100 Writing Prompts (1-50)"

*Collected from Pinterest and various websites. Please enjoy. 


1. You find out that pills you've been taking since childhood to supposedly help your weak immune system actually suppress your supernatural powers.

2. Write about a character who finds themselves trapped within a burning building. The catch? Just as they think they're about to die-they're enveloped by the flames and warded from further damage. Double catch? This character had no idea, but they're the descendants of a forgotten race.

3. A young child builds a time machine and attempts to undo the fights and affairs that led to his parents divorce.

4. A depressed office secretary behind having strange dreams where she is floating over the surface of the planet. She waves oceans into existence, and creates mountains with a thought. She spends her days trapped behind a desk and at night, she is a goddess.

5. She could never get used to the cage.

6. You work in an office with a superhero who thinks he/she's hiding his/her identity. Everybody knows and covers for him/her, even when he/she regularly lets it slip by accident.

7. A fair has come to town with a strange funhouse. Inside is a mirror that shows the viewer the last thing they'll see before they die.

8. Everyone carries a mark that tells the number of lives they have lived. Write about a character who hides the fact that their mark is an infinity symbol.

9. Instead of having laws controlling the population, each person has laws assigned to them specifically. Some people aren't allowed to murder, some aren't allowed to wear green. They forgot to tell you what your law was, but your forty seven and you still haven't broken it.

10. "Dance with me and pretend the world doesn't exist," he pleaded. And after that, there was no going back.

11. Start your story with this sentence: The world did not end in a bang, or a whisper, but rather, one scream at a time.

12. In the end, they were all made of flesh that can be cut, and bones that can be broken.

13. You find a stack if "Missing Persons" news clippings under your parents' bed. All with your photo.

14. Every person has a certain word that, if spoken aloud in their presence, will cause them to die instantly. While cleaning out an abandoned storage unit, you stumble upon a book that contains the name of every living person-and also reveals their death word.

15. When someone's heart breaks so does a piece of our world; this creates fissures, valleys, and even cracks in the pavement. Tell the story behind the Grand Canyon.

16. Every hundred years the Seven Deadly sins meet in hell for a tournament. The winner earns the right to be humanity's most prominent sin until the next tournament come around.

17. A gifted writer creates a best-selling novel called The Saddest Story. Anyone unlucky enough to read it commits suicide.

18. She distanced herself, to save herself.

19. Describe a wedding from three different points of views.

20. Use the lyrics of your favorite song as the basis for a short story.

21. He found the journal on the train

22. She pulled the knife from her chest and smiled. "Was that supposed to hurt?"

23. The rain was warm and heavy, falling slowly as he walked the streets.

24. There was something about him. Something about the way he watched me.

25. With that, she walked into the rain and didn't look back. That was the last time anyone ever saw her.

26. "She died doing what she loved: swearing profusely."

27. Her life is on the rocks, a young person learns that she can make any person happy by just pointing at them. Any person but herself. Title: "I Aim to Please."

28. Everyone knows about soul mates. What they don't know is soul enemies.

29. As my story came to a close I realized that I was the villain all along.

30. An anti-social girl discovers that she can lead her body and explore the "astral world", and alternate reality accessible only to sprits. As she spends more and more time in the astral world, her life begins to fall apart.

31. "I was seven years old when my teacher told me that the most colorful incests were also the most venomous ones and I was sixteen years old when I looked in to your green eyes and realized that he had been right all along."

32. Write about a character who can't laugh.

33. Write a scene that takes place immediately after a tragedy. Don't mention the tragedy.

34. These vegetables came from a special garden and gave anyone who ate them magical powers.

35. You are a twelve years old son of a professional assassin. Describe what you observe at home.

36. "Children shouldn't play with guns." "Who said I was playing?"

37. A couple visits a fortune teller who reveals that they will have three children. The first will never reach full potential. The second is destined to conquer the planet. The third child will stop the second child.

38. Waking up with a dagger pointed at your throat is exactly as terrifying as you'd think it is.

39. You've been waiting for an hour. She's never late. Something is wrong.

40. She blames herself for the battles. I blame myself for the war.

41. "Kill the child. It's the right thing to do."

42. "Remember boy, history is written by the victors."

43. It wasn't my idea to destroy it. But it was my job to get it done.

44. The kind of girl no one would go looking for.

45. She never spoke, never made a sound, but the look in her eyes told me exactly what was about to happen.

46. They said I couldn't make it this far. I wish they had been right.

47. Comatose in her hospital bed, she could hear every word they said. She wished she couldn't.

48. You lifelong friend has a knife in their hand and is slowly advancing on you.

49. She sat in the emergency ward, wondering why it had been her that was spared.

50. It was all a blur. A very fun violence-filled blur.

How To Start A Novel

Hey everyone! I know it's been a little while since I've posted anything on this site, but you know how life is. It's been pretty hectic, but here I am with a brand new topic: how to start a novel.

Find an idea. That's the first step. You can't write a novel without an idea as the foreground. I suggest either using things that you may have gone through in your life as a small seed. Slowly began to water it with possibilities, questions, settings, etc and see where it takes you. If that's not good enough, then search Pinterest for writing prompts or head to Google. I know I've gotten my fair share of ideas from simple writing prompts.

Once you jump over that first hurdle, congratulations. You now have a starting point to your novel.

Now the outlining. Give your idea some thought after you've jotted every little thing that you've managed to come with. Of course everyone's different and you might just dive straight in without a plan, but I prefer to have an outline with the basic things I want in each chapter. From there I just let the words flow. Your chapter outlines don't have to be super long and detailed, but there should at least be enough information for a good foundation. Figure out what it is your wanting in your story like say for example, a girl who is into drugs since that's all she's been around. Well, find a way to take that story line and turn it into a full fledged story. You could talk about her outings all the time and the way people may not treat her the way they should and it all connects to little incidents in her childhood that turned her into the person she is today and each memory ties in with the future. You just have to think and use your imagination.

Plot/Theme. What's your main plot? What are you going for? This is around the time when you can start revising your outline slightly and look for little things to add or fix. It's a little to soon to have a theme to whatever you're writing, but if you have a slight idea, that's a pretty decent start.

Setting. Maybe not as important, but it's nice to have some idea as to where you want your characters living. I recommend not using a place you've never visited. It's a little hard to describe a place you've never been to or lived in before. It might be best to use a place you've been to multiple times and you have a pretty good idea of the layout, or maybe where you live. It won't kill you to have your characters living in the same area as you. That or you could create a small desolate town in the middle of nowhere. That also works if you aren't really in the mood to say what state they're in or the country.

Characters. Ah, now this is my favorite part of the whole process to be honest. I love designing characters and I coincidentally always make them slightly like me. It's so not on purpose. Now, as for characters start with a name. It could be a random name that you just love, or you could try to find a name that intersects with what your books about. That's always something fun to do, so I recommend researching names on the internet and looking through baby name sites until you find the right one. Once that happens, try getting as general idea of what your character looks like, their personality, etc and expand soon after into minor details the normal person wouldn't notice and delve deep into their psyche. You might not use every little detail in your novel, but at least your character will feel more like a person rather than a cardboard cut out.

Titling. Now for some this is easy, but for me, this is can be a real pain in the ass. I don't recommend fretting over a title before you've even started the story. It'll come to you as you move forward with your story. You'll probably find a line you love or even a theme or mood you notice throughout. If that doesn't work, try looking for song titles that seem to fit in with your book or take a glance at the lyrics. Don't stress over it to much, so until you come up with a title, either use a working title or put it down as 'Untitled'.

WRITE!!!

Now it's up to you to take everything that you've created from the basic little outlines you've created and now you have the keyboard (or pen and paper. Whichever you prefer) at your fingertips. You can create a brand new world or inspire people with your words. Just have fun with it.

*Don't forget! First drafts aren't always perfect, so ignoring the inner critic, just write until you hearts content until editing time. At that point, let God have mercy on your soul, because editing is a bitch.

-WriterChick