Inspiration and resources for aspiring writers in speculative fiction
Fiction Writing Prompts
Prompts are great for practicing fiction writing. Fiction writers get their ideas from many places, but prompts allow them to focus on one of the three major aspects of writing without worrying about the ideation process.
Come to this page regularly to get unique fiction writing prompts to increase your creativity, hone your writing skills, think outside the box, and just have fun!
There are many places to find prompts, not only on the internet, but also in your everyday life. One of the aims of this page is to demonstrate the variety of prompts that you can work with.
This page is geared toward short fiction, but can also be helpful with coming up with ideas for your novel chapters, poetry, plays, and any other type of fictional literature.
Fiction writing prompts can be found sitting right under your nose, right around the corner and sometimes somewhere in the horizon. Below are the latest fiction writing prompts from bornfromthedark.com.
Write a story that begins or ends with a page that starts with “While x was gone…” For example
While Mary was gone, John concealed a golden pin inside Mary’s desk. This pin would be the cause of etc., etc., etc. This is the beginning of the story.
While John was gone, Mary slipped a sealed letter into John’s backpack, which informed him she filed for divorce, thus ending their 40-year marriage and a sequence of events that is only hinted at since this is the ending of the story.
By placing this phrase anywhere in the story, you give space to some character or characters while others are gone. It’s a nice way to shift focus in a scene or story.
Write a story that begins with a tragedy, but not a death.
The middle of the story should contain a climax where the main character sits face-to-face with their sworn enemy who is allegedly responsible for the tragedy.
The end of the first part of the story should show the main character resolving their conflict with their enemy.
That resolution creates another tragedy which would ultimately create another cycle of conflict, climax and resolution.
However, the story ends here.
The main character can relate to this new cycle in any way you see fit.