Fantasy · Kids (6–12) · Flash fiction
Story Prompt Generator
Random story ideas you can start writing now. Pick a genre, an age group and a length.
140 original prompts · 9 genres · Kids, teens and adults · Free
139 unseen prompts in this selection (140 total). No repeats until you have seen them all.
How to turn a story prompt into a story
- Find the want. Decide what your main character wants in the first paragraph, and what stands in the way.
- Start late. Open as close to the problem as you can. Skip the alarm clock and breakfast.
- Raise it once. Make one thing go wrong halfway, so the character has to choose.
- End on a change. The character, or the reader's view of them, should be different at the end.
- Set a timer. 15 minutes for flash fiction is enough to get a full draft down. Revise tomorrow.
Teachers: choose Kids or Teens, Flash fiction and 5 per draw, then print the whole selection as a handout. Writing groups: draw one prompt and one challenge, give everyone 20 minutes, and compare how differently the same idea goes.
What the filters mean
Age group
- Kids (6–12) (44): Simple stakes, kind endings, no frightening detail.
- Teens (13–17) (42): School, friendship, identity and bigger choices.
- Adults (54): Complex characters, moral weight, darker themes.
Length
- Flash fiction (47): under 1,000 words.
- Short story (58): 1,000–7,500 words.
- Novel or series idea (35): a premise big enough for chapters.
Browse all 140 story prompts by genre
The same prompts the generator uses. Open a genre to read them all.
🐉 Fantasy story prompts (17)
Fantasy prompts for kids
- A dragon the size of a teacup moves into your pencil case and refuses to leave until you help it find its mother. (Flash fiction)
- Every night at midnight the books in the school library swap stories. Tonight, one character gets stuck in the wrong book. (Short story)
- You find a key that opens any door, but only once. Which door do you choose, and what is behind it? (Flash fiction)
- A young wizard's spell to clean their room works too well, and now the whole town is spotless and nothing can get dirty. (Short story)
- A girl discovers her grandmother's garden is the last doorway into a kingdom of talking plants, and the doorway is closing. (Novel or series idea)
- A unicorn arrives at school for show-and-tell and will not stop correcting the teacher. (Flash fiction)
Fantasy prompts for teens
- On your sixteenth birthday everyone receives a magical gift. Yours is the one nobody has had for three hundred years, and it scares the adults. (Short story)
- A thief is hired to steal a crown, only to learn the crown chooses the next ruler, and it has chosen them. (Novel or series idea)
- Your reflection starts moving a second before you do. (Flash fiction)
- In a city where emotions are sold as glowing jars, a teenager finds a jar labelled with their own name. (Short story)
- Two rival apprentices are the only ones who survive the night their academy vanishes. They must work together to find out who erased it. (Novel or series idea)
Fantasy prompts for adults
- A retired hero is asked to come back for one last quest, but the villain they defeated years ago is now the kingdom's most beloved ruler. (Short story)
- The god of lost things keeps a shop. Today a customer comes in looking for something they never had. (Flash fiction)
- Magic is powered by memories, and the court mage has been quietly spending the queen's. (Novel or series idea)
- A cartographer's maps change the land they describe. Someone has paid them to draw a border that should not exist. (Short story)
- The last dragon applies for a job at the bank. (Flash fiction)
- A healer who can take on other people's injuries is drafted into a war where both sides want her alive. (Novel or series idea)
🚀 Science fiction story prompts (17)
Science fiction prompts for kids
- Your robot dog has learned to talk, and the first thing it says is, "We need to talk about the cat." (Flash fiction)
- A school trip to the Moon goes wrong when the bus leaves without one student and a very curious alien. (Short story)
- You invent a machine that shrinks things. You test it on your little brother by accident. (Short story)
- Aliens land in the playground, but they only want to learn how to play tag. (Flash fiction)
- A kid living on a space station is the only one who notices the station's friendly computer has started telling small lies. (Novel or series idea)
- Your new lunchbox can make any food you imagine, but only if you describe it perfectly. (Flash fiction)
Science fiction prompts for teens
- Everyone gets a phone app that shows how many days they have left. A teenager's number keeps changing. (Short story)
- A colony ship's teenagers wake up 200 years early and find the adults are not asleep, they are gone. (Novel or series idea)
- The new student is clearly an android. The problem is they do not know it yet. (Flash fiction)
- In a world where your social score decides your school, a top student deliberately tanks theirs. (Short story)
- Time travel is a school subject, and the final exam is to change one small thing in history without breaking the present. (Novel or series idea)
Science fiction prompts for adults
- A grief-tech company offers to recreate a lost partner as an AI. The recreation remembers something the real person never told anyone. (Short story)
- The first message from an alien civilisation is a polite request to stop sending messages. (Flash fiction)
- On a generation ship, the crew votes every ten years on whether to keep flying. This year, the vote is rigged. (Novel or series idea)
- A woman receives her own obituary, dated next week, written by a version of her from another timeline. (Short story)
- Every morning the city's weather is decided by an auction. (Flash fiction)
- Memory editing is legal and cheap. A detective must solve a murder the victim paid to forget was coming. (Novel or series idea)
🔍 Mystery story prompts (17)
Mystery prompts for kids
- The class hamster has gone missing, and there are tiny footprints leading into the principal's office. (Short story)
- Every morning someone leaves a single sock on your doorstep. Today there is a note with it. (Flash fiction)
- All the cookies at the bake sale have vanished, and every student has a perfect alibi except the new kid, who is innocent. (Short story)
- Three friends find a treasure map hidden inside a library book that was returned 50 years late. (Novel or series idea)
- The town clock has started running backwards, and only you have noticed. (Flash fiction)
- Someone is leaving kind notes in every locker at school. You want to find out who before the last day of term. (Short story)
Mystery prompts for teens
- A student finds a yearbook from next year with their best friend's photo missing. (Short story)
- The school's anonymous gossip account just posted a secret only you know. (Flash fiction)
- A podcast about a 20-year-old disappearance goes viral, and the host is a teenager who lives in the missing girl's house. (Novel or series idea)
- On a school trip, the teacher who planned everything quietly disappears from the hotel, leaving a list of clues for the class. (Short story)
- Your phone autocorrects every message to "don't trust him". (Flash fiction)
Mystery prompts for adults
- A house-sitter notices the family photos change slightly each day she stays. (Short story)
- A small-town librarian realises the overdue books form a pattern: each borrower died a week after the due date. (Novel or series idea)
- The detective solves the case in the first paragraph. The rest of the story is about why she keeps quiet. (Flash fiction)
- Four strangers inherit the same house from a man none of them has ever met. (Short story)
- A forensic accountant finds a missing $3 million in a children's charity, and the trail leads to her own father. (Novel or series idea)
- A locked-room murder where the only witness is a smart speaker. (Flash fiction)
🧭 Adventure story prompts (17)
Adventure prompts for kids
- Your treehouse wakes up one morning and has floated out to sea. (Short story)
- Two cousins follow a lost dog across the city and end up on a journey to return it to a home 300 miles away. (Novel or series idea)
- The map on the back of your cereal box turns out to be real. (Flash fiction)
- A storm strands your class on an island where the only other living thing is a very bossy parrot. (Short story)
- You have one day to cross your town using only things that float, roll or fly. (Flash fiction)
- A girl enters a kite-flying race against a team of grown-ups who cheat. (Short story)
Adventure prompts for teens
- A group of teenagers enters a cross-country race where the prize is a scholarship, and only one of them can win. (Novel or series idea)
- Lost on a mountain hike, two enemies have to share one phone with 8% battery. (Short story)
- The last train home leaves in ten minutes. You are on the wrong side of the city. (Flash fiction)
- A teenager sneaks onto a research boat to find the whale their late mother studied. (Short story)
- A gamer discovers the open-world map of their favourite game matches a real, unexplored valley. (Novel or series idea)
Adventure prompts for adults
- A pilot makes an emergency landing in a desert with one passenger who is not who they claimed to be. (Short story)
- An archaeologist and a smuggler race each other for a lost ship that both of them have reasons to sink. (Novel or series idea)
- A mountain guide realises the client they are leading to the summit wants to be left there. (Flash fiction)
- A woman retraces her grandfather's escape route across Europe using only his coded diary. (Short story)
- The rescue boat arrives, and the castaway asks for one more week. (Flash fiction)
- After a solar storm wipes out GPS, a delivery driver becomes the only person who knows the old roads. (Novel or series idea)
😂 Funny story prompts (17)
Funny prompts for kids
- Your pet goldfish has started a band, and it is surprisingly good. (Flash fiction)
- The school swaps teachers and students for a day, and you have to teach maths to the principal. (Short story)
- A sandwich runs for class president and is winning. (Flash fiction)
- Grandma signs up for a skateboarding competition and needs you as her coach. (Short story)
- A family of very polite monsters moves in next door and tries hard to fit in with the neighbours. (Novel or series idea)
- Your shadow decides it wants a day off. (Flash fiction)
Funny prompts for teens
- A teenager's mum joins the same social media app and becomes more popular than them in a week. (Short story)
- The group chat accidentally adds the head teacher. (Flash fiction)
- To get out of a school play, a student pretends to be terrible at acting and accidentally wins the lead. (Short story)
- Three friends start a business solving other teenagers' problems, and their first client is their maths teacher. (Novel or series idea)
- A smart fridge gives brutally honest life advice. (Flash fiction)
Funny prompts for adults
- A wedding planner is hired for two weddings on the same day, at the same venue, for the same groom. (Short story)
- The office printer becomes self-aware and is passive-aggressive about it. (Flash fiction)
- A man lies on his CV that he speaks fluent Icelandic. On Monday, the Icelandic delegation arrives. (Short story)
- Two rival bakers open shops on the same street and slowly realise they are the only people who understand each other. (Novel or series idea)
- A ghost haunts a house but is too shy to be noticed. (Flash fiction)
- A villain's henchman requests paternity leave. (Short story)
👻 Spooky & horror story prompts (15)
Spooky & horror prompts for kids
- Every Halloween the same trick-or-treater visits in a costume that never changes, and no one knows where they live. (Flash fiction)
- The scarecrow in Grandpa's field has turned to face your bedroom window three nights in a row. Then it waves. (Short story)
- A friendly ghost needs help finishing the homework it never handed in a hundred years ago. (Short story)
- Your teddy bear is missing in the morning, and there are muddy paw prints on the stairs. (Flash fiction)
- A girl discovers that the old lighthouse is home to a ghost who is afraid of the dark. (Novel or series idea)
Spooky & horror prompts for teens
- A ouija board app tells a group of friends the name of someone who is not in the room. (Short story)
- The lights in the school go out, and the voice on the loudspeaker is your own. (Flash fiction)
- Every year one student goes missing during the school camping trip, and this year the list of names is pinned to the noticeboard. (Novel or series idea)
- A babysitter keeps hearing the baby monitor talk back in a voice that is not the baby's. (Short story)
Spooky & horror prompts for adults
- A couple moves into a house where the previous owner left a list of rules. Rule seven has been crossed out. (Short story)
- Your doorbell camera shows you leaving the house at 3 a.m. every night. (Flash fiction)
- A town has no deaths for 40 years. A new doctor arrives and finds out why. (Novel or series idea)
- A night-shift nurse keeps treating a patient who was discharged in 1974. (Short story)
- The last text from your sister arrives a week after her funeral. (Flash fiction)
- A hiker finds a cabin with photos on the wall of every hiker who has passed it, including one taken an hour from now. (Short story)
🏙️ Realistic fiction story prompts (16)
Realistic fiction prompts for kids
- On the first day at a new school, a boy pretends to be someone else, and now he cannot stop. (Short story)
- Your best friend is moving away tomorrow. Write the last afternoon you spend together. (Flash fiction)
- A girl finds a wallet full of money on the way to school, and her family really needs it. (Short story)
- A boy who is scared of water must learn to swim before the summer camp everyone else is excited about. (Novel or series idea)
- You broke your mum's favourite mug and have one hour to fix it before she gets home. (Flash fiction)
Realistic fiction prompts for teens
- A teenager gets a summer job at a care home and befriends a resident nobody visits. (Short story)
- Your parents announce at dinner that you are moving countries in two weeks. (Flash fiction)
- Two best friends apply to the same university, and only one gets in. (Novel or series idea)
- A student finds out the popular teacher everyone loves is about to be fired, and only they know why. (Short story)
- The night before an exam, you find the answers in your inbox. (Flash fiction)
Realistic fiction prompts for adults
- Two siblings clear out their late father's house and find a letter addressed to a son neither of them knew about. (Short story)
- A woman practises the speech she will give when she quits her job. She has practised it every day for six years. (Flash fiction)
- A chef who loses her sense of taste must decide whether to keep running her restaurant. (Novel or series idea)
- A father and his teenage daughter take a road trip to scatter his ex-wife's ashes. (Short story)
- The last customer of the night at a 24-hour diner orders the same meal the owner's late wife used to make. (Flash fiction)
- An Uber driver realises the passenger in the back seat is the bully from their school days. (Short story)
🏛️ Historical story prompts (13)
Historical prompts for kids
- A child in ancient Egypt is chosen to help build a pyramid, but they are afraid of heights. (Short story)
- You are a stowaway on a ship sailing to a new world. Write the moment you are discovered. (Flash fiction)
- A girl in a medieval village secretly teaches herself to read using the only book in the church. (Short story)
- Two children on opposite sides of the Berlin Wall become pen pals by tying letters to balloons. (Novel or series idea)
Historical prompts for teens
- A teenage telegraph operator in 1912 receives a distress call from a ship called Titanic. (Short story)
- During the 1918 flu pandemic, a 16-year-old takes over her father's newspaper and has to decide what to print. (Novel or series idea)
- Write the night before the first Moon landing from the point of view of a teenager at Mission Control. (Flash fiction)
- A young apprentice in Renaissance Florence is accused of forging their master's painting. (Short story)
Historical prompts for adults
- A codebreaker at Bletchley Park decodes a message that names her brother. (Short story)
- A Roman soldier stationed at Hadrian's Wall falls in love with the land he was sent to guard against. (Novel or series idea)
- A photographer at the 1906 San Francisco earthquake has one plate left. What does she photograph? (Flash fiction)
- In 1920s Harlem, a jazz musician is offered a record deal on one condition he cannot accept. (Short story)
- A Silk Road merchant carries a secret letter across three empires without being able to read it. (Novel or series idea)
💌 Romance story prompts (11)
Romance prompts for teens
- Two students keep leaving notes in the same library book without knowing who the other is. (Short story)
- You have been fake-dating your best friend for a month to make someone else jealous. It has stopped being fake. (Flash fiction)
- The two school debate captains have to work together for the national final, and they cannot stand each other. (Short story)
- A summer job at a seaside ice-cream stand, a rival stand across the boardwalk, and eight weeks to decide who wins. (Novel or series idea)
Romance prompts for adults
- Two strangers keep getting each other's mail. One day a love letter arrives. (Short story)
- They meet for the first time at the same funeral, both claiming to be the deceased's best friend. (Flash fiction)
- A wedding photographer falls for the one guest at every wedding who refuses to be photographed. (Novel or series idea)
- Two people seated together on a 14-hour flight agree to tell each other the complete truth, because they will never meet again. (Short story)
- A florist starts writing the anonymous cards for a regular customer's bouquets, and the recipient writes back to her. (Flash fiction)
- Exes are stuck together on a cancelled train with no signal and one sandwich. (Short story)
- A translator falls for the author whose novel she is translating, and slowly realises the book is about her. (Novel or series idea)
Story prompt questions
What is a story prompt generator?
It picks a ready-to-write story idea for you: a character, a situation and a problem. This one draws from 140 original prompts written by our editors, tagged by genre, age group and length. It does not write the story for you.
Are there story prompts for kids?
Yes. Choose Kids (6–12) to get 44 prompts with simple stakes and kind endings. Spooky prompts for kids are gentle (friendly ghosts, muddy paw prints), and romance is only written for teens and adults.
How long should my story be?
Flash fiction is under 1,000 words and works in one sitting. A short story runs about 1,000–7,500 words. Novel or series ideas are premises with enough conflict for chapters. Filter by length to match the time you have.
What does the writing challenge do?
Tick Add a writing challenge to attach a constraint such as "start with dialogue" or "tell it backwards". There are 22 challenges, matched to the age group, and they appear in what you copy, save and print.
Can I save or print story prompts?
Save adds a prompt to Saved topics in this browser, with no account. Print opens every prompt in your current selection as a clean page you can print or save as PDF, which is handy for classes and writing groups.
Will the same prompt come up twice?
Not until you have seen every prompt in your selection. The round is kept for this browser tab, including when you change filters or come back to the page.
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