Writing prompts
270 creative writing prompts written by hand for novelists and story writers, by genre and by craft focus: character, setting, dialogue, structure and first lines. Add a constraint when you want a harder exercise, or come back for the prompt of the day.
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Prompt of the day, November 6, 2026
Describe a village fete in loving detail, then let the reader notice the one stall that should not be there.
Mystery · Setting
Every prompt was written for fiction. Take it sideways if the obvious version bores you.
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Historical · Dialogue
A servant and her mistress plan an escape together. Neither forgets for a moment who is which.
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Thriller · Setting
Write an Alaskan town in the weeks of polar night, where someone is using the dark.
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Young adult · Structure
Write a coming-of-age story in seven parties, from age eleven to eighteen.
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Literary · Dialogue
The guests discuss the weather for a whole dinner while the host waits for the right moment to make an announcement.
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Science fiction · Structure
Tell a first contact story through one scientist's lab notebook, one entry a day.
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Romance · Setting
Describe a crowded London Tube carriage in which two strangers keep almost speaking.
Shortlist
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How to use a writing prompt without writing something generic
The trouble with a prompt is that everyone who reads it thinks of the same first story. A prompt is useful when it pushes you somewhere you would not have gone, and that depends on what you do in the first five minutes.
Write the scene next to the one it asks for
If the prompt asks for the argument, write the drive home after it. If it asks for the funeral, write the person who did not go. The prompt still shapes the piece, but you are no longer competing with the obvious version.
Bring in something only you know
Put the prompt in your town, your trade or a family you know well. A laundromat at two in the morning becomes yours the moment it is the one on the corner where you grew up, with the broken dryer everyone avoids.
Change one thing
Move a prompt into another genre, era or point of view. A romance prompt told as horror, or a mystery told by the victim's dog, usually produces something stranger and better than either genre on its own.
Write the consequence, not the situation
Prompts give you a situation. Stories are about what people do next. Spend one sentence on the setup and the rest on the choice it forces.
Keep it short and stop in the middle
Fifteen or twenty minutes is enough. Stop mid-sentence when the time is up; it is easier to come back to a piece that is still moving than to one you finished.
Use the focus to practice one skill
The craft focus is there so you can work on a weakness. If your dialogue runs long, spend a week on dialogue prompts with a constraint such as no dialogue tags. If your openings are slow, write ten first lines and keep going from the best one.
What each craft focus trains
Every genre has six prompts for each focus. Pick a focus to practice one part of the craft at a time.
Character
A person under a specific pressure. Practices showing who someone is through what they notice, avoid and choose.
Setting
A place with something already wrong in it. Practices description that carries mood and plot at the same time.
Dialogue
Conversations where the real subject is unsaid. Practices subtext, interruption and letting the reader work.
Structure
Unusual shapes: lists, logs, reverse order, repeated dates. Practices choosing the form that tells the story best.
First lines
An opening sentence to continue. Practices momentum: what the second sentence has to do to earn the first.
Constraints
Optional rules such as present tense, ten sentences or no adverbs. A limit forces choices you would not make otherwise.
Worked example: one prompt, three ways in
Prompt (literary, dialogue)
A couple argues about where to hang a painting. Write it so the reader understands they are arguing about whether to have a child.
Three first moves, each from the advice above:
- The obvious version. They stand in the hall holding the frame. She wants it over the stairs, he wants it in the spare room. The reader sees the spare room as a nursery by the second line. Fine, but every reader of the prompt would write it.
- The scene next to it. The painting is already hung, crooked, and neither of them will fix it. A week of dinners passes under it. Nobody mentions it, and that is the argument.
- Something only you know. The painting was a wedding present from her mother, who had four children by twenty-six and has opinions. Now the frame carries a whole family, not just a decision.
The second version is the strongest: it turns a dialogue prompt into a story about silence, which is harder and more interesting. Here is how it starts.
Opening
The painting went up on a Sunday and by Wednesday it was clear it was not straight. Dan noticed first, because he noticed things he could fix. He looked at it over his soup and said nothing, and Ruth watched him say nothing, and then she looked at it too.
"Bread?" she said.
"Please."
If a piece like this belongs to a novel in progress, it can become a scene: give it a goal (Ruth wants Dan to raise the subject first), a conflict (he will not) and a turn (she straightens the painting herself, and he understands). The guide to outlining a novel scene by scene shows how scenes like this fit into chapters.
A daily prompt habit that lasts
The prompt of the day changes at midnight on your device and is the same for everyone on that date, so a writing group can all write to it and compare. A habit built on it can be small:
- Write for fifteen minutes, every day, before you open email.
- Keep every piece in one file, newest at the top, with the date and the prompt.
- Do not revise. The point is volume and surprise, not polish.
- Once a month, read the file and star the three pieces that still have life in them. One of them may be the start of something longer.
Questions writers ask about writing prompts
Are these writing prompts for adults or for students?
They are written for adult fiction writers: novelists, short story writers and writing groups. Some genres, horror and thriller in particular, deal with death and violence, so they are not meant for young children. For classroom essay prompts, a school resource will suit you better.
Can I publish a story I wrote from one of these prompts?
Yes. The story is yours. You do not need permission or credit, though writers sometimes mention a prompt when they post a piece online.
How is the prompt of the day chosen?
It is picked from all 270 prompts using the date on your device, so everyone who opens the page on the same date sees the same prompt. It changes at midnight where you are.
Can I use these with a writing group or a class?
Yes. Generate a set, press Copy a link to these prompts, and share the link. Everyone who opens it sees the same prompts in the same order, with the same constraints if you turned them on.
How long should I write for?
Fifteen to thirty minutes suits most prompts. The structure prompts can grow into full short stories; first lines often want only a page before you know whether there is a story there.
Are the prompts written by AI?
No. Every prompt and constraint was written by a person for this page. The generator only chooses among them, in your browser.
When a prompt turns into a book
Some prompt pieces want to keep going. In Feldar the pages of a novel sit beside its plan: scenes in each page's Outline, people and places on the Canvas. When you are stuck mid-scene you can ask Chat for ideas about what could happen next; what goes on the page is your choice.
See how Feldar works