100 Writing Prompts

Ever get writer’s block? Probably. Whether or not you consider yourself a “writer”, it’s pretty easy to get writer’s block. I do think, as long as you’re a creative person (which we all are), writing can be a really important creative outlet. If not just for expressing yourself, but for distracting yourself and breaking through any kind of creative block. Not everyone is interested in writing a novel, a memoir, a poem, song, short story, or blog post. Maybe you just want to write down lists. Maybe you only want to write on napkins when an idea strikes at a diner. Another fun idea is to see how many words you can type on any given subject. A resource like a word counter can help with that!

Either way, if you’re feeling blocked creatively, it can’t hurt to sit down with a notebook or just a plain sheet of paper and try to simultaneously distract your brain from the thing you’re stuck on and expand the way you’re thinking. Pro essay writers often use this trick to get themselves back on track whenever they are experiencing a mental block. Our best ideas tend to come when we’re distracted, and I personally feel sharper and more creative when I’ve tried to think in a different way than my mind usually wants to.

I remember when I was first dating Joe, we were playing the question game back and forth to get to know each other. He’s a big comic book fan, and I asked him what his least favorite superhero was. He really had to think. I was impatient (as always) and kept pushing him to give me an answer so we could move on. He told me it was making him think in a way he wasn’t used to, and then he asked me what my least favorite something was. I can’t remember specifically what he asked me, but I remember being stumped.

The question game is something I’m great at. I know my favorite everything. But we tend to fill our brains on the more superficial levels with things that we love, but it takes a different kind of thought process to think about everything in a category we’re aware of and what truly ranks last in terms of preference. Honestly, if nothing on this list of writing prompts below sparks your interest, I strongly recommend trying to think of the answers to your least favorite something, something, and something else.

Anyway! I hope you can find these writing prompts useful for whatever your purposes and needs are. You don’t have to credit me if you use them, but I would love to see what you write if you choose to respond to them! Link me over and I’ll share it on social media.

1. Now that we’re halfway through the year, how are you feeling about 2014? What can you do to make the latter half of this year even greater
2. A diary entry as the coolest cat you’ve ever met in person. Or Maru.
3. List thirty ways to party every day.
4. Start a short story with “We were up all night…”
5. What aspects of living in your country are you grateful for?
6. List very specific events that could be used for greeting cards.
7. Describe the face of your best friend as if you were talking to one of those police sketch artists.
8. Write a letter to yourself in the past, letting yourself know that a situation you’ve found yourself in is going to work out okay.
9. Write an entry titled “The Rainbow Fan”.
10. What are things someone might be jealous of about your life?
11. Describe a time that you left your comfort zone and it didn’t work out well.
12. If you were to become famous for something, what would it be? Write about that hypothetical experience.
13. An acrostic for each of your best friends.
14. List ten cities you want to visit next, in order of priority.
15. You wake up and your legs are growing scales. What do you do next?
16. List ten new things you could call the color “red”.
17. A letter to your Congressman, complaining about how koalas have a stranglehold on the baby changing station industry.
18. Begin a short story with “He was stuck in the sewer, wearing nothing but a trench coat…”
19. Explain the process of taking the public transportation in your town.
20. What do honey badgers think of their YouTube videos?
21. List the weirdest things you’ve seen in public spaces.
22. How are you doing with your goals and resolutions for 2014 now that we’re halfway through the first month?
23. A diary entry as a colorblind clothes salesman.
24. List the things that Clifford The Big Red Dog could be a metaphor for.
25. What was the best concert you’ve ever been to? Think back to the experience in terms of all five senses.
26. Write an entry entitled “Sick On My Birthday”.
27. List phrases that could be written on hotel door knob hangers instead of “Do Not Disturb”.
28. A diary entry as someone who, at the time, suspected that Galileo was wrong about the Earth being the center of the universe.
29. A convincing article about why Creationism or Evolution is true (but use your opposing viewpoint).
30. What aspects of your life could be improved with the help of a A) Ninja B) Ghost C) Zombie and/or D) Pirate?
31. What are all the things you accomplished this year? Don’t hold back with “small” achievements!
32. What are your resolutions and goals for the new year?
33. List patterns you see in nature.
34. Your experiences with magical figures, such as Santa Claus, The Easter Bunny, and The Toothy Fairy.
35. Begin a short story with “Our first snow…”
36. What would you like to know about photography?
37. A diary entry as a frustrated air line stewardess.
38. Describe what a card you’d send into PostSecret would look like.
39. Write an entry entitled “My High School Reunion”.
40. List all the places you might find glitter.
41. Explain how to improvise to someone who has never had to.
42. What do caterpillars in cocoons dream of?
43. List metaphors for not saving everything special for a “later date”.
44. If you could turn the Staples “Easy Button” into a button that let you do anything, what would you have it be?
45. A letter/e-mail to your favorite author or blogger. Bonus points for actually sending it!
46. Write a short story entitled “Miranda’s Week At Computer Camp”
47. What’s the thing in your life that needs the most cleaning and organizing? How can you fix that?
48. List all the animals that would have had a really difficult time on Noah’s Ark.
49. Begin an entry with “I woke up on my raft, but I couldn’t see anything but water…”
50. #XX Reasons To Use Balloons
51. Write a convincing article on body modification from your opposite point of view.
52. What goes on in a shoplifter’s mind during the crime?
53. Write a fictional tale entitled “The Worst Vacation I Ever Had”.
54. Describe the contents of an artist’s trash can.
55. How would life be different if you were Santa Claus?
56. Explain the internet as thoroughly as possible to someone who is seeing a computer for the first time.
57. List all the cars you’ve ever driven and/or been in.
58. What would you like to know about outer space?
59. What was the best interaction you’ve ever had with a stranger?
60. Incorporate all of these words into one entry: “broken” “patterned” “Ferris wheel” “pile” “sweaters”
61. What makes you grateful for being human?
62. Explain how the universe was created that is based neither in Creationism or The Big Bang Theory.
63. What would you want to be able to tell, or instill, in a large group of people?
64. List what would be in an alien’s (equivalent of a) purse.
65. Start an entry with “I woke up, wearing a tuxedo on top of a boulder, at the edge of a cliff. I don’t remember how I got here and I have no…”
66. Write a diary entry as Ke$ha.
67. List as many ways to use a water bottle cap as you can.
68. Write a story entitled “Gerald’s Day At The Button Factory”.
69. How would your week be different if you were temporarily transformed into a bid and couldn’t communicate with humans?
70. Write a list entitled “Ways To Eat A Bar Of Chocolate”.
71. What makes you different from the last person you had a conversation with?
72. Write the stream of consciousness of a dinosaur facing extinction.
73. What are foods you’ve tried but hated, and how much would you have to be paid to eat them again?
74. Describe the environment of your local library.
75. Write an entry entitled “A Cat And His Surfboard”.
76. A biography of someone who does anything and everything they can to collect bar-code labels.
77. A list of things that are neutral.
78. The day that all the traffic lights turned green and no one could change them back.
79. What it would be like to be a miniature person (like Thumbelina).
80. Describe the city of Lartenify.
81. Where have you noticed that there is a significant lack of _____?
82. An entry where every sentence starts with “My first…”
83. A list of the best three letter cat names.
84. A day in the life of a Subway worker.
85. A trip you took to a place you never want to return to.
86. A list of ways that stripes are more useful than polka dots.
87. In what ways would your life change if you could never send or receive a text message again?
88. One thing you assume or (think you) know about each of the 50 US states.
89. Decisions you have made that have drastically changed your life and a fictional parallel universe where you made different ones.
90. An entry entitled “Karl’s Stay At Springdale Medical Hospital”.
91. Write a five sentence recap of the show “Sex And The City”.
92. List amazing things about everyday life, like the fact that “End Road Work” signs look like mini protests on the side of the road.
93. What are all the lies you now realize your parents told you as a child?
94. List the strangest places you could possible make out or have sex.
95. Describe every American football team as if they were literally the name of their team. (Ex: Jaguars would be actual Jaguars, etc.)
96. Write the prologue to a TV show you never got closure on.
97. Make a list of the weirdest things you’ve heard of people collecting.
98. Rank the main characters of Anchorman and Bridesmaids in order of who you’d like to have sex with the most.
99. Make a list of illicit drugs that you’ve tried, the ones that intrigue you, and the ones that horrify you.
100. Catalog the most hilarious, bizarre, and horrifying first date stories you’ve ever heard.