3. Misheard Lyrics. Think of some of the song lyrics you have misheard throughout the years. Pick your favorite, and use these misheard lyrics as the title of a new creative writing piece. Write a story, scene, or poem based on this title.
Because I am an improviser, I get my best writing done when I have some sort of suggestion to get me going. Just like using a suggestion from the audience can give improvisers the setup to begin a scene, a small kernel of an idea is all I need to nudge me in the direction of a productive first draft of a short piece of writing.
These ideas mostly come from a small notebook I carry around to jot down ideas whenever they come to me and would probably make no sense to anyone else if they read my notes—such as “that time I put a rubber chicken in my purse and brought it to school” or “letter to that annoying kid Byron in the line at Dollar Tree.” Or sometimes it’s an idea that I’ve been obsessing over recently.
One of my favorite things to do each week is to write the Tuesday writing prompts for WD, because I get to play the role of suggestion-giver for anyone who reads them. My hope is that my random ideas that make enough sense to share on the internet inspire WD readers the next time they are looking for something to get their creative juices flowing—whether that inspiration is for a new short story, the next plot thread in their novel, a comedy sketch, etc.
Thanks to all the WD readers who have voiced their love for these writing prompts in the comments and on Twitter, I’m encouraged to keep sharing new ideas here every week. Here are 100 suggestions to get you started on your next writing session.
Have you hit a wall on your work-in-progress? Maybe you know where you want your characters to end up, but don’t know how to get them there. Or, the story feels a little stale but you still believe in it. Adding a plot twist might be just the solution.
Writing Prompts
“Are you going to arrange a meeting with her or what?” “Oh, I am. Somewhere with a TON of witnesses so you don”t kill each other.” | The Fake Redhead’s Writing Prompt Number 597 from TheFakeRedhead.com #Prompt #Writing #Dialogue #Inspiration #Read #Fiction #Starter #Conversation #Novel #Story #WritersCorner
“When you”re at the meeting, just don”t look directly at anyone. Or anything.” | The Fake Redhead’s Writing Prompt Number 596 from TheFakeRedhead.com #Prompt #Writing #Dialogue #Inspiration #Read #Fiction #Starter #Conversation #Novel #Story #WritersCorner
“Everyone thinks I”m really well put together, but I”ve only brushed my hair once this week.” | The Fake Redhead’s Writing Prompt Number 594 from TheFakeRedhead.com #Prompt #Writing #Dialogue #Inspiration #Read #Fiction #Starter #Conversation #Novel #Story #WritersCorner
“Running with the devil is just so much more fun.” | The Fake Redhead’s Writing Prompt Number 593 from TheFakeRedhead.com #Prompt #Writing #Dialogue #Inspiration #Read #Fiction #Starter #Conversation #Novel #Story #WritersCorner
“It”s really inconvenient to see your face every time I turn a corner.” | The Fake Redhead’s Writing Prompt Number 592 from TheFakeRedhead.com #Prompt #Writing #Dialogue #Inspiration #Read #Fiction #Starter #Conversation #Novel #Story #WritersCorner
“What do you have against opera houses?” | The Fake Redhead’s Writing Prompt Number 591 from TheFakeRedhead.com #Prompt #Writing #Dialogue #Inspiration #Read #Fiction #Starter #Conversation #Novel #Story #WritersCorner
54 Other Writing Prompt Ideas
#24: Keep an eye out in your environment for examples of greengrocer”s apostrophes and rogue quotation marks. Pick an example and write about what the misplaced punctuation implies (e.g., we have the "best" meat or we have the best "meat").
#32: Sometimes, family is who we are related to; sometimes, family is a group of people we gather around ourselves. Write a story about (some of) a character’s found family and relatives meeting for the first time.
This particular ghost seems to be going on an epic quest to. photograph some ancient artifacts and not steal them? Look, fiction can be whatever you want it to be.
#38: Heists don’t just have to be black-clad thieves stealing into vaults to steal rare art or money. Write about a group of people (adults or children) who commit a heist for something of seemingly little monetary value.
#39: "Life is like a chooseable-path adventure, except you don’t get to see what would have happened if you chose differently." Think of a choice you’ve made and write about a world where you made a different choice.
How to Use Creative Writing Prompts
#1: DON’T Limit Yourself to Prose
Unless you’re writing for a particular assignment, there’s no reason everything you write in response to a writing prompt has to be prose fiction. Instead of writing your response to a prompt as a story, try writing a poem, nonfiction essay, play, screenplay, or some other format entirely.
You never know what combination of prompt and medium will spark your next great poem/story/play/nonfiction essay! Plus, taking a break from writing in the same format all the time might make you think about story structure or language in a different way.
#2: DON’T Edit as You Write
It’s OK to fix things that will make it difficult to read what you’ve written (e.g., a weird autocorrect that changes the meaning of a sentence), but don’t worry too much about typos or perfect grammar when you’re writing; those are easy enough to fix in edits. You also can always insert asterisks or a short note as you’re writing to remind yourself to go back to fix something (for instance, if as you’re writing it seems like you want to move around the order of your paragraphs or insert something earlier).
#3: DO Interpret the Prompt Broadly
The point of using a writing prompt is not to write something that best exemplifies the prompt, but something that sparks your own creativity. Again, unless you’re writing in response to an assignment with specific directions, feel free to interpret writing prompts as broadly or as narrowly as you want.
For instance, if your prompt is to write a story that begins with "The stage was set," you could write about anything from someone preparing to put a plan into motion to a literal theatre stage constructed out of pieces of old sets (or something else entirely).
#4: DO Try Switching Up Your Writing Methods
If it’s a possibility for you, see if you write differently in different media. Do you write the same kind of stories by hand as you would typing at a computer? What about if you dictate a story and then transcribe it? Or text it to a friend? Varying the method you use to write can affect the stories you’re able to tell.
For example, you may find that it’s easier for you to tell stories about your life to a voice recorder than to try to write out a personal essay. Or maybe you have trouble writing poetry, but can easily text yourself or a friend a poem. You might even find you like a writing method you’ve not tried before better than what you’ve been doing!
#5: DO Mix and Match Prompt Ideas
You can also try switching genres from what might be suggested in the prompt. For instance, try writing a prompt that seems funny in a serious and sad way, or finding the humor in something that otherwise seems humorless. The categories we’ve organized the prompts into are by no means limiters on what you’re allowed to write about.
#6: DO Try to Write Regularly
For some people, this means writing daily; for others, it means setting aside time to write each weekend or each month. Set yourself an achievable goal (write 2x a week, write 1000 words a month) and stick to it. You can always start small and then ramp your wordcount or frequency up.
If you do better when you have something outside yourself prompting to write, you may also want to try something like morning pages, which encourages you to write at least 750 words every day, in any format (story, diary entry, social media postings, etc).
Sources:
https://www.writersdigest.com/be-inspired/creative-writing-prompts-for-writers
https://www.pinterest.com/fakeredhead47/writing-prompts/
https://blog.prepscholar.com/creative-writing-prompts
Writing prompts
In “Can Motherhood Be a Mode of Rebellion?” an essay published in the New Yorker, Jia Tolentino writes about Essential Labor: Mothering as Social Change (Harper Wave, 2022) by Angela Garbes, a book analyzing the state of caregiving in America, and reflects on the experience of hiring a nanny for “a job so crucial and difficult that it seems objectively holy.” This week think of a job that is often unappreciated or unacknowledged and write a story from the perspective of a character who works this job. How can you render their perspective through detailed observations of the world around them?
Forty-Four Short Story Ideas
Here are lots of short story ideas that you can use as writing prompts. Use these story starters on their own or to get ideas for the CWN online writing courses. You’ll also find links to more creative writing prompts at the bottom of the page.
- A babysitter is snooping around her employer’s house and finds a disturbing photograph.
- At a Chinese restaurant, your character opens his fortune cookie and reads the following message: "Your life is in danger. Say nothing to anyone. You must leave the city immediately and never return. Repeat: say nothing.".
- Your character’s boss invites her and her husband to dinner. Your character wants to make a good impression, but her husband has a tendency to drink too much and say exactly what’s on his mind.
- It’s your character’s first day at a new school. He or she wants to get a fresh start, develop a new identity. But in his or her homeroom, your character encounters a kid he or she knows from summer camp.
- Your character has to tell his parents that he’s getting a divorce. He knows his parents will take his wife’s side, and he is right.
- At the airport, a stranger offers your character money to carry a mysterious package onto the plane. The stranger assures your character that it’s nothing illegal and points out that it has already been through the security check. Your character has serious doubts, but needs the money, and therefore agrees.
- Your character suspects her husband is having an affair and decides to spy on him. What she discovers is not what she was expecting.
- A man elbows your character in a crowd. After he is gone, she discovers her cell phone is too. She calls her own number, and the man answers. She explains that the cell phone has personal information on it and asks the man to send it back to her. He hangs up. Instead of going to the police, your character decides to take matters into her own hands.
- After your character loses his job, he is home during the day. That’s how he discovers that his teenage son has a small marijuana plantation behind the garage. Your character confronts his son, who, instead of acting repentant, explains to your character exactly how much money he is making from the marijuana and tries to persuade your character to join in the business.
- At a garage sale, your character buys an antique urn which she thinks will look nice decorating her bookcase. But when she gets home, she realizes there are someone’s ashes in it.
Self-Awareness
“We talk a lot about bodies: from their right to safety and respect to how they take up space, from their sizes and shapes and shades to what each is able to do, it’s a conversation that’s both constant and ever-evolving,” write editors Nicole Chung and Matt Ortile in the introduction to Body Language: Writers on Identity, Physicality, and Making Space for Ourselves, forthcoming in July from Catapult. In this wide-ranging collection of personal narratives, writers take on the subject of the body through various lenses; for instance, Natalie Lima documents the ways men fetishize her size and Melissa Hung reflects on how swimming eases her chronic headaches. Write a story in which your protagonist is made aware of their body. How does this new awareness affect the way they carry themselves in the world? Does their relationship to their own body change, and if so, does the language you use to describe your character change too?
A still life, according to Merriam-Webster, is “a picture consisting predominantly of inanimate objects,” but in Jay Hopler’s Still Life, published in June by McSweeney’s, the term takes on new meaning. Hopler, who was diagnosed with terminal prostate cancer in 2017, charges his poems with sharp observations of the body and lyrical ruminations that wander well beyond the traditional associations of a still life. In “still life w/ hands” he writes: “poor dumb lugs what loves you not the butterfly knife not the corkscrew. ” In “still life w/ wet gems” he writes from a more fractured perspective: “lightnings bang their jaggeds on the cloud-glower / the cloud-glower is a broken necklace spilling its wet gems / its wet gems w/ facets cut are uncountable / uncountable the reflections of the world in those gems.” Inspired by Hopler’s Still Life, write a still-life poem of your own. Will your poem consider inanimate objects or living things, actions, emotions? Use this exercise as an opportunity to challenge a familiar perspective and consider a new viewpoint.
High school writing prompts
Creative Writing Prompts for High Schoolers
- If you had a time machine, where would you visit first — the past or the future? Why?
- Write a story about someone your age who lives on the other side of the world.
- Pick up the nearest book and turn to page 7. Close your eyes and point to a random word on the page, then write a story about that word.
- Write a story in ten words or less.
- You fell asleep for 100 years. What does the world look like when you wake up?
- Finish the story: “This isn’t what I hoped would happen,” she said….
- You’re walking down the street when you see someone who looks exactly like you.
- Write a story where the main character learns something new about themselves.
- Write a story that takes place in the desert.
- Write a story about a day where everything seems to go wrong.
- Write a poem about the color blue.
- Write the funniest story you can think of.
- How would your life be different if you didn’t have access to a computer, video games or your phone?
Fun writing prompts for high schoolers
- You win a million dollars, but there’s a catch — you have to spend it all in 24 hours, or you lose all the money. What do you do?
- Write about something you or your family does from the perspective of someone from another country.
- If you could make up a new holiday, when would it be and what would it celebrate?
- Go out on a nature walk and find a tree. Write the story of that tree, from the time it was a seed until now.
- What’s the most boring superpower you can think of? How would it be useful?
- If you could pass any law, what would it be?
- You meet yourself in the future, as a grown-up at age 35 — what do you talk about?
- If you had to show aliens the most important/best things in the world, what would you show them?
- Who is your hero and why?
- Write about the best surprise you ever got.
- What are three good things you can do for the environment? How can you encourage the people around you to do good things for the environment?
- If you could write a book about anything, what would you write about?
- What is your earliest memory? Write down as many details as you can remember.
- If you could take two people – real or fictional – on a cross-country road trip, who would you take? Where would you go?
- If you could have any job in the world tomorrow, what would you do?
- What is the best thing about living in your city or neighbourhood?
- Write a letter to your 30-year-old self. What do you think you’ll accomplish by then?
- Teach me how to make your favorite recipe.
- Describe the sound of your favorite song using descriptive words.
Persuasive writing prompts for high school
Social emotional learning journal prompts
School is about more than just books and quizzes — it’s about preparing students for the rest of their lives. Social emotional learning teaches them how to build good relationships with peers, understand and control their emotions and make healthy life decisions.
- Tell me about a tradition you have with your family or friends.
- What’s the best gift you’ve ever received?
- Have you ever found something that you lost? How did you feel when you found it?
- What is something you haven’t learned this school year that you’re still wondering about?
- What do you do when you’re angry? Write about three ways you calm yourself down.
- Where do you feel the safest? Why do you feel safe there?
- Write a poem to make a friend happy.
- When was the last time you were kind to someone? How can you be kind to someone today?
- How are you feeling today? Are you happy, sad, excited or anxious?
- If you could give your best friend a present, what would it be?
- What are the qualities you look for in a friend? Why is it important to be a good friend?
- What does responsibility mean to you?
- Who do you talk to when you’re worried about something? How do they make you feel better?
- If you could make a card for anyone in your life, who would it be for and what would it say?
- What’s your favorite thing about yourself?
- Write about a time you had to make a hard decision. How did you make your decision?
- What do you do to make yourself happy when you’re sad?
- Write about a time you were disappointed.
- What are three things that make your best friend awesome?
- What do you think empathy means? Why is it important?
- How can you cheer up a friend who is sad?
- What makes you a good friend? How can you be a better friend?
- What’s the best piece of advice a friend, parent or teacher has ever given you?
- Write three goals for the rest of the school year. How are you going to accomplish them?
- What does responsibility mean to you? What are you responsible for at school and at home?
- What person in your life makes you feel confident?
- What scares you? How can you overcome your fears?
- Tell me about a time when you tried something new. How did it feel? Did you do it again?
Sources:
https://www.creative-writing-now.com/short-story-ideas.html
https://www.pw.org/writing-prompts-exercises
https://www.prodigygame.com/main-en/blog/writing-prompts-for-kids/
Writing prompts
Once you have determined your niche, research others who provide the same type of content. What posts are most popular? This is your passion; think about what information you would search for, and come up with a list of topics to write about. From there, see what content gaps exist in your niche, and then fill them with the best possible content.
Forty-Four Short Story Ideas
Here are lots of short story ideas that you can use as writing prompts. Use these story starters on their own or to get ideas for the CWN online writing courses. You’ll also find links to more creative writing prompts at the bottom of the page.
- A babysitter is snooping around her employer’s house and finds a disturbing photograph.
- At a Chinese restaurant, your character opens his fortune cookie and reads the following message: "Your life is in danger. Say nothing to anyone. You must leave the city immediately and never return. Repeat: say nothing.".
- Your character’s boss invites her and her husband to dinner. Your character wants to make a good impression, but her husband has a tendency to drink too much and say exactly what’s on his mind.
- It’s your character’s first day at a new school. He or she wants to get a fresh start, develop a new identity. But in his or her homeroom, your character encounters a kid he or she knows from summer camp.
- Your character has to tell his parents that he’s getting a divorce. He knows his parents will take his wife’s side, and he is right.
- At the airport, a stranger offers your character money to carry a mysterious package onto the plane. The stranger assures your character that it’s nothing illegal and points out that it has already been through the security check. Your character has serious doubts, but needs the money, and therefore agrees.
- Your character suspects her husband is having an affair and decides to spy on him. What she discovers is not what she was expecting.
- A man elbows your character in a crowd. After he is gone, she discovers her cell phone is too. She calls her own number, and the man answers. She explains that the cell phone has personal information on it and asks the man to send it back to her. He hangs up. Instead of going to the police, your character decides to take matters into her own hands.
- After your character loses his job, he is home during the day. That’s how he discovers that his teenage son has a small marijuana plantation behind the garage. Your character confronts his son, who, instead of acting repentant, explains to your character exactly how much money he is making from the marijuana and tries to persuade your character to join in the business.
- At a garage sale, your character buys an antique urn which she thinks will look nice decorating her bookcase. But when she gets home, she realizes there are someone’s ashes in it.
Even more short story ideas
- Your character starts receiving flowers and anonymous gifts. She doesn’t know who is sending them. Her husband is suspicious, and the gifts begin to get stranger.
- A missionary visits your character’s house and attempts to convert her to his religion. Your character is trying to get rid of him just as storm warning sirens go off. Your character feels she can’t send the missionary out into the storm, so she lets him come down into her basement with her. This is going to be a long storm.
- Your character is caught shoplifting. The shop owner says that she won’t call the police in exchange for a personal favor.
- Your character is visiting his parents over a holiday. He is returning some books to the library for his mother and is startled to notice that the librarian looks exactly like him, only about thirty years older. He immediately begins to suspect that his mother had an affair at one time and the librarian is his real father.
- Your character picks up a hitch-hiker on her way home from work. The hitch-hiker tries to persuade your character to leave everything and drive her across the country.
- Your character has to sell the house where she grew up. A potential buyer comes to look at it and begins to talk about all of the changes she would make to the place. This upsets your character, who decides she wants to find a buyer who will leave everything the way it has always been.
- A bat gets in the house. Your character’s husband becomes hysterical, frightened that it might be rabid. In his panic, he ends up shutting the bat in a room with your character while he calls an exterminator from a safe place in the house. His behavior makes your character see her husband in a new way.
- Your character changes jobs in order to have more time with his family. But his family doesn’t seem interested in having him around.
- Your character develops the idea that she can hear the voices of the dead on a certain radio channel. She decides to take advantage of this channel to find answers to some questions that are bothering her about her dead parents.
- Your character’s dream is to be a professional dancer. At a party, she mentions this dream to a stranger, who says that he has contacts in the dance world and gets her an audition for a prestigious dance troupe. One problem: your character doesn’t know how to dance. Your character decides to accept the audition anyway and look for a solution.
- Your character thinks her boss is looking for an excuse to fire her. She decides to fight back.
- Your character goes out for dinner on a date and becomes attracted to the waiter or waitress.
- Your character notices that a stranger is following her. She pretends not to notice. The stranger follows her home and watches her go inside. Then when he leaves, your character turns the tables and starts to follow him.
- A child moves into a new house and finds out that the other kids in town think it’s haunted. She begins to invent ghost stories to tell at school in order to get attention. But the more stories she tells, the more frightened she becomes of the house.
- Your elderly character escapes from the retirement home where his or her children have placed him or her.
- Your character gets cosmetic surgery in an attempt to make her boyfriend love her more. But then she worries he only loves her for her looks.
- Your character is a writer. But his new neighbors are so noisy that he can neither work nor sleep. He decides to take action.
- Your character’s mother-in-law comes to visit for a week, and your character suspects she is trying to poison him. He shares his suspicion with his wife, who says he’s always hated her mother but this accusation is going too far. Meanwhile, your character has stomach cramps, and his mother-in-law is downstairs making breakfast again.
- It’s a freezing cold night. Your character finds a homeless family on his doorstep and invites them into his home to sleep. But in the morning, the family doesn’t leave.
- Your character has recently married a man with two teenage children. The children resent her, and she tries to avoid them altogether. Then her new husband (their father) disappears suddenly, leaving only a short good-bye note.
Bestseller
Margo Hoff’s 1945 painting, Murder Mystery, portrays a reader propped up in bed late at night with their head buried in the pages of a book. Hoff’s stylized forms, intricate patterns, and dark palette make the scene mysterious, reminding us of how the tone of a good story can affect our experience of the world.
Imagine you are writing a fictional novel that will one day be a bestseller. You think your story is interesting and exciting, but now you need a title. What title would you give your book? What genre does it fall into—mystery, fantasy, science fiction, or something else? What is the conflict that drives your story? How might it be resolved or worked through? Write a summary of your story for the back cover—but don’t give away the ending!
Scoop.it
This content curation site is useful not just for distributing your own content, but for finding other great marketing resources and useful content to share with your followers. Scoop.it users add their own content to the site, along with a description, allowing other people to view that content according to topic. It’s basically just one big platform for sharing things, and—as we all know—sharing is caring. Especially in the world of marketing.
If you think infographics are super cool, but you haven’t the foggiest idea how to create one of your own, have no fear—Piktochart is here. This site allows you to make professional infographics quickly and easily. Infographics can be great forms of visually interesting content; if you don’t have any for your site yet, I recommend that you check out this cool marketing resource. Did I mention that it’s free?
Google Drive
While not strictly a marketing resource, Google Drive can be a content marketing team’s best friend. If you’re working with a team of people, this large online storage space can help you share files and collaborate without having to deal with the hassle of over-sized email attachments. Google Drive also allows you to work on the same content from different computers, tablets, and even smartphones. If you want to have access to your work wherever you go, or if you’d like other people to have access to it, Google Drive might be the site for you.
The age of content marketing is here, and with it, an abundance of resources for marketers like you and me. If you make use of some of the resources above, you’ll surely have an easier time navigating the competitive and complex world of content marketing. You might even have a bit of fun along the way.
Sources:
https://www.creative-writing-now.com/short-story-ideas.html
https://www.artic.edu/visit-us-virtually/get-creative-at-home/creative-writing-prompts
http://writingprompts.com/