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“I will write every single day, starting tomorrow,” we tell ourselves. Then our hectic schedules or a frustrating case of “writer’s block” dampens yesterday’s determination.

Practicing is one of the most vital parts of growing your skills as a writer. We’re professional athletes of the written word, so why shouldn’t we be spending time every single day perfecting our craft?

Truthfully, there are a million reasons why. Life offers so many distractions. Work, children, marriage … etc.

So, we’ve come up with a list of 100 writing prompts to jumpstart your creativity.

This list is yours, dear writers, to do with as you wish. You can spend 10, 20, or 200 minutes with each prompt. Use the first idea that catches your fancy. Grab one and let it serve as a guide for a new scene in your work-in-progress. Combine two or three on the list at random and make them work in a silly short story. Tweak a detail here or there as your imagination calls you to do. Make up your own. Our point is to just write something. All it takes is one sentence to start a story.

So grab your laptop or notebook, find a relaxing spot in a cafe or on your couch, and start writing. Check our blog next week for 50 more writing prompts to fuel your creativity.

1. A single mom with her young child runs out of gas on the freeway and she has no cell service to call for help. What now?
2. Your MC (main character) is a traveler whose only possessions fill one backpack. What are they?
3. A child discovers a mysterious item hidden away in the attic of his grandmother’s home.
4. A tornado warning sends your MC to the basement with the person they despise most in the world.
5. A pro surfer has recently survived a shark attack, but was told he’d never surf again. What’s going through his head while he’s sitting on the beach?
6. A young girl’s wallet/purse is stolen at the amusement park. How does she proceed in trying to find it?
7. An animal larger than you gets loose at the zoo. Your MC’s job is to catch it again.
8. A magic storybook sends you to a fairytale land. Who is the first person or creature that you run into? Are they friend or foe?
9. A middle-aged man has been out of a job for months. Desperate for money, he joins an amateur drug trade.
10. Your MC goes for a walk downtown and is mugged. Describe how he/she chases the mugger down.
11. A wife kicks her husband out and he’s forced to move back in with his parents. He’s 47.
12. Your MC gets to take an impromptu road trip with his/her best friend. Where do they go?
13. A young girl gets drunk for the first time. Describe her night from the perspective of her friend, an avid drinker.
14. A novice hiker accidentally becomes separated from his hiking buddy. He only has two hours of sunlight left before darkness falls.
15. A house party gets busted and an underage drinker spends his first night in jail.
16. A whirlwind summer love goes wrong when a young man’s girlfriend disappears. Describe the phone call to notify her parents.
17. Difficult circumstances have driven you steal a friend’s ridiculously valuable diamond necklace. You’re caught in the act and forced to explain yourself.
18. A pro hunter is on a desperate mission to track down Bigfoot.
19. Describe your perfect beach day during your honeymoon.
20. You move into a new apartment with a craigslist roommate. It was the worst decision of your life.
21. While hiking solo on a new trail in the mountains, your MC falls off a shallow ridge and gets injured.
22. Your MC’s best friend is getting married in a week. In a moment of anger, the MC finally tells the best friend how much he/she hates the soon-to-be-spouse.
23. How does a jobless, recent college graduate spend his/her first summer after graduating college? Write it in the style of journal entries.
24. Describe how skills learned in a summer class you hated taking recently saved your life.
25. The air conditioner breaks during the hottest summer on record, and your MC doesn’t have the extra money to fix it. Describe his/her creative attempts to stay cool.
26. Start a story lost in an unfamiliar city and refuse to ask for directions. Describe how the MC finally make it home again—if he/she makes it home again. …
27. Friends are boating, everyone has been drinking heavily, and the rope connecting a skier to the boat snaps. What happens next?
28. A private investigator is hired by the lead suspect in a suspected homicide case to prove his innocence.
29. A dear friend admits she cheated on her significant other and begs you to keep it a secret.
30. Your MC is camping with his/her family and stuck in a tent during a violent summer storm. They are without power or cell service.
31. A struggling writer starts a new job at a downtown bar. Write about the interesting people or events that take place on her first shift.
32. A man and a woman go on blind date to a baseball game, and it turns out to be the worst first date their lives. First write about the date from her perspective, and then write it from his.
33. A teenager nearly drowns at the family lake house. A stranger rescues him/her. Write from either perspective.
34. The doorbell ringing at midnight interrupts the biggest fight you’ve ever had with your spouse. Who is it?
35. A serial killer is watching a news segment about his latest murder.
36. You get evicted; instead of living on the street, you decide to secretly live in a department store. How do you evade security?
37. What is going through a husband-to-be’s head the night before his wedding?
38. A mans visits a tarot card reader and receives a cryptic message. Does he believe it?
39. A stranger on the street hands you a package and asks you to take care of it for a few days, but warns you never, never to open it. You do it anyway.
40. A widowed woman hears a baby crying in a dumpster. She’s desperate for a child of her own, so she takes the baby home.
41. Your MC wakes up hog tied in a closet with no recollection of how he/she got there.
42. A neurotic ex-girlfriend stalks an old lover on his day off. Diary from her perspective how the lover spends his day.
43. You have a miserable job and you finally work up the courage to tell off your boss. What do you say?
44. A grown woman discovers she has a sibling she didn’t know about and she’s about to meet him/her for the first time.
45. You find a lost wallet with a large amount of lost cash in a parking lot. Do you spend it or take it to the police?
46. A wife wants to ask her husband for a divorce, but she’s terrified to broach the subject. Why?
47. Write a note to your landlord explaining the large bloodstain on the living room carpet.
48. A soldier called away to war writes an email to his wife describing a fake situation to keep her from worrying. Then he writes an email to his brother describing what really happened.
49. A father discovers he and his son are dating the same woman.
50. Your MC is pursing an online relationship with someone he/she met on a dating service. He/she has a fake profile. How long can your MC keep it up?

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