35 Story Prompts to Stir Your Imagination

By Daisy Torres

Hello, Writers! 

Today’s article is simple. You see, I love reading story prompts, so I thought I’d write a few to share with y’all! With NaNoWriMo over, a lot of people will be searching for new story ideas, ways to escape the plot holes they’ve written themselves into, or just inspiration for whatever comes their way in the future! Hopefully I can add something here to help y’all with that.

Let’s jump in.

Superhero Prompts

#1: The Hero peers into the darkness, struggling against the ropes she’s bound in. “Who are you?” she asks. 

The villain slowly steps into the light, but his face still remains in shadow. “I am the embodiment of darkness. I have haunted your nightmares for an eternity and death shivers at my name.”

She squints. “Hold on a sec, aren’t you the dude who tripped over my shoe in the bus yesterday and said ‘thanks’?”

#2: You and your brother are famous throughout the city for your superpowers. However, your sibling rivalry is also well-known. It’s not easy fighting a superhero when he’s your brother, but you guys make it work.

#3: The villain and the hero hate each other, so their minions team up to play matchmaker behind their back.

#4: “No!” she cried as Villain threw her close friend off of a skyscraper. Suddenly, her friend began to fly, and she didn’t know how she’d missed it all along. The Villain knew she could levitate objects. He wanted her to save her friend so he could discover her secret identity. She watched Villain’s lips curl into a smirk. He found her. He had won their game of hide-and-seek. But the real battle had just begun.

#5: A small child has a superpower, and their parents know it. They can’t keep pens, markers, chalk, pencils, or paper around, because the moment the child draws something, it comes to life.

Fantasy Prompts

#6: “You’re the Chosen One, but the prophecy says you’re going to be an epic failure and the only way you save anyone is by complete accident.

#7: The main character goes on an adventure to find the object to save the world, only to realize the object was a lie all along.

#8: The magical map to lead your main character to the hidden treasure gets swallowed by a fish. Your characters panic until they realize that this was part of the map’s directions, and now the  fish is the map.

#9: Your epic fantasy adventure takes place underwater. Special races of elves, fairies, and even ogres reside inside the kelp forests. One day, your main character’s closest friend (a prince or princess) is kidnapped by the evil sea witch and carried away on land, which means it’s up to the main character and the palace guards to find them and bring them home. However, when your characters reach the surface, they realize the sea witch has locked them inside the ocean. There has to be a way to escape, but for now, they’re trapped.

#10: You were abandoned at an orphanage as a child. Now, in an orphanage like yours, it’s easy to accept people’s differences when the children are elves, ogres, fairies, mermaids, and everything else. But there had to be a line drawn somewhere. There was no way keeping a dragon here was safe.

#11: In a modern world where cars drive, planes fly, cell phones ring, and everything is normal, fairytale creatures are also perfectly normal. There are selkies working in the marine biology department. Fairies create magical teas that can heal bags under the eyes or a broken leg.  However, things begin to change when an ogre antique owner sees humans. They’re not real. There’s no way she’s seeing a human. But when pieces of their world begin to fade, she’s forced to go on an adventure to stop the fairytales from ending.

Romance Prompts

#12: “Grandma, how did you and Grandpa meet?” “Well, Dear, it all started with a motorcycle and a bank robbery.”

#13:  Jane was a shy person. So shy that she wanted to flirt like a normal person and get her crush’s attention, but instead, she stuck with trying to impress him. Sadly, extreme pranks that accidentally destroyed his car didn’t seem to be working.

#14: An assassin who falls in love with the victim.

#15: The victim, although helpless looking, is actually onto the assassin and tries to make them fall in love with them so he/she can use the assassin to find out who sent them.  Who needs a diamond ring when you can have access to the people who stole your family’s business?

#16: A coffee shop romance where the guy owns a bookshop next door and is very quiet and soft-spoken and the girl is on a constant rush of caffeine and wants to take him to the monster truck races next Thursday.

#17: After growing tired of relatives she saw once or twice a year asking about her non existent relationship status, a popular Instagram influencer cooks up a plan with the pizza delivery guy to pretend to be her new Fiancé. Things escalate however when a murder takes place and everyone is forced to stay the week at her parents’ mansion while the police investigate. The charade gets a whole lot more complicated in this ‘Beauty and the Beast’ retelling.

Science Fiction Prompts

#18: You are a duchess in the year 3029. You have to journey to the Hidden Planet, but the only person who knows it’s location is a dreaded pirate with a stolen spaceship. However, not everything goes according to plan when the captain gets abducted by aliens, which means that if you’re ever going to locate the Hidden World, you’re going to have to save him.

#19: Your main character is an android who wakes up in a space pod alone. Still sleeping is the human they’re assigned to guard, who will have no memory of who they are upon waking up. From what you’ve seen, it’s better for them not to remember what they did.

#20: “I need to talk to a human.” The mechanical chicken looks at you and meows. You furrow your eyebrows at it as you hold your robotic arm. “Look, just take me to your inventor. That’s all I’m asking!” Although, after seeing the meowing chicken, you were beginning to wonder whether you seriously needed the inventor to fix your arm or not...

#21: You are a computer hacker. You’ve created your own virtual world inside your lab where you live, but when a group of rebel spies asks you to join their team and take down the forcefield keeping the citizens trapped inside the city, you are forced to interact with the real world for the first time in years. You wouldn’t even be here if you didn’t need the extra money to fix your favorite computer.

#22: Turn a moment of time into a Sci-Fi story. Perhaps Guy Fawkes and the Gunpowder Plot didn’t happen in old England, but in a world on the edge of collapse.

#23: A young mom lives in a world she knows is fake, but no one has ever escaped. At least, none that have lived to tell about it. However, little Timmy couldn’t help but chase after his  frisbee when it flew into a small hole under a tree near the wall. He came back from his trip telling his mom stories of the outside world. At first, she thought it was just his wild imagination. But the more he described. . . the more she began to realise that he might have been somewhere she hadn’t.

#24: What could a normal Christmas look like a hundred years in the future? Think of a cheesy Hallmark film, then Sci-fi it.

#25: In a world where robots dictate how children are raised, the government decides their system is failing. They need moms back. The problem is, where will they get moms for their child soldiers? Well, they had to start somewhere, and you just happened to be one of the first ones chosen to care for them. However, you don’t plan on going down without a fight.

#26: A street orphan during World War 3 wakes up one morning to find that some wonderful stranger has taken her in and given her the home of her dreams--but in payment, the owner of the home asks her to undertake a very serious mission.

Random Prompts

#27: The bubbly, funny friend of the Main Character has been there forever. They were their shoulder to cry on when the MC couldn’t go on. Who would have guessed they were the villain all along...

#28: Kill the villain unexpectedly and show the hero that the villain was keeping something far more sinister from attacking the kingdom. Now the hero will have to figure out how to take the villain’s place.

#29: In a medieval kingdom, the castle is looking to recruit a new top chef after the old one was accused of trying to poison the prince. You and your family have successfully run a bakery for years, and today the royal messenger has brought a letter saying that you have been selected to run in a competition against nine other bakers, and the entire kingdom will be eagerly listening. You accept, but you weren’t prepared for a group of rebels trying to recruit you during the competition.

#30: After you go visit Grandma for Christmas and see the new ornament she buys from the local thrift store, you’re stuck trying to figure out what to do with the genie you just summoned after rubbing a smudge off the glass.

#31: In the end, the boring, always-perfect-and-cheerful character was actually the villain all along.

#32: When most of your family members--Jason’s too little yet--are members of the Mafia, you tend to hate gathering for the holidays.

#33: The pirate captain looks into your face. “You don’t have the guts to be a captain. You just haven’t realised it yet.” He turns back to the crowd of people before you. Each one of the men you look at is your own, tied and held back by the pirate’s men. “Alright, Captain. Choose one of your men. I am going to give the poor soul a whipping for every one of your men that is here today, or you’ll all die.” He looks at you again. “Which will it be?”

You swallow. You can’t make a decision like that! You care about all of your men. You stare in frightened silence.

“That’s what I thought, Captain. You’re weak. You can’t even make a decision to save your own lives.”

#34: Thanks to a new brand of permanent makeup, people can easily look flawless forever. The only thing is, ugliness becomes the new trend. You just got chosen to model for the next magazine edition of ‘Beauty Queens United’.

#35: Out of the entire company of spies, you and your worst enemy were chosen to pretend you’re a happily engaged couple from high society, where you will stay until you capture the villain. You hate it. He hates it. But you’re both enjoying the taunting you’re able to do to each other without others realizing the truth. However, you think you might actually be falling in love. You need to finish this mission as quickly as possible. You can’t let your acting get to your head.

That’s it, folks! Thanks for reading, and I hope you found something to help you!

Have you ever thought of a fun prompt before? Feel free to share it in the comments!