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.
