100 Block-Breaking Writing Ideas

Suffering writer’s block? Here are 100 new story ideas!

Writing Sparks:

• 1. A character is cursed to never – ever – be alone again.
• 2. Every child in a small town has the same imaginary friend.
• 3. A time traveler picks an earlier version of themselves to take on adventure through the centuries.
• 4. The Grim Reaper’s perspective of the zombie apocalypse.
• 5. A scientist and a medium work together to discover that dark matter and “ghosts” are one and the same.
• 6. A taxi driver is haunted by a ghost she can only see in the rearview mirror.
• 7. A character finds a million dollars on their doorstep each morning, but they manage to lose it all by the end of every day.
• 8. A character receives what they assume is a drunk text from ex, but when the ex turns up dead, the character reexamines the message for clues.
• 9. A dumpster diver finds evidence of a serial killer, but the evidence repeatedly disappears, and no one believes them.
• 10. A vlogger who captures footage of someone who died years earlier.
• 11. A time traveler from the past arrives in the present and explains that this “future” is not the right one.
• 12. Every investigator to take up a particular cold case dies in a specific (brutal) way, but there is no evidence of foul play.
• 13. A blind character goes camping in the wilderness with a loved one, but when the character wakes up, they are all alone in the wild.
• 14. A Make-A-Wish child wishes to meet a notorious criminal.
• 15. A group of strangers wake up to find themselves in the wrong century.
• 16. A couple and a mutual ex try going on a road trip together (for different reasons) in order to save on expenses.
• 17. A character can smell the future.
• 18. A GPS is either haunted or enchanted with its own mind. Rather than taking the driver where they want to go, the GPS uses the driver as a tool to complete its own goals.
• 19. How starving artists survive (or don’t) an apocalypse.
• 20. A story where a lemon is ultimately responsible for the downfall of mankind.
• 21. A coven accidentally summons an angel instead of a demon.
• 22. The first five people to live on the moon disappear entirely by the time the second supply shuttle arrives.
• 23. A guy loses his childhood crush to his college wingman
• 24. A character from Wonderland falls up the rabbit hole.
• 25. Best friends turn on each other when they find a body hidden in their remote, shared getaway cabin.
• 26. A super fan wishes a literary character to life and discovers the character is not the way the author described.
• 27. An artist’s paintings gradually reveal their murder in a (recent) past life.
• 28. A father discovers that his child is essentially immortal.
• 29. A driver rescues a turtle and discovers an entire world on the turtle’s back.
• 30. Every night at 3 A.M. something knocks on the other side of the mirror.
• 31. Isolated test subjects trapped in a single open room construct a bizarre society over a period of decades.
• 32. As a child, the main character watches a man literally melt in the rain.
• 33. The dead rise, but not as brain-hungry zombies, and the grave digger becomes a sort of landlord/manager/accidental therapist for his new ‘tenants.’
• 34. A gang of children team up to kill one another’s boogie monsters.
• 35. A knight saves a dragon from a princess.
• 36. When a person goes missing, a stalker’s detailed notes are the authorities’ only guide to a recluse’s life.
• 37. Time fractures across a city, creating zones that exist in different eras.
• 38. Fraternal twins decide they want to be identical and use every possible method to attempt the transformation, including everything from sorcery to surgery.
• 39. The last humans watch the next dominant species rise.
• 40. A character suffers from a parasitic organism that masquerades as a tattoo.
• 41. When the king dies, his court realizes that the only living heir is the country’s arch enemy – the king of the neighboring kingdom.
• 42. A character accidentally destroys the region’s crops as they come to realize that their mood and feelings control the weather.
• 43. A small town faces the odd challenge of a girl convinced she’s a bird after she takes up residence on top of Town Hall, nest and everything.
• 44. Two neighbors get to know each other by singing (through thin walls) in their respective showers.
• 45. Every dog in town dies the same night.
• 46. A character with an anger disorder literally breathes fire when enraged.
• 47. A serial killer turns her victims into cosmetics and beauty gear.
• 48. A movie director goes to the editing room for a final viewing before turning the movie over to the studio executives and discovers that all the film is blank.
• 49. The same five dollar bill keeps appearing in the main character’s life, no matter how many times he spends, banks, or leaves it.
• 50. A bumbling antihero travels back in time to take over the world and fails spectacularly.
• 51. A ghost attached to a mishandled letter travels the world and collects stamps.
• 52. Society reverts to the dark ages, and only the upper class understands science. The lower classes see everyday technology as magic, and believe the upper classes are not entirely human.
• 53. A circus visits a small town, and every town resident finds a circus performer who they could swear they know from somewhere else.
• 54. A dog must literally chase the boogeymen and bad dreams from around his master’s bed.
• 55. A character knows every single person in the world.
• 56. Every time a character opens their nightstand drawer, the drawer appears with the contents of different, random nightstand drawers from all over the world.
• 57. A character finds one hundred dollars but can’t spend it.
• 58. Cloning brings back terror birds. The main character is a terror bird farmer.
• 59. The entire population of New York City disappears overnight.
• 60. An author leaves clues about a murder they committed interspersed through their final series of novels.
• 61. A husband has one last chance, and a single flower, to win back his wife’s affection.
• 62. Five ghosts try to solve each other’s murders.
• 63. A character swears to protect a shark after it incidentally saves the man by eating an aggressive seal.
• 64. A character flirts with their crush by skywriting with their plane instead of risking a face to face meeting.
• 65. A man’s life is bound to a candle flame, and if the candle burns out before he lights a new candle from the old one, he dies.
• 66. College students begin making deals with the devil for financial aid.
• 67. A smart phone “companion” program gets smart and intentionally misleads rude users.
• 68. Someone escapes a cult only to discover that the world outside is pretty much as bad as the cult leaders said.
• 69. A character cannot control fires, but he can speak with them.
• 70. Humanity evolves to rely on electricity as a food source.
• 71. Team members link minds for a major business project.
• 72. One day a year every child’s imaginary friend becomes real.
• 73. The first astronaut to visit another habitable planet discovers their own grave.
• 74. A writer must literally find themselves in a 19th Century novel that predicts his/her life.
• 75. Victims from cold cases rise from the grave and protest outside a police department, demanding justice.
• 76. A man falls in love with his own shadow.
• 77. A man with a severe phobia of drowning works at an aquarium.
• 78. Adventurers climb to the top of a mountain and discover someone got there ahead of them.
• 79. The richest man in the world locks the sun in a box and holds it for ransom every morning.
• 80. The aliens attack, but the humans never even realize it.
• 81. A couple adopt a child who may or may not be a changeling.
• 82. The penal system adopts cross-country, on-foot pilgrimages as a form of punishment.
• 83. In the future, public service punishments include year-long space missions to ferry supplies between Earth and its colonies.
• 84. Scientists prove at least one other species on Earth has human-like intelligence, and characters must determine how to include these species in international affairs.
• 85. Mythology stems from a historical incident where an alternate reality crossed our own. It’s about to cross a second time.
• 86. A time traveler creates a zoo of very odd but entirely non-threatening prehistoric creatures. The biggest threat comes from the thieves trying to steal the priceless animals.
• 87. A serial killing arborist buries a victim under every new tree in their expansive yard.
• 88. A character suddenly discovers they are fluent in a language they’ve never spoken before.
• 89. An archeologist discovers a new wonder of the ancient world in the middle of a combat zone.
• 90. A character creates a cure for a fictional disease (vampirism/lycanthropy/etc.) but refuses to take it themselves.
• 91. A plane gets lost in a deep fog. The pilot and passengers cannot see land, no matter how long they travel, but the gas never runs out, either.
• 92. There are pecking orders in heaven and hell, and major historical figures all want to prove they deserve a better slot.
• 93. A remote settlement in 1800s America keeps fear of the wild at bay by pacifying god with a ‘scapegoat’ sacrifice.
• 94. Characters decided to build a bridge between Alaska and Russia.
• 95. North America and Europe slowly come to realize that this time winter isn’t going to end.
• 96. A detective tries to solve a murder, but all their friends and family keep telling them that the detective is the victim.
• 97. The family dog brings home something that looks an awful lot like a small dragon.
• 98. A fortune teller who reads tea leaves serves as a go between for spies in German-occupied France.
• 99. A craftsman can build anything, but only if he doesn’t see his work until it’s finished.
• 100. An author possesses a pen in order to tell his story. The college student trying to take class notes with the pen is less than impressed.