4. In the midst of writer’s block, an author goes to sit at a train station looking for inspiration. They get more than they bargained for.
5. An apologetic letter or email from an old flame suddenly arrives, many years too late. What does it say?
6. What is your favorite thing to eat, and what memories does it evoke?

Character-development writing prompts

Fleshing out interesting and realistic characters can feel challenging. Each character must have a distinct voice that reflects their personality, background, and motivations. Use the following prompts as a warm-up exercise for character development.

1. Sketch out a character, and answer key questions about them like:
   • What is their name?
   • What’s their occupation?
   • What’s their background?
   • Where did they grow up?
   • What motivates them?
2. Center your story around two (or more) characters who strike up an unlikely friendship.
3. Think of the last time you were really scared, and put a character in that same situation.
4. Put your character in bed, falling asleep alone. Write every thought that passes through their mind. Do not punctuate or use full sentences; just describe what is going through their heads.
5. Your character is at their local grocery store. Their gaze falls on a person with whom they have a complicated relationship. There is no way for your character to avoid this person, and this person spots them. What happens next?
6. You are the inventor of a popular video game. One day, the main character from your game knocks on your front door. What do they want?

Dialogue writing prompts

Writing natural-sounding dialogue is hard to master. Good dialogue mimics the flow, interruptions, and other intricacies of human conversation. It also reveals character, advances the plot, and creates tension while still sounding authentic. Use the following prompts to try your hand at dialogue writing. When you’ve finished, read what you wrote out loud.

1. Write a piece of dialogue that begins or ends with the line “I didn’t see that one coming.”
2. Write a scene involving a conversation that’s packed with subtext; the characters aren’t quite saying what they mean.
3. Using only dialogue, write a short story or scene about an adult explaining something to a child.
4. Write a story or scene that takes place entirely via text messages. Begin with “Why didn’t you reply to my text last night?”
5. Write a scene that includes the line, “I told you not to touch that.”
6. Write 300 words of a conversation between two people. No attributives (he said, she said, etc.), no descriptions of scene, gestures, or movements. Show the relationship between them only through the words they use.

How to come up with creative writing prompts

There are infinite possibilities when it comes to finding ideas and creating your own writing prompts. Here are a few suggestions:

• Open the dictionary. Pick a random word and use it in your story’s first line.
• Eavesdrop. Sit at a busy place like a cafe or a train station and make notes about a conversation you’ve overheard. Create a poem or short story about it.
• Use images. It can be a picture you took yourself or a postcard you found at an antique shop, anything that speaks to you. You can simply describe what you see or use it to set the story’s theme, like family or traveling.
• Pick a sentence from a book. Grab a book from your bookshelf (or someone else’s bookshelf) and open it at a random page. Without looking, place your finger on the page and pick a sentence to use as a prompt.
• Use music as inspiration. Listen to a song without lyrics or in a language you don’t understand, and write about the imagery or story it evokes.
• Ask a chatbot. Instead of scouring the internet for ideas, you can request custom prompts tailored to your preferences. This works especially well when you have specific parameters in mind. For example, you can use Quillbot’s AI chat and ask for genre-specific prompts (e.g., “Give me a sci-fi writing prompt”) or format-specific challenges (e.g., “What’s a good prompt for flash fiction?”).

Frequently asked questions about creative writing prompts

What are some short story writing prompts?

Below are some writing prompts to get you started with your next short story:

• Think of an event from your life. Write about what happened to you, but from the perspective of someone else who was also there.
• Pick your favorite story or fairytale from your childhood. Rewrite it with an alternative ending.
• A middle-aged woman discovers a ghost in her bathroom.
• Write a story that includes a character wearing a disguise or costume.

Use Quillbot’s Grammar Checker tool to ensure your story reads as smoothly as it unfolds.

What are some poetry writing prompts?

Here are some writing prompts to give you ideas about your next poem:

• Write a poem that uses the abecedarian format. Begin each line or stanza with the first letter of the alphabet and continue with the next letter until the final one is reached.
• Write a haiku about your favorite season.
• Pick a book and circle some random words on the page without thinking too much about it. Use those words to write a poem.
• Write a poem about numbers that have special meaning to you.

Want your lines to flow flawlessly? Quillbot’s Grammar Checker can help so that your syllables shine without errors.

What are some creative writing prompts for journaling?

Some creative writing prompts for journaling that you can try:

• Write a letter to your future self.
• Recount a time when you faced failure.
• What’s the best piece of advice you’ve ever received?
• Finish this sentence: “My life would be incomplete without …”
• What difficult thoughts or emotions come up most frequently for you?

Having trouble putting your thoughts into words? Quillbot’s Paraphraser can help you refine your letter to your future self.

What are some mystery writing prompts?

Some mystery writing prompts that you can try:

• A small town vanishes without a trace—almost. Write about the journalist who discovers the one remaining clue and decides to follow it.
• An office party takes a dark turn when the company president is found dead, and the eccentric attendees become prime suspects.
• Start your story during a full moon night.
• A housebound individual begins observing their neighbors through a window to pass the time. One day, they notice something suspicious.
• Write a story where someone sees the shadow of someone standing behind them.

Use Quillbot’s Grammar Checker to polish your prose and heighten the suspense in your mystery.