Writing Prompts
One story idea per card, from a talking loaf of bread to a mailbox that clears its throat. Set a timer and start writing.
- Time
- 10–30 min
- Players
- One writer or a group
- Best for
- Writing practice, writing clubs and quiet evenings
- Deck
- 150 prompts in 6 categories
How to use these writing prompts
- Pick a category from the menu under the card, or keep “All categories”.
- Read the prompt on the top card, set a timer and start writing. On your own or with a group, nobody has to plan first.
- Swipe the card away, or tap “Next prompt”, for another. Prompts do not repeat until you have seen the whole category.
- Tap the heart to save a prompt on this device, or tap “Make a 10-prompt list” for ten story ideas to work through one a day.
When to draw a writing prompt
The hardest part of writing is often the blank page. A prompt hands you a character, a strange situation or a first sentence, so the next ten minutes go to writing instead of deciding what to write about.
Ten minutes before bed
Draw one card, write a single scene in a notebook and stop when the timer goes off. A shelf of short scenes builds up one night at a time.
A writing club or a quiet evening with friends
Everyone writes from the same card, like the river that flows uphill for a day, then reads aloud. Funny situations keep the room laughing between readings.
A slow weekend morning
Use a pick-two mashup: one card from Science fiction and one from Everyday life with a twist. Half an hour with coffee is enough for a short story idea to take shape.
Ways to use these writing prompts
A ten-minute sprint on your own
Draw one card, set a timer for ten minutes and write without stopping or fixing anything. When the timer goes off, read it back once and underline the one line you like best. That line can start tomorrow’s sprint.
A round-robin story with friends
Draw one card and read it aloud. The first person writes for three minutes, then passes the page to the left, and the next person keeps the story going from the last sentence. After everyone has had a turn, read the whole thing out loud.
Pick-two mashup
Draw two cards from different categories and fit both into one story. A wizard who has retired to the seaside and an office printer that predicts the weather can share a page, and the story is in how they meet.
Tips for writing from a prompt
- Start in the middle of the action. If the card says the statue steps down from its pedestal, begin with its first step, not with the history of the town square.
- Give the prompt your own setting: your street, your kitchen, the bus you take to work. Familiar details make a strange idea easier to believe.
- If a prompt does not spark anything within a minute, swipe. First lines are the quickest to get going, because the first sentence is already written for you.
All 150 writing prompts by category
The complete list, grouped by category. The cards above draw from the same list, so you can read ahead here and pick there.
Fantasy and magic
Talking bread, retired wizards, a market at midnight and a city riding on a giant turtle.
- A baker discovers that every loaf she shapes by hand comes out of the oven able to talk.
- A town’s weather is decided each morning by a council of three old cats. Today they cannot agree.
- A young mapmaker learns that anything she adds to her maps appears in the real world by morning.
- A wizard retires to a seaside cottage, but his spellbook refuses to stop casting spells.
- In a kingdom where everyone gets one wish at thirty, a woman has saved hers for fifty years.
- A door in the town library opens onto a different season every time someone returns a book late.
- A gardener plants a single silver seed, and by morning a staircase of leaves reaches the clouds.
- A traveling tailor sews coats that let the wearer understand animals, but only while it is raining.
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- The last dragon in the valley wants to open a pottery studio and is looking for a business partner.
- A lighthouse keeper discovers that her lamp guides flying ships, not boats, through the night.
- Every spoon in the royal kitchen hums a different note, and together they play a song nobody remembers.
- A shy giant takes a job as a bridge, and travelers start telling him their plans as they cross.
- A fox offers a lost traveler three riddles in exchange for the way out of an enchanted forest.
- A market appears at midnight once a year, selling bottled sounds, folded sunsets and spare afternoons.
- A knitter learns that any knot she ties can never be undone, by anyone, ever.
- A village trades with the moon once a month, and this time the moon sends back the wrong order.
- The stone statue in the town square steps down from its pedestal for one evening every hundred years.
- A chipped teapot grants small wishes, but only to people who remember to say please.
- An apprentice enchanter accidentally turns the castle’s furniture into a flock of very polite geese.
- A river decides to flow uphill for a day, and the miller downstream has to follow it.
- A clock from a flea market makes every object in the room a little newer each hour.
- Two rival wizards must share a tiny apartment above a bakery for one whole winter.
- A cook finds a recipe that lets whoever eats it remember someone else’s happiest day.
- In a city built on the back of a giant turtle, the turtle has started walking somewhere.
- Every snowflake that lands on a clockmaker’s window carries a tiny message written in frost.
Mystery
A wandering birdbath, a key that fits no lock, coded stitches and notes left in old books.
- Every morning a different houseplant has moved to a new spot in the apartment. Who is moving them?
- A library book comes back after forty years with every tenth word lightly underlined in pencil.
- A postcard arrives addressed to you, mailed from your own town and dated twenty years ago.
- The town clock has struck thirteen at noon three days in a row, and nobody admits to touching it.
- A neighbor’s stone birdbath turns up in a different yard on the block every morning.
- The hotel piano plays one note by itself every night at 2:14, and the night porter decides to find out why.
- The crossword in the morning paper is full of clues that only you could answer.
- Someone leaves a fresh loaf of bread on the community garden bench every Sunday before sunrise.
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- A small brass key turns up in a jar of buttons. None of the locks in the house fit it.
- In every photo from the family reunion, the same smiling stranger stands somewhere in the background.
- The town pie contest has been won for ten years by a baker nobody has ever met.
- A puzzle box arrives with no return address and a card that says, “Open me on the first snowy day.”
- On a street of identical houses, one front door is painted a new color every week.
- A museum guard notices that one painting gains a tiny new detail each night: a bird, a lamp, a footprint.
- A used cookbook has notes in the margins that lead across town, one recipe at a time.
- The upstairs neighbor seems to be building something enormous, one quiet tap at a time.
- A message in chalk appears on the sidewalk each morning, one new word at a time.
- The lost and found at a train station has kept the same umbrella for fifty years. Today someone asks for it.
- A hiker finds a stone wall deep in the woods with a working gate and no path on either side.
- A radio from a secondhand shop picks up a station that only gives weather reports for a town on no map.
- Someone finishes the hardest jigsaw puzzle in the café overnight, every time leaving out one single piece.
- A wax-sealed letter invites you to dinner at a house on the hill that has stood empty for decades.
- The weather vane on the town hall has pointed north for a month, whichever way the wind blows.
- A tailor finds a coded message stitched into the lining of a coat brought in for mending.
- A beekeeper notices her bees are bringing back pollen from a flower that does not grow anywhere nearby.
Science fiction
Robots with hobbies, messages from space, gardens in orbit and colonies on faraway moons.
- The first colony on Mars receives a package from Earth that nobody on the base ordered.
- A robot built to wash dishes decides it would much rather be a poet.
- Earth receives a polite radio message from deep space asking if we could turn our music down.
- A gardener on a space station grows the first apple in orbit, and the whole crew wants a bite.
- One morning everyone on Earth can hear plants talking, and the trees have opinions about traffic.
- On a ten-year voyage, the spaceship’s computer develops a deep fondness for knock-knock jokes.
- A delivery drone gets lost and lands on a farm where nobody has seen a gadget in years.
- A scientist invents a machine that translates cat meows. The very first translation is not what she expected.
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- Astronauts land on a moon covered in tall grass that rustles in patterns, as if spelling out words.
- A city’s new smart sidewalks start suggesting where people should walk, and they are usually right.
- A time traveler arrives from a hundred years ahead, and all she wants is directions to the library.
- In the year 2300, a paper book is put on display, and someone asks to actually read it.
- An underwater research station picks up a slow, friendly signal coming from beneath the seafloor.
- A repair robot has kept an empty space station spotless for years. Today the crew finally arrives.
- A new device lets two people swap one skill for a week, so a pianist trades with a pastry chef.
- Every house has a robot butler, and one of them has been quietly writing a cookbook.
- A comet passes so close that, for one night, everyone can read the writing on its surface.
- A spaceship mechanic finds a tiny alien living inside the engine, and it has been fixing things.
- An astronomer spots a distant star blinking in the exact rhythm of her favorite song.
- The first weather machine gets stuck on snow in July, over one small town.
- Two planets have exchanged letters for centuries, and for the first time a letter arrives late.
- A satellite sends back a photo of a giant message mown into a field, addressed to space.
- The supply ship to a tiny moon colony has room for one request this year. What do they ask for?
- A robot that has directed hover-car traffic for eighty years takes its very first day off.
- People can learn a new hobby overnight while they sleep, but one man’s download comes out as accordion.
Everyday life with a twist
A commute, a grocery list or an office printer, with one small thing that is not quite normal.
- A mail carrier realizes every letter on her route this week is for the same person, at different addresses.
- A woman’s grocery list starts adding items on its own, and each one turns out to be exactly what she needs.
- The commuter train makes one unscheduled stop at a station that is not on any timetable.
- A barber can see each customer’s next big decision while trimming their hair.
- The laundromat dryer gives back one extra sock with every load, never from anyone who uses it.
- Every elevator in an office building has started stopping at a floor that does not exist.
- Overnight, every street sign in town has been translated into a language nobody recognizes.
- A bus driver notices the same passenger has ridden the whole route every day for a year without getting off.
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- A neighbor’s wind chime plays the exact tune you hum in the shower each morning.
- The poem made of fridge magnets rearranges itself overnight into short, helpful advice.
- Every customer at a coffee shop today asks the barista to make their drink taste like Tuesday.
- A yard sale sign appears on a lawn, and every item for sale belongs to the person reading it.
- A dog walker finds that each dog leads her to a house where someone needs a small favor.
- A man’s handwriting changes overnight into elegant calligraphy, and he cannot write any other way.
- A cashier finds the exact change for each customer already waiting in her drawer before they pay.
- The office printer prints one extra page every morning: tomorrow’s weather, and it is always right.
- Two neighbors who have never spoken trade notes over a shared fence, and the notes become a story.
- A woman comes home from vacation to find her plants watered and her mail sorted by nobody she knows.
- Every clock in a small café runs exactly seven minutes slow, and the regulars say that is the point.
- A man’s alarm clock stops beeping and starts waking him with small, very specific compliments.
- The bulletin board in an apartment lobby holds a running story, one sticky note added each day.
- A parking meter starts paying drivers for their time instead of charging them.
- A woman orders takeout and gets a fortune cookie with her full name inside.
- The new tenant upstairs practices the tuba at six every morning, and slowly the building forms a band.
- A small bookshop owner insists on choosing your book for you, and she has never once been wrong.
Funny situations
A llama in a meeting, bees on strike, a single grape delivered across town with great urgency.
- A man signs up for a cooking class and accidentally ends up in a ballroom dance competition.
- A llama wanders into a business meeting, and nobody wants to be the first to mention it.
- Two neighbors compete over holiday lights until the whole street can be seen from an airplane.
- A goose follows a mail carrier on her entire route and refuses to go home.
- An actor cast as a tree in a community play takes the role far too seriously.
- Two neighbors at a garden show discover they have entered the exact same prize zucchini.
- A tour guide gets lost on her own walking tour, and the tourists have to lead the way.
- A parrot keeps announcing the ending of every movie its owner tries to watch.
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- A man’s smart speaker mishears him and orders four hundred rubber ducks for delivery tomorrow.
- The town’s annual cheese-rolling race begins, and this year the cheese seems to be winning.
- A woman tries to return a gift and finds out the store clerk is the one who gave it to her.
- A magician’s rabbit refuses to come out of the hat until its list of demands is met.
- A food critic walks into a tiny diner on the one night the cook is a nervous first-timer covering for his aunt.
- The office holds a costume day, and only one person remembers.
- A new employee pretends he speaks Italian, and the boss hands him a phone call from Rome.
- A cat strolls into a fancy hotel, and the staff treat it like a very important guest.
- A baker enters a cake contest and accidentally shapes the cake exactly like the judge’s face.
- A courier is hired to deliver a single grape across town, urgently, and treats it like a crown jewel.
- Two strangers swap laundry bags by mistake and must return each other’s very unusual clothes.
- A car’s navigation voice develops opinions and starts insisting on scenic routes and snack breaks.
- Someone accidentally sends the whole office a voice message of themselves singing in the car.
- A beekeeper’s bees go on strike and present a neatly written list of demands.
- A very overprepared hiker carries a complete kitchen up a mountain for a simple picnic.
- A man spends a whole day pretending to know a stranger who greeted him warmly by name.
- A sheep escapes from the county fair and somehow enters itself in the pie contest.
First lines
An opening sentence to copy at the top of the page, then keep going wherever it leads.
- The map was correct in every detail except one: it showed our house twice.
- Nobody in Millbrook had ever seen a hot air balloon land on the bakery roof before.
- The letter was addressed to me, in my own handwriting, and I had never written it.
- On the morning the river turned bright blue, Grandpa Ike opened his umbrella shop early.
- Every Thursday at four, the old man on the bench fed the pigeons, and today the pigeons brought him something.
- I knew it was going to be an unusual Tuesday when the mailbox cleared its throat.
- The new neighbor arrived with seven suitcases, a cello and a goat named Pancake.
- Nobody remembered planting the orange tree in the town square, but there it was, heavy with fruit.
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- The elevator stopped between floors, and the only other passenger began to hum.
- Mabel had collected keys her whole life, and this morning one of them finally fit.
- By the time the snow stopped, the whole town had been rearranged.
- The sign in the shop window said “Closed for Adventure,” but the door was wide open.
- It was the kind of village where even the sheep knew everyone’s business.
- I bought the old typewriter for five dollars, and on the first night it typed back.
- The circus left town on Sunday, but the elephant decided to stay.
- Of all the places to find a sea chart, the back of a cereal box was the least likely.
- My aunt’s garden had only one rule: never pick the blue tomatoes.
- The night train to the coast had one more car than it did in the morning.
- When Theo opened the old suitcase, the smell of the sea filled the whole attic.
- The bakery had used the same cinnamon roll recipe for ninety years, until this morning.
- There are two kinds of people in Pine Hollow: those who have seen the walking hedge, and those who will.
- I had been the town’s only locksmith for thirty years when the first key arrived without a lock.
- The forecast that morning said cloudy, with a chance of giraffes.
- Rosa found the note under the third stair, exactly where the man at the market said it would be.
- The museum closed at five, but nobody had told the dinosaur.
Frequently asked questions
How many writing prompts are there?
There are 150 writing prompts, 25 in each of six categories: fantasy and magic, mystery, science fiction, everyday life with a twist, funny situations, and first lines. The cards and the list on this page use the same set.
How do you use a writing prompt?
Read the prompt once and start writing straight away, before you plan the ending. Ten minutes is enough for a scene, and a short story idea that still interests you afterward can grow into a longer piece. With First lines, copy the sentence at the top of the page and keep going from there.
Can you use these story prompts with a group?
Yes. Everyone can write from the same card for ten minutes and then read their versions aloud, which shows how differently one idea can go. Or pass a single page around the table so each person adds a few sentences. Every prompt is clean, so they suit a writing club, friends on a quiet evening or a mixed table at a family gathering.
What should we play after writing prompts?
Try hypothetical questions, which spark the same kind of what-if thinking out loud instead of on paper. If you would rather pick up a pencil than a pen, things to draw has one drawing idea per card.