TITLES & IDEAS

Short Story Prompts

~ masterclass.com

Here are five writing prompts to inspire short story ideas:

1. Expand on your own story. Comb through your own life experience and think of the first time you felt you fell in love. Did that person end up being your soulmate? Now, your best friend is throwing a dinner party, and she invited that old love interest. You're not sure how you feel about seeing him again after all these years, especially after the last time you saw each other. What's going to happen? It doesn't have to be a love story.

2. Explore a fantastical genre like sci-fi. Your main character is a young boy, about ten years old. He's watching his five-year-old brother while his mother runs to the store. Outside the window, the sky goes black. Then the power goes out. A strange object lights up the sky, growing brighter as it gets closer.

3. Write a character inspired by someone you know. What if a loved one that you haven't seen in years suddenly shows up unannounced in the middle of the night. How does the story unfold? Why are they there?

4. Place your characters in a dire situation. Six days in the car together has started to rip open old wounds for a family of five. They arrive at the Grand Canyon ready to get some space from each other. The sky is blue and the weather looks perfect for a hike. As they descend into the Canyon, one family member makes a fateful decision, and the wrong turn. As the temperature drops, the family races against the lowering sun to retrace their steps but will this fractured family be able to work together to survive?

5. Concoct a contained thriller. As Edgar Allen Poe has proven, the short story is the perfect medium for a quick thriller. When two old friends from high school reconnect for the first time in a decade, they renew their vow of silence to conceal a crime they committed as kids. But when one of them has a change of heart and decides to come clean, the other turns to desperate measures to keep them quiet.

🪢🪢🪢🪢🪢

Substitute teachers are sick of not being taken seriously, so they form a secret society: Subperior.

Tell the tall tale of a high-fashion penguin who goes shopping for a tuxedo and gets into the modeling industry. Make as many crossovers between fashion and bird life as possible.

An Elvis impersonator books a concert that is so good, people believe the real Elvis has come back to life. Next thing he knows, he is the leader of a superstitious Elvis cult.

After a religious cult takes over the government, caffeine is outlawed. Tell the story of a brave and coffee-loving family who opens a #CaffeineSpeakeasy.

Everyone confuses Fabio the Frog for a toad because of his warts. Explore the struggle.

2 Characters or Less

Tammy has been in solitary confinement for 2 years and hasn't experienced any human contact, not even letters, at least until she starts receiving mysterious notes under her door.

Tired of working as a corporate robot, Gerald uses all of his sick days to spend a week alone hiking in the Appalachian Mountains. Everything seems fine until a blizzard hits.

A shy web designer thinks he has found the man of his dreams online. It turns out he is being catfished by the member of a competing company who is probing him for information.

Brenna and James work for two neighboring fast food companies and always take their lunch breaks on the sidewalk bench at the same time. Are they brave enough to pursue something more from this newfound friendship?

A traveling make-up artist named Brenda and a purse-sized dog go on a cross-country trip to a funeral that Brenda does not want to attend. Tell the story from both Brenda's and the dog's point of view.