80+ Best Creative Writing Prompts To Get Your Brain Thinking [2022 Update]

Creative writing prompts can help you think of blog post ideas, fictional worlds, and other unique and engaging content.

While AI writing software makes it easier to generate lots of content, creative writing prompts can help you create content that will excite and inspire your audience.

Sometimes all you need is a small spark of inspiration, and creative writing prompts are a wonderful tool.

Keep this article handy so you can pick out a prompt whenever you need something to kickstart your imagination and get you writing.

What Are the Benefits of Creative Writing Prompts?

There are many brilliant benefits to using writing prompts.

• Beat Writer’s Block: Every writer knows the frustrating feeling of drawing a blank every time you want to write something. Creative writing prompts can help spur ideas and get the ball rolling!
• Get Writing Practice: Practice makes perfect, so the more you write the better you will get! Writing often helps you find repetitiveness or inconsistencies in your writing style.
• Easy and Free: You can find tons of free creative writing prompts online and right here in this article!
• Fun: Many people see creative writing prompts as an exciting challenge, allowing them to use a jumping-off point for a fun, new story or article.

When Should You Use Creative Writing Prompts?

If you’re not sure when the right moment for a writing prompt is, here are a few instances in which creative writing prompts may be helpful.

• When You’re Stuck: As mentioned, when writer’s block fogs your brain, writing prompts can help clear the fog and get your wheels turning again.
• When You Have Nothing To Do: If you’re bored and looking for something engaging, you can use a prompt to practice your writing and entertain yourself. This will help you strengthen your writing skills and alleviate boredom.
• When You’re Low on Inspiration: Writing prompts can be a stellar source of inspiration when you can’t think of anything interesting to write about.

Best Creative Writing Prompts

In addition to our favorite morning journal prompts, below are some of the best creative writing prompts to get your creative juices flowing.

Short Creative Writing Prompts

1. Write about a day in the life of a celebrity.
2. Write about someone missing their bus, train, or flight.
3. You’re a nighttime security guard, but are deathly afraid of the dark.
4. Write a scene of someone quitting their job.
5. Start your story with a car accident.
6. Create the most annoying character ever.
7. Write about a near-death experience.
8. Start a story with a bride leaving the groom at the altar.
9. Write about what heaven/hell looks like.
10. Write about a world where everyone is a twin.
11. You take drastic measures to avoid jury duty.
12. Write about waking up after accidentally sleeping for one year.
13. Write about a mystical portal you found in your oven.
14. You wake up one day to find the entire world is black and white.
15. Write a cop who falls in love with a serial killer.
16. Write a scene where someone begs for their job back.
17. Write about a superhero’s retirement plans.
18. Pet cats take over the world.
19. While visiting your grandma’s grave, you hear her voice.
20. One year, Santa brings children wildly inappropriate presents.

Creative Writing Prompts for Kids

1. Write about the monster under your bed.
2. Write about a day in the life of your pet.
3. Write about someone stealing a cookie from the cookie jar and the consequences.
4. Start your story with a tiger escaping the zoo.
5. Write about your life as a dragon slayer.
6. A pair of best friends make friendship bracelets that allow them to read each other’s minds.
7. Write about a mysterious creature living in your bathtub.
8. Write about a school dance full of zombies.
9. Write about a caveman who finds a puppy and takes it in as a pet.
10. Write about a bat who is afraid of the dark.
11. One day your pet starts talking and it turns out they want world domination and you have to help them.
12. Write about someone your age becoming a King or Queen.
13. Write a secret academy for supervillains/heroes.
14. Write about your dinner coming to life.
15. Write about meeting a mermaid while fishing.
16. Write about the dragon saving the princess from the evil knight in shining armor.
17. Tell the story of a leprechaun’s best friend.
18. Write about a day in the life of Mrs. Claus.
19. You get a phone call from yourself 10 years in the future and they tell you about your life.
20. Tell a story of an orphan brother and sister looking for their mysterious parents.

Creative Writing Prompts for Teens

1. Write about finding and befriending an alien and getting them back to their mothership before someone finds them.
2. Write about a daydream you have.
3. Write about a character’s first day in high school.
4. Write about a character’s first day at college.
5. Write about moving to a new town.
6. Write about an awkward family dinner.
7. Write a character who has the worst luck in the world.
8. Write about a character followed around by an unwanted guardian angel.
9. Write from the perspective of a Greek God.
10. Write a nice, do-gooder character possessed by a demon and they both try to change each other.
11. Write about a villain who people mistake for a hero.
12. Start your story with someone halfway through sailing around the world alone.
13. Write from the perspective of an astronaut on their way back to earth.
14. Write about receiving an anonymous phone call from someone 500 years in the future.
15. Create a team of superheroes
16. Write about mankind moving to Mars.
17. Write about how you would hide superpowers from your parents.
18. Write about the worst vacation ever where everything goes wrong.
19. Write from the perspective of a genie who is sick of granting wishes.
20. Write a scene where your favorite band (or any band) breakup up on stage at their concert.

Creative Writing Prompts for Adults

1. Write a story about someone going through a breakup.
2. Write about someone who wins $10 billion in the lottery and goes bankrupt within a month.
3. Write a story with a character who takes everything people say literally.
4. Start your story with a bar fight that escalates to murder.
5. Write about a villain’s henchmen who have a moral transformation and turn on their boss.
6. Write about what happens after someone sells their sole to the devil.
7. Write from the perspective of a dying houseplant.
8. Write from the perspective of your boss.
9. Write about an angel and a demon who fall in love.
10. Start your story with a paranormal encounter from the ghost’s perspective.
11. Write about a character who doesn’t want to be in your story.
12. Write about Mona Lisa’s day before da Vinci painted her.
13. Write about a mysterious murder where a newborn baby is a prime suspect.
14. Write about realizing someone else controls your actions and that humanity is just a simulation.
15. Turn your favorite childhood movie into a slasher/horror story.
16. Thanks to irresponsible people, the government has banned time travel, write about why.
17. Write about a dating app where people can find their archnemesis.
18. Write about a couple rethinking their divorce from both spouses’ perspectives.
19. Write a fortune teller who isn’t good at delivering bad news.
20. The president of the USA is sick of his day job; write about his secret second job.

Creative Writing Prompts Generators

If you can’t get enough creative writing prompts, check out these prompt generators to help you come up with new and exciting ideas with just a few words or suggestions.

1. Seventh Sanctum

Sometimes relationships and plots aren’t the problems, and Seventh Sanctum can help you establish a world to write within.

The generators do more than world-building, offering categories including humor, darkness/evil, combat, anime, magic, and many more!

2. Squibler

Unlike the prompts on this list, Squibler prompts are not free, but they offer a free trial.

Rather than generate loads of random prompts to inspire you, Squibler helps you write quality books or screenplays by making suggestions ad guiding your writing.

3. The Story Shack

The Story Shack is one of our favorite free generators, helping writers develop characters, names, plots, and more.

The prompts are in several categories and mainly focus on helping you generate unique and captivating names for your characters.

4. Random First Line Generator

This Random First Line Generator is a self-explanatory writing tool.

It will generate the first line of a story, and the rest is up to you! It’s excellent for breaking through writer’s block.

5. SpringHole

SpringHole is one of the best resources for creative writers, offering random art and illustration prompts, world-building help, humor prompts, and more.

It’s specifically geared toward roleplaying games like LARPing or Dungeons and Dragons.

Frequently Asked Questions

Below are some questions that others have had relating to creative writing prompts.

Wrapping Up

While blog writing services are convenient, you should only outsource blog writing as a last resort.

Creating original content will give it a personal touch that readers will notice and appreciate.

However, using prompts or generators can help you get through tough blocks and allow you to start writing new and interesting content.

What are some of your favorite creative writing prompts?

Let us know in the comments below, as well as send us any questions you still have about how to get inspiration for your writing.