With the sheer number of avenues and platforms available to get yourself heard today, it should not be surprising that every second person wants to drum up an engaging story that speaks to your imagination, cut through the noise and bask in the glory.
The writers who came of age before the emergence of the internet would dedicate countless hours and isolate themselves in attempts to let the words flow like water. However, the internet age does not make this easy. Considering the enormous amount of stimulation that the internet offers, one can find that it is incredibly challenging to stay utterly focused on the task at hand.
With that said, gone are the days where you would have to sit on a mountain top to come up with the name of the protagonist. You may argue that inspiration barely ever hits you, but you ought to know that the existence of a story prompt generator can simplify your life.
If you are planning to shake off writer’s block and come up with a short story in a matter of minutes, be sure to use a story prompt generator. A story prompt generator choose your type of character, the scene, conflict, resolution, secondary character, name of the place the scene takes place in, adjectives to describe the place, character descriptions, and a whole lot more. The generator uses the information you provide to produce a story.
Before you start writing, you need to decide what kind of story you want to write. In other words, you ought to decide the type of emotion you want to evoke with this story. Here is how you can use story prompts to write stories of different genres.
Horror Writing Prompts
Writing a horror story often requires you to have a certain way with words to invoke fear in the reader. Triggering fear, which is a primal instinct, can lead to an adrenaline rush and have the reader eager to find out what happens next.
Setting up an eerie atmosphere with ominous undertones and creating characters that complement this setting is no mean feat. Crafting a story out of thin air is challenging, to say the least, let alone coming up with a well thought out horror storyline that pushes all the right buttons.
However, if you want to get into the world of horror writing, you can use the following story prompts to get started.
- A woman jogging stumbles upon a dead, bloody body — she then hears a strange clicking sound and looks up to see a dark figure running towards her.
- A young man confesses to a killing that has not happened. The murder he describes takes place while he is in custody.
- The man leans into you. There is a dark red, almost black color to the whites of his eyes. He is so close his nose is almost touching your nose. You can feel his breath when he says, “We all have it in here. We are all infected.
- An astronaut is the sole survivor of a planet landing gone wrong — only to discover that the planet is infested with strange creatures.
- A boy wakes up to find a little girl sitting on his bed, claiming to be his younger sister — but he never had one.
Adult writing prompts
As an adult writer, you are probably looking to tackle a plethora of topics of all types and complexity levels. Adult writers typically include sophisticated themes like death, romance, sex, heartbreak, spirituality, nihilism, and many more. Unlike young-adult writers, these writers tend to cater to a much more mature audience that wants a certain level of depth in the stories they read.
While you have so much to experiment with, it is probably the number of options you have that stops you from writing your first words. If you want to take the plunge into the world of adult writing, consider using the following adult writing prompts.
- My deepest secret
- The last time he saw her
- On the other side of the town
- Everyone else was grieving
- That was his idea not mine
- It was time to look for another partner
- The place she used to hide out
- The one thing she will remember for the rest of her life
- My mother used to tell me
- Suddenly, everyone was staring at me
- It seemed that this was just a game for them
- Obviously, that was completely illegal
- It was definitely worth a try
- Crying uncontrollably
Comedy Writing
Comedy writing is another genre that gets a lot of attention from consumers and writers alike. Stand-up comedians would attest that getting a laugh from their audience is one of the most fulfilling feelings they could ever experience.
However, stagefright, among other things, tends to hold most people back from getting into comedy. Many people prefer to write jokes, funny skits, stories, anecdotes, and things of that nature online and offline. Fortunately, you have story prompts for comedy, just like you have them for other genres. Here are a few prompts you can use to get started:
- A world where cats and dogs rule Earth.
- A bigot’s soul is transferred into a minority’s body.
- Someone believes that they are a fantastic athlete, but nothing could be further from the truth.
- A character desperate for a job accepts a position as an interpreter, but can’t actually speak the native language.
- Mark Twain is transferred into the future to experience what life is like now.
- An egotistical genius is suddenly stripped of their intelligence.
Story prompts make for a highly useful tool for those who are just getting started as well as veterans who suffer writer’s block.
