1. Write a Scene Backwards
Start with the ending and write it in reverse chronological order.
2. The Genre Rewrite
Take a scene you’ve already written and rewrite it in a completely different genre (e.g., turn your romantic dinner scene into a horror scene). This will boost your flexibility and understanding of tone.
3. The One-Sentence Story
Tell an entire beginning, middle, and end in one single sentence.
4. Random Line
Pick a random book from your bookshelf, open on a random page and point at the random sentence. That will be your writing prompt. If you want to make it harder, use this line as an opening line.
5. The 60-Second World
Give yourself one minute to write everything about a fictional location (sights, sounds, smells, one unique cultural quirk). This will make your imagination quicker.
6. The Opposite Day Character
Take your protagonist and make them the exact opposite in personality, goals, and skills—then write a short scene.
7. Eavesdrop and Transform
Listen to a real-life conversation (coffee shop, bus stop) and rewrite it as if it happened between characters in your story world. This will help you write more realistic dialogue.
8. No Adjectives
Write a descriptive scene without using any adjectives or adverbs.
9. Reverse Motivation
Pick a character and give them the wrong reason for their actions (e.g., they save someone only to steal their wallet later).
10. Use Random Words as Anchors
Grab three random words (e.g., “umbrella, neon, betrayal”) and build a scene around them.
11. What Do You See?
Take a random picture - painting, photo, a paused scene in a movie, as long as it's visual, it works. Now write a scene about what you see and what could be happening there, who would be there, why.
12. Write in Second Person
Rewrite a scene using “you” instead of “I” or “they.”
13. Scene Without Sight
Write a scene where the reader knows what’s happening through all the senses but not visual.
14. Rewrite as a Poem
Take a prose scene and rewrite it as a poem.
15. Unreliable Narrator
Have your narrator lie intentionally or accidentally about what’s happening.
16. George Martin's excersize
"There are various exercises you can give to students. One of them is to describe a half dozen different characters. Write a speech for each of these different characters without a name tag. Just say, “Here’s a priest, here’s a soldier, here’s a housewife”… Invent whatever you want. Write a speech for each of them in which…they don’t give their name… just make each speech sound different from the other so you can instantly know just from the words this is the priest speaking, this is the prostitute speaking… If they all sound the same, you have a problem. They should sound different."
17. Object POV
Write a scene from the perspective of an object (a sword, a chair, a smartphone).
18. Flash fiction under 10 minutes
Click HERE to read about what is flash fiction.
19. The 100-Word Death Scene
Kill off a character (major or minor) in exactly 100 words.
20. Opposite-opposite
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