mystery writing prompts middle school

Walking by the Way

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Mystery Writing Prompts for Kids

October 1, 2021 by ami Leave a Comment

Do you need a new  creative writing activity  for your students?

Motivate your students to think and write creatively with these  mystery writing prompts .

What’s Included in the Mystery Writing Prompts?

The mystery writing prompt cards include these twelve imagination-boosting writing prompts:

• You discover a wooden box in the woods. What’s in it? How did it get there? Will you find the rightful owner?
• All the pets in town are being kidnapped—one by one. First, it was Mrs. Lyon’s poodle. Next it was Callie’s cat. Even Stella’s guinea pig has been taken. Which pet will be next? Who is doing this? Why?
• Riley keeps receiving letters written in invisible ink. What do they say? Who are they from?
• Every night you hear digging in your back yard. One day, you finally muster up enough courage to take a shovel and find out what has been buried. What is it? What will you do with what you find?
• Jessy is looking through her grandma’s cookbook and notices a recipe for something that isn’t food. What are the ingredients? What happens when she makes the recipe? Why does her grandmother have this recipe?
• Your family moved into a new house. Each morning you find a new object on your nightstand. What are the objects? How are they connected? Who is leaving the objects and what are they trying to tell you?

• Every night at midnight Nick hears a wolf howling. Will he go out and investigate? What does he find?
• Ben is given a pet parrot. Every day the parrot gives him a strange clue. What are the clues? What is the parrot trying to tell Ben?
• A package was delivered to your front door. It is wrapped like a birthday gift and has your name on it. What’s inside? What happens when you open it?
• Every day at noon you hear a train whistle and thunder down the tracks. The problem is: you don’t live near a train track. What happens when you investigate?
• While on a hike, you notice a small door on a tree. As you continue walking, you see three more tiny doors. What happens when you open one? What do you see?
• You found a strange looking pencil in your room. You grabbed it to work on your history homework. The pencil started writing for you; it left a mysterious message. What did the message say? What does it mean?

How to Use the Mystery Writing Prompts

You can use these mystery writing prompt cards with a variety of ages. Younger students may want to use them to tell you a story without writing it down. Older students can dictate, write, or type their responses.

Directions:

• Print the word bank card and the prompt cards; cut out the cards.
• Laminate the cards for durability. If desired, hole punch the cards and add them to a metal ring .
• Consider reading a mystery based book (or books) to your student.
• Let your student choose a card. (If you are homeschooling, you could add a bit of mystery by putting the cards in a jar and letting your student draw a card.)
• If your student has a hard time writing, ask questions and dialogue ideas together before your student begins.
• Decide if you want to give your student a guideline (This needs to be at least four sentences.) If you do, be clear about your expectation.

Inspire Creative Writing with These Mystery Books

To give your students extra inspiration for their responses to the mystery writing prompts, try reading some of these books before writing time.

• Nate the Great by Marjorie Weinman Sharmat (this is a series)
• Encyclopedia Brown Series
• Cam Jansen Series
• The Boxcar Children Series

Younger students may enjoy these mystery picture books:

• Alphabet Mystery by Audrey Wood
• The Case of the Missing Cake by Eoin McLaughlin

Download Your Mystery Writing Prompt Cards

Subscribe to Walking by the Way’s Newsletter in order to grab this free creative writing activity.

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EveryWriter

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100 mystery writing prompts

November 25, 2023 by Richard Leave a Comment

Unexplained events, complex puzzles, suspicious characters, hidden clues… A compelling mystery grabs readers’ attention and whisks them away on an entertaining quest for the truth. But coming up with that next great premise can often be a mystery itself!

Luckily, I’ve gathered 100 mystery writing prompts to ignite your creativity. These story ideas present you with suspicious scenarios ranging from the supernatural to murder mysteries, unsolved crimes, family secrets, missing persons, treasure hunts, and more shadowy what-ifs ripe for exploration.

The prompts offer unique launch points to send an amateur sleuth or unwitting hero chasing leads, cracking codes, unraveling complex conspiracies, catching criminals, or solving historical puzzles. Settings that lend themselves well to mysteries make an appearance too – remote archeological sites, secret passages, eccentric strangers, abandoned asylums, hidden artifacts in attics, strange symbols, and bumps in the night.

With so many premise options, you’re sure uncover story twists and turns to challenge Sherlock himself! So grab your metaphorical magnifying glass and pick a plot that speaks to you. Where might these story ideas lead? The truth is out there in the pages you’ll write as you follow the clues to these 100 mystery writing prompts.  Happy sleuthing!

• A wealthy family’s prized show dog goes missing before a big competition, and you’re hired to find it.
• You find a secret trap door in the floor of your bedroom that leads to a series of underground tunnels. Where do they go?
• A popular local bakery is ransacked overnight. The thief left everything except the secret recipe for their famous chocolate chip cookies.
• You inherit a beautiful antique music box from your eccentric great aunt. But it only plays an ominous tune that you’ve never heard before. What is the meaning behind the song?
• You move into a new house and regularly hear creaking floorboards and other noises at night. One day you wake up to find a strange symbol carved into your front door.
• A archaeologist vanishes while searching for the lost tomb of an ancient king said to be protected by a deadly curse.
• Flowers start mysteriously appearing on the grave of someone who passed away years ago. No one knows who’s leaving them there.
• You’re hiking and come across what looks like human bones buried in a shallow grave in the woods. What happened here?
• The power goes out at the library right before closing. When it comes back on, the rare book you were researching is missing from its climate controlled case.
• An important businessmen doesn’t show up for a big meeting. Hours later, his car is found abandoned on an isolated dirt road.
• You wake up on the morning of your 18th birthday to find an old amulet on your nightstand. No one in your family knows where it came from.
• A frail old woman begs you to retrieve her stolen poodle. But when you find the poodle, it leads you somewhere unexpected.
• Every night precisely at 3:33 am, your sleep is interrupted by the sound of footsteps creaking up your attic stairs. But you live alone.
• A teenager goes missing after school. The only clue left behind is a coded message scribbled in his notebook. Can you crack it?
• You’re exploring the woods behind your house when you find a torn, bloody t-shirt hanging from a tree branch. What happened here?
• An antique dealer vanishes from his shop overnight. The only things missing are a few pieces of old nautical equipment.
• You discover a cryptex – an ancient puzzle box that can only be unlocked with a complex series of clues. Where will they lead you?
• Strange symbols have been appearing overnight on sidewalks all over your hometown. The graffiti seems to be spreading. But what does it mean?
• An elderly man asks you to find his wife who went missing years ago. But records show the man was never married.
• A ring engraved with a mysterious insignia arrives in your mailbox with no note or return address. How did it get there? What group does it represent?
• You wake up tied to a chair in an abandoned warehouse with no memory of how you got there. A mysterious voice over the intercom says you have one hour to escape…or else.
• A masked man drops a encoded flash drive into your bag at the library. When you decode it, you uncover plans for a major heist taking place tonight.
• You start getting anonymous letters in the mail that seem to indicate someone is stalking you and knows your routine. Who could it be?
• A young ski resort heiress goes missing on the slopes. The only trace left behind are her snowboarding goggles resting in a tree. You find them.
• Your eccentric aunt dies and leaves you a storage locker full of her possessions. But hidden among them is a valuable stolen painting that criminals are still hunting for.
• Teenagers have been disappearing from your hometown at an alarming rate over the past year. The police have no leads. But you find a connection between the missing persons and start gathering clues.
• A woman swears someone has been getting into her locked house while she’s away, but nothing is ever stolen. You set up cameras and catch the person red-handed. Who are they and why are they doing this?
• An abandoned car is found in the woods containing a screaming man trapped in the trunk. He has amnesia and can’t remember how he got there or who put him there.
• You inherit a house that belonged to your great grandfather who passed away. Inside is a complex model train set-up in the basement. Then you notice the trains seem to run on a sinister schedule.
• On a school field trip, you and your friends sneak away to explore an off-limits area. There you find an elaborately carved stone whose markings have been worn away by time.
• A beloved local bakery owner goes missing. The only clue is a half-eaten pastry left behind with a mysterious symbol frosted on top.
• You wake up in a strange room next to a woman you’ve never seen before. Neither of you have any memory of how you got there.
• For generations, teenagers have been dared to spend the night in your town’s old abandoned asylum on Halloween night. But this year, some teens who took the dare never came back out…
• A secret admirer has been leaving you small tokens of affection around your favorite places in town. The final gift is a locket that you discover belongs to a woman who went missing years ago…
• You find a dusty old trunk in your attic full of strange artifacts – maps, notebooks, and a journal written in code. The first entry dates back over 100 years.
• A mysterious loner moves into the abandoned mansion down your street. One night, you witness strange occult rituals being performed in the solarium.
• Several major corporations have been hit with elaborate cyber heists lately. The only clue is a small pixelated symbol left behind on each company’s servers afterwards.
• A new mounted fish trophy arrives at the taxidermist shop where you work. But hidden inside the fish is a waterproof bag stuffed with uncut diamonds. Who does it belong to?
• Your grandfather gifts you his elaborate model train set before passing away. But as you build and operate it, the trains seem to move and interact as if controlled by a sinister intelligence.
• You volunteer at the archives in your ancestor’s castle overseas. But you keep finding inconsistencies in the records that make you suspect there are mysteries still hidden within the sprawling estate.
• You dig up an old class assignment from middle school to reminisce and find a cryptic note scrawled in the margins that seems to predict future events in your life so far with uncanny accuracy.
• Rocks with strange symbols painted on them keep appearing in your garden each night. The symbols match cave paintings you recently saw on a spelunking trip. What do they mean?
• A prisoner risks his life to pass you a complex cipher through the jail’s visiting room glass. He claims to have been framed and that decoding it could reveal the real criminal.
• A masked ball at an old Victorian mansion takes a sinister turn when the guests are locked inside and robbed by a thief in disguise on the prowl.
• As a new hire at the NSA, your first assignment is watching a Russian diplomat suspected of sending coded messages disguised as love letters to his “fiancé” overseas.
• You inherit an ancient mechanical astrolabe that seems to predict future events and disasters. But foreseeing some tragedies only ends up causing them when you try to intervene.
• Cleaning out your grandmother’s attic, you find a strange wooden box with arcane symbols. Inside is just a stack of old letters written in German and an old photograph of four men.
• You arrive to work at the bank to find the vault empty and your coworkers drugged. Surveillance footage shows the seemingly impossible burglary unfold. Where did they go?
• Exploring a cave as a scout, you stumble upon a native burial site and ancient petroglyphs depicting strange rituals. Days later, town residents start sleepwalking into the hills.
• A puzzle maker vanishes, leaving behind an intricate locked box said to contain all his greatest designs and secrets. Can you solve the puzzles and find the key?
• You accidentally hit a button on your new antique typewriter and it types a mysterious response warning you not to investigate further. When you look at the paper, all the ink has vanished.
• Renovating your home, you find a trapdoor under decades of dust leading into a bunker containing surveillance equipment still mysteriously active and watching you.
• You wake up in an abandoned psychiatric hospital strapped to a gurney. A voice over the intercom says you have one hour to escape your bonds or the poison gas will turn on.
• A museum thief escapes right before your night shift begins. You notice an odd discrepancy on the museum blueprints that leads you to the hidden painting.
• A magician performing on your cruise ship goes overboard during a storm. But the body that washes ashore the next morning clearly drowned days ago.
• A stranger slips you a thumb drive and tells you to wait one week before opening the only file on it. Finally viewing it, you see plans for an impossible diamond heist taking place tonight.
• For generations, your family has passed down the tale of a hidden fortune somewhere on the old estate grounds. A recent clue indicates the eccentric ancestor’s claims may be true after all.
• You notice all of your houseplants have been subtly rearranged overnight. Then you find a strange coding system etched into their pots. It seems someone is trying to send you a secret message.
• A retired detective swears he hears strange clicking noises coming from his study at night where he kept his case files. You help set up cameras and capture a coded transmission being sent through the vent.
• Exploring the woods behind your new cottage, you find an old campsite and photographs of people who don’t seem to have aged in 50 years. A few still live in your town under different names.
• Your strange new neighbors only seem to enter and exit their house at specific intervals during the night. One evening you glimpse two figures in old-fashioned gas masks looking back out at you.
• You pick up a cheap boat at a police auction of seized vehicles. But a hidden compartment inside leads you into the tangled dealings of a modern day pirate crew.
• Hiking through the hills near your town, you stumble upon the wreckage of a small plane. The pilot’s remains are still at the controls, but his personal effects suggest he died over 60 years ago.
• You are selected to decipher your eccentric aunt’s odd journal after she passes away. following a treasure map hidden in the text leads you to some large uncut gemstones and a dangerous secret.
• Clearing out your parent’s old boxes from childhood, you find your mother’s diary which contains many detailed references to an imaginary friend named Clara. But you also find scattered hospital records for a Clara Ellington, a girl your mom’s age who died under mysterious circumstances.
• For decades, your rural town has held a macabre living chess game with townsfolk acting out a life size match every 10 years. When you find diaries detailing the game’s origins, you uncover the unsettling ritual’s true purpose.
• You decide to write to the prisoner convicted of swindling your eccentric aunt out of her fortune years ago. His cryptic responses make you suspect he may have been framed or was protecting someone else.
• A coded message arrives in your mailbox with your address written out in intricate symbols. It leads you to begin deciphering a conspiracy painted in graffiti across town linking major events in the past century.
• Attending a magic act, you are randomly invited on stage to inspect a spooky box. But after displaying your “ordinary” item to the crowd, the magician can no longer open the container. Backstage, he begs for your help.
• You notice a human-shaped dirt imprint in your yard, as if a body has been freshly buried and exhumed. Then you start finding strange microscopic chips and plastic shards in the grass roots. What’s going on?
• Exploring the old abandoned asylum, you find patient rooms strangely preserved. An old photograph shows your father as one of the mysterious doctors there before it closed down. But he died years before your birth…
• Using a metal detector on the beach, you find a tarnished locket half buried in the sand. Inside the locket is a faded picture of a couple from decades past along with a lock of hair and a grainy imprint of numbers.
• For decades, ships have been sinking with unusual precision along the old trade routes. Historical naval documents contain many references to rumors of a rogue submarine captain who turned mercenary.
• Cleaning the attic, you find your late uncle’s chest of prized magic tricks and props. Hidden inside a false bottom is a weathered map leading to a spot in the wilderness marked “X.”
• You choose a small, uninhabited island for your vacation getaway. But exploring your temporary home, you notice strange patterns of seashells by the water and heaps of bone fragments in the distant rocky caves.
• Your grandfather passes down his beaten-up 1973 Pontiac Firebird that has been in the family for generations. Rummaging through the trunk, you find tattered roadmaps leading you across the country to track his mysterious route.
• A coded message is slipped under your door with a time, date, and map coordinates. Arriving at the location, you find a shovel and dirt pile but no instructions. Do you start digging?
• Your new house seems perfect except for the vintage creepy portrait in your bedroom. You eventually notice the subject’s eyes seem to follow you. Then they blink.
• For decades, a serial arsonist has been operating across your region. The fires always destroy old abandoned properties on significant dates. You find a pattern hidden in past police reports.
• Entering your basement, you’re surprised to find a stranger placing items around a strange intricate symbol on the floor. He tells you he awaits the Sign and swiftly departs.
• You inherit your uncle’s massive library of books on the occult. Hidden in one volume is an old dossier documenting an obscure secret society and detailing their examination rituals to gain membership and mysterious secrets.
• You’re hired to investigate a 17th century shipwreck and find the captain’s log washed ashore. It describes a tiny island appearing where none should exist. Charting a course, you head to the same coordinates.
• Cleaning out your new home, you find strange antique uncanny in the walls and floors. Studying the patterns and mechanisms reveals they form a bizarre scavenger hunt across town devised by the previous owner.
• A scholar spends decades trying unsuccessfully to solve an ancient riddle leading to Alexander the Great’s lost tomb. He finally mails it to you before passing away. Do you take up the challenge?
• You come across an old LP record titled simply “For D.S.” Dated 1949, the recording contains only the rattling of a factory machine. In the dead air, you detect a hidden coded message about espionage.
• Your grandfather’s closest friend pulls you aside after the funeral and says he must pass along an old wrong your grandfather regretted. He gives you a name, key, and bank account number, telling you that you’ll know what to fix.
• A watchmaker has a heart attack and dies while working on an unusual custom piece – a watch that runs backward. His notes reference a client named Octavio who paid handsomely for it in untraceable antiquities.
• While browsing in a strange antique shop, the elderly owner tells you an odd jewelry box has been waiting for someone like you. Upon opening it, you find objects arranged to point toward landmarks in your hometown.
• Exploring your attic, you find an old trunk belonging to your great uncle who traveled the world. Inside is just one item – an intricate elephant idol holding a valuable jeweled stone in its trunk with clues leading to another relic.
• You arrive early for an interview and spot the CEO doing something suspicious. To keep you silent, he asks you to discreetly handle a sensitive matter for him, promising it will lead to your dream job. Do you comply?
• As a new hire at a cryonics firm, you discover the frozen head of an infamous mobster in storage. Divining the clues in his file leads you to the crime syndicate still operating today under a new front.
• The family lawyerhandling your wealthy aunt’s will reveals she secretly changed it just before dying, leaving everything to her gardener who vanished quickly after. The maid reports seeing suspicious doctors frequent the house.
• You find an old sea chest hidden in your grandfather’s attic containing his captain’s uniform and charts showing the route to a mysterious uncharted island. At the center, he marked a large red “X.”
• During city excavation, workers unearth a complex network of concrete tunnels and rooms hidden under your neighborhood for decades. Studying the bunker more closely finds it hides an encrypted secret.
• Your grandfather’s wartime role as a code-breaker comes to light after finding his journals. Following the coded maps and messages, you stumble upon something he buried many years ago and hid from the rest of the family.
• An archaeologist friend invites you on a trek into the jungle to locate a newly discovered Mayan temple site. But you arrive to find the excavation crew dead and primordial secrets awakening in the depths.
• A stranger at the county fair reads your fortune, telling you that you will soon come upon eternal life. Days later, a pharma CEO approaches you to trial a new pill that stops aging but also erases memories.
• An odd box arrives in the mail addressed to your deceased grandmother. Inside is just an old key, a ticket stub, and a note with longitude and latitude coordinates. Charting them leads to a remote island.
• Exploring your uncle’s cabin after his death, you find a locked trapdoor leading underground. It contains elaborate models of towns spread across a vast map with strange markings indicating an unspecified threat.
• You come upon a car crash in the woods. The driver is barely breathing and clutching a briefcase handcuffed to his wrist. He rasps out a code before passing away, leaving you with the case and key. What’s inside? What now?

We hope these 100 mystery writing prompts have helped you create something amazing. We have many other writing prompts on our site you may enjoy. Please leave us a comment if you have any questions or concerns or if you want to share your creation.

Related posts:

• 1000 Writing Prompts
• 50 historical fiction writing prompts
• 100 Thriller Writing Prompts

About Richard

Richard Everywriter (pen name) has worked for literary magazines and literary websites for the last 25 years. He holds degrees in Writing, Journalism, Technology and Education. Richard has headed many writing workshops and courses, and he has taught writing and literature for the last 20 years.  

In writing and publishing he has worked with independent, small, medium and large publishers for years connecting publishers to authors. He has also worked as a journalist and editor in both magazine, newspaper and trade publications as well as in the medical publishing industry.   Follow him on Twitter, and check out our Submissions page .

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BRYN DONOVAN

tell your stories, love your life

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• Semi-Charmed Life
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50 Intriguing Mystery Story Ideas!

Mystery story ideas often follow a similar pattern. Early on, a dead body turns up, a valuable item goes missing, or a puzzle begs to be solved. The reader knows that by the end of the book, questions will have been answered, which is a comforting element in even the most gruesome murder mysteries.

This simple structure allows for endless creative and original variations. And ten different writers could take the same writing prompt here and write ten vastly different stories! I’ve been reading a lot of mystery novels lately — mostly cozy mysteries, not gritty crime novels, although I might enjoy those, too. That inspired me to write this list of prompts for mystery story ideas.

You can also use this list as an idea generator for free-writing.  Whether you stumble across a story idea you love in the process, or you just get your creative writing juices flowing again, it’s so worth it.

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Although I had mystery novels in mind, some of these could become a subplot in a different fiction genre, from fantasy and romance (especially romantic suspense), to historical fiction and thrillers. (And you might also be interested in my list of 50 thriller plot ideas !)

Be sure to save the post for future reference (or pin it on Pinterest!)

Mystery Story Ideas

1. A woman asks a writer to write the story of her life. Then she goes missing.

2. Murder victims are found buried with some of their wordly goods, Viking style.

3. Three people close to the murder victim have confessed. Each of them swears they acted alone.

4. Notes and gifts from her “Secret Santa” at work take a strange turn.

5. It’s going to be a beautiful wedding at a beautiful destination, but two people in the wedding party have been murdered.

6. The creator of a high-tech prototype that will change an industry has gone missing.

7. Her parents believe her to be their biological child, but they all learn otherwise.

8. The dead woman’s wedding ring is found in a ditch forty miles away.

9. A museum conservator is restoring an old painting, and an X-ray reveals something shocking or mysterious painted or written in the layer beneath.

10. A sorority sister who bullied prospective pledges is found dead.

11. As a man researches his genealogy, he finds that ancestors from a few different generations and a few different countries made visits to the same remote place.

12. Someone replaced the woman’s contact lens solution with a damaging liquid. (This mystery story idea brought to you courtesy of a phobia of mine!)

13. He’s always been a faithful husband, but someone has planted false evidence of his having an affair.

14. A detective is hired for a high price to find a thief who stole something that doesn’t appear to have any real value.

15. Every unmarried lady at the ball wanted to dance with the duke, so it’s too bad he was found stabbed in the garden.

16. In the middle of a wilderness, someone finds an abandoned bunker with security cameras, powered by a generator.

17. The graves of historic figures are being robbed.

18. Clues to the mystery come to him in dreams, but nobody believes him.

19. Serial murders in cities in two different countries are very similar.

20. A man she didn’t know left her a valuable and unusual item in his will.

21. A writer researching his biography of a Golden Age movie star comes across something that makes him suspect that contrary to the official story, she was a murder victim.

22. The accidental death of this investigative reporter seems a little too convenient.

23. The murders all relate to common fears, such as public speaking, flying, and heights.

24. A woman wakes up with a headache and goes into work, only to learn that she’s been missing for a month.

25. Writers are being murdered at the mystery writers’ convention.

26. The painting must have been stolen from the museum in broad daylight, but the security cameras malfunctioned and no witnesses have come forward.

27. Three different guests at the Air BnB died later under mysterious circumstances.

28. A practicing witch or voodoo priestess is accused of murder.

29. The murders are re-enactments of famous murders in novels or movies.

30. He claims to be the rich man who was lost at sea two decades ago.

31. The inspector’s friend is murdered while he is talking on the phone to the inspector.

32. A dead body is found in an unclaimed piece of luggage at the airport.

33. He was murdered on his honeymoon on a cruise ship, and his new, much-younger bride was the only one on board who even knew him.

34. A woman who didn’t know she was adopted meets her twin sister, who gives her a dire warning.

35. One of the pies submitted to the state fair contest was poisoned.

36. The report of a celebrity’s death is false, but he dies soon after.

37. The murder victims all have the same tailor.

38. Who would kill the guest of honor at their 100 th birthday party?

39. The victim was found drowned in a whiskey barrel at the distillery.

40. A wife arranges a romantic “scavenger hunt” for her husband, but someone else changes a few of the clues.

41. The thief who steals rare books always leaves a sonnet behind. (As someone who’s written a few sonnets, I’m particularly fond of this mystery story idea, but you can think of all kinds of creative “calling cards” for criminals!)

42. The wrong body is in the casket at the visitation. No one knows who it is, or where the other body is.

43. The murders were definitely committed by a human, but resemble the attacks of wild animals.

44. After the woman returned the lost wallet, someone began stalking her.

45. The book she’s reading seems to be telling the story of her own life, though she doesn’t think she’s ever met the author.

46. A man who faked his own death must be found in time.

47. Someone in a villain costume and mask attempts to kill an actor at a fan convention. The actor is saved by a fan dressed as a superhero.

48. An Egyptian mummy, or what appears to be one, is found in an unlikely place.

49. A man is found murdered following a heated argument with several people on social media.

50. A body is found in the organic vegetable garden at a hippie commune.

Do you have some thoughts on mystery story ideas?

If so, I’d love to hear from you in the comments! 

And if you want more inspiration, please check out my book 5,000 Writing Prompts !  It has 100 more mystery writing prompts in addition to the ones on this list, plus hundreds of other master plots by genre, dialogue and character prompts, and much more.

Thanks so much for stopping by, and happy writing!

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62 thoughts on “ 50 intriguing mystery story ideas ”.

• Pingback: 50 Mystery Plot Ideas and Writing Prompts! – All About Writing and more

I love cozy mysteries and I love these prompts. A couple of them have spoken to me already and I’ve never written a mystery before.

Thanks, KC! And yeah… cozy mysteries are a whole new world for me, and I love them. 🙂

And I thought I could come up with some off the wall stuff…Thanks Bryn! You’ve offered up several gems.

Haha, thank you Anne!

Your writing prompts should get the writing juices flowing. Thanks for sharing.

Hey, thanks for reading! And for commenting!

Thanks for the mystery prompts, Bryn! I’ve queued up a link to share tonight for Write it Wednesday on my blog.

Oh, thank you. It’s always an honor!

• Pingback: Você não tem uma ideia, mas quer, pode e deve escrever mesmo assim – Romancearte

Is 46 a transvestite mystery then?

It’s either a typo, transvestite, cross dresser, a man who was dressed as a woman as part of his job, or dressed as a woman as a way of hiding from the trouble he’s in. Your choice 🙂

Ha! It’s a typo. I corrected it. 🙂 Thank you!

PS I do that ALL THE TIME in my writing! I always have to correct a few pronouns when I edit a story.

• Pingback: Friday Roundup – 15th September | Stevie Turner, Indie Author.

Number 2 is brilliant and I would binge watch an entire Scandi-noir series based on it.

Hahaha! Thanks, Maggie!

You helped me a LOT, thanks! I wrote stories on #9 and #11. I liked several others, but couldn’t think of ways to put them into stories. I tweaked #9 quite a bit. You have awesome ideas! ??

Hi Bryn, just to say your “Master List for Writers” rocks – love it!

Thanks a lot Bryn… the ideas were nice… can work as a kick starter…!!

this was very helpful thank you so much (they were also in a very understanable english, im only 13 and from denmark)

These ideas are genius! Please write more for mystery and other types of books. (if you have time.) I LOVED EVERY SINGLE ONE OF YOUR IDEAS.

Hello, Bryn! Thank you so much for making this! it’s really inspire me:))

these are useless

just kidding there good

is it okay to use these prompts for movie ideas?

• Pingback: 4 Places to Find Plot Ideas for Your Mystery Novel | | Silviya's Writing Nook

Its really good to have these prompts…..they speaka lot for the forwarding story

so glad to have found you! Love it! Story Ideas for a whole Lifetime!!

Hi there! I’m so glad it’s helpful! Thanks for the nice comment; I really appreciate it!

Yayyyyy I wanna be a author can I know how to become a AUTHOR BTW I’m 11 yrs old and I love reading and writing stories Love it!

thank you i am 11 with my friend we are writing a book

Saul, that’s awesome! I wish you and your friend good luck on your book. Have fun!

Hello, I just found this, and thanks so much! I really wanted to write a mystery novel but I couldn’t come up with anything. Thanks a lot for the effort u put into these ideas and I’m so glad that people like you exist…. ❤

im 12 and im writing a mystery series! so helpful !

Good luck on your mystery series!

Thanks for the prompts!

What a lovely collection of mystery ideas!

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A lot of good ideas here Bryn. Thanks for the inspiration!

I think 99% of content that could lead to a mystery story, comes from people. In solving the mystery, usually it’s a question of finding out what happened, right? I think it’s just as important to know WHY someone did something. The human factor, not just the event, is like, so important, right?

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Nice, and helpful. Let me see if I can connect two or more together and come up with a good plot.

thank u so much! i am 11 yrs old and I’ve been writing short and simple stories since 7 or 8 years old. i came up with the idea to write a mystery novel/murder mystery when i remembered the “Sweet Valley High” series that i read most of by Francine Pascal and how much murder and drama got developed after the 94th one. Anyway, my mind was blank and the ideas i did came up with weren’t exactly genius. i was searching and stumbled against your ideas. they are sooo helpful!! i can literally imagine one of those ideas that u wrote into a movie (for example, your 1st one where everyone is searching for the woman and find nothing. then her adopted brother who had a bond discovered where she was and knew that he should tell no one. he talked to her through lights and letters written on the wall(i got that from STRANGER THINGS) and rescued her from the people who were holding her hostage) i stretched that but i can really imagine this in my mind right now. well, i am so grateful for your ideas. i hope more people can find your ideas helpful worldwide. thank again 🙂

i think that that is really cool. i used to start stories like that around 8 and 9 and i am also 11 looking for more stories

i will also be really happy if u reply 😉

hiya im also 11 i was wondering if you could help me on a 100 word unsolved writting challenge?

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Be careful kids. You do not know that the people contacting you are not adults pretending. Never give out your details to strangers. Keep safe. Keep writing.

will do, thanks 🙂

Number 41 is awesome!! I might use it, but in my story the thief leaves behind haikus. Thanks for the prompts!!!

Hi can you please help me out on a private dective story

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I have been reading posts regarding this topic and this post is one of the most interesting and informative one I have read. Thank you for this!

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A cult believes the victim is not human/heretic.

My problem right now isn’t finding an idea. It’s how to bring it to fruition. Any advice on that would be helpful

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Mystery Story Ideas: 25 Murder, Mystery, and Mayhem Prompts to Inspire Your Story

by Ruthanne Reid | 60 comments

What makes a mystery such a compelling type of story? Maybe it's the puzzle, the details that keep us guessing, or the quirky sleuth or investigator. If you love to read mysteries, too, why not give on of these mystery prompts a try today?

The mystery genre begins with a crime, a puzzle, or other situation that requires solving. Authors leave clues and red herrings that the sleuth (and reader!) follow to solve the case. Some of the most famous authors in this genre include Edgar Allan Poe, Agatha Christie, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Raymond Chandler, and Dorothy Sayers.

There are a number of sub-genres in the mystery category: cozy mysteries, police procedurals, detective, capers and heists, noir and more.

Need help with a structure to get you started? Take a look at our article on the nine types of stories here . And you might also like our full guide on How to Write Mystery Novel .

Today, let's look at some mystery writing prompts to get your creative juices flowing and your own mystery started!

Five Cozy Mystery Creative Writing Prompts

• A librarian happens across a crime scene when they clean the basement archives.
• A murder mystery party goes wrong and potential suspects point at each other to avoid arrest. (Especially effective if set in an enclosed location.
• A secret society of mystery readers realizes that there is a real killer still on the loose and the clues are hidden in a dead author's books.
• A murder scene on a movie set becomes reality when the star is found dead, and the prime suspect discovered missing.
• A new restaurant owner in a small town uncovers a long-forgotten mystery from the town's past but the mysterious circumstances unearth a real killer.

Ten Crime Solving Story Ideas

6. Charles McDougall, Scotland Yard's best Inspector, is laid up in the hospital with a badly broken leg, but that doesn't mean he's off the clock! An online news headline describing a tragic gas leak/explosion catches his eye. Four people died: a housewife, a minor politician, a young chemist, and the daughter of a local mobster. Somehow, using only clues from the internet (and what he can worm out of his coworkers), he has to figure out which of those people was the actual target, and why.

7. Agatha Christoph (get it?) is a retired schoolteacher in a beautiful little town in New England. She never married and has no children, so her friends are everything to her. That's why when her best friend, Martha, is blackmailed with vague threats about some risqué photos from Martha's youth, Agatha jumps to the rescue. But Martha's youth was a LONG time ago. Who could have those photos? And what could they possibly want?

8. Mars is colonized, though there's no air outside the domes. Travel from dome to dome is by train. The Eberswalde Express is the “luxury” locomotive, filled with old-timey elegance and charm. It takes a day and a half between stops to give wealthy patrons full time to enjoy the amenities. AND WOULDN'T YOU KNOW IT…THERE'S A MURDER! Weirdly, this murder mimics the plotline of The Orient Express,  and Elsa, a librarian and mystery buff, recognizes the details. With a murderer on board and nowhere to go, everyone is in danger. Can Elsa solve this murder before the killer strikes again?

9. Ever heard the phrase, “It is not who fired the shot but who paid for the bullet”? This is a philosophy Tomoe Gozen lives by. Tomoe (who, by the way, was a real female Samurai ) serves her general well, but when a fellow soldier dies mysteriously one night after a game of Chō-Han, she can't simply accept that the death had no meaning. Brave and clever, Tomoe follows clues until she learns who ordered the murder: Emperor Antoku himself. But why would the emperor of Japan want to kill a lowly soldier? And why the subterfuge?

10. Medieval France. Fourteen-year-old Amée is a servant girl with a genius IQ stuck as a scullery maid in her fief lord's castle. She leads a lonely life, with plenty of time to think and analyze, though—and this is important—she can't read. But something strange is happening here. The fief lord keeps bringing new brides home… and within two weeks, those brides disappear. A new one—nearly Amée's age—has just been brought to the castle, and Amée knows the clock for survival has already begun to tick. She has time to figure this out. Will she before it's too late?

11. Omar Yehia is a colonel in Cairo's police department. The government is unstable, and the people are unhappy; he has his hands full with violent cases all the time. Unfortunately, one day, a slain prostitute turns out to have something on her person that no one in Egypt should have at all: Queen Mary's Crown . How on earth did she get that ? More importantly, what will Omar do with the 48 hours his superiors give him to crack this case  before they report this to foreign authorities?

12. Sandra is a mystery-lover. She sees mysteries and hidden conspiracies everywhere they aren't , and her sister Carrie laughs this off as a silly quirk… until Carrie is framed for the murder of the man in the next apartment. Carrie's DNA is somehow all over the place, though she swears she's never even been in that apartment before. No one thinks Carrie is innocent but Sandra… and she has a limited amount of time to prove her sister is innocent.

13. Twelve-year-old Alexandra is a leader . She runs her school's newspaper, manages three after-school clubs (the book club, the fencing club, and the junior stamp-collector club), and doesn't have time for nonsense. Which is why when she sees a man dressed all in black carrying a manilla folder as he climbs out of her principal's window, her determination to get to the bottom of it knows no bounds. Look out, data-thief. Here comes Alexandra!

14. David is a senior software engineer for a major tech company, and he spends most days knee-deep in other people's databases, trying to figure out what they did wrong.  One day, he happens across a piece of malicious code designed to steal financial information. He reports it and deletes it, but he comes across that same code again—in the database of a completely different company. He finds it again; and again. And the fifth time around, his manager drops a hint that the higher-ups think he's  the best person to figure out who's planting it. Undercover, they send him to each of the company's data centers: one in London, one in Boston, one in Dallas, and one in Seattle. It's going to be his job—socially anxious as he is—to interview everyone and find out who's planting that code and why.

15. General March hires Detective Thomas to try to find the person who's been blackmailing March for the past twenty years. Thomas tracks the miscreant down, but finds that the man behind the threats has been dead for the past ten years. So who's carrying on the blackmailing? And is the secret that's held March prisoner this long something that should stay a secret?

10 More Murder Mystery Story Ideas

16. Defense attorney Bob Larson enjoys his job. He likes justice; he likes being right. Usually, he thinks right and wrong are really easy to spot. Then he ends up representing a young Navy Seal who shot and killed an elderly woman—and claims it was in self-defense. Who's really the bad guy?

17. Samuel sleepwalks. He also thinks he loves another man's wife. He's more surprised than anyone when he's arrested for that man's murder. Did he do it? Or is he being set up to take the fall?

18. Mystery writer Dan Rodriguez takes the subway every day. Every day, nothing happens. He wears earbuds and a hoodie; he's ignored, and he ignores. Then one evening, on his way home from a stressful meeting with his publisher, Dan is startled out of his funk when a frantic Middle-Eastern man knocks him over at a dead run, then races up the stairs—pursued by several other mysterious looking thugs. The Middle-Eastern man is shot; and Dan discovers a small, wrapped package in the front pocket of his hoodie. What's inside, and what does he need to do to survive the answer?

19. Wealthy, unmarried Anne Lamont is murdered, and she leaves her entire fortune to a man she met two weeks before, putting suspicion squarely on him. Detective Arnold thinks the man is innocent. He has a week to make his case before this goes before a jury. But when he digs into Anne's background, he finds the sweet old matron wasn't at all what she seemed.

20. A headless corpse is found in a freshly-dug grave in Arkansas. The local police chief, Arley Socket, has never had to deal with more than missing gas cans and treed cats. His exploration of this weird murder digs up a mystery older than the 100-year-old town of Jericho that harkens all the way back to a European blood-feud.

21. Someone is murdering homeless people in Phoenix, Arizona. Detective Sally Fortnight is determined to get to the bottom of it… but what she uncovers may be more deadly than she could ever guess.

22. On the Lovely Lady riverboat in 1900's Louisiana, professional gambler Lacroix is just doing his thing when a scream startles him and the other players from the  poker table. It turns out the captain of the steamboat has been murdered, and only someone on the boat could've pulled it off. Lacroix already has a record. In two days, the  Lady will pull into Shreveport, where he stands a good chance of being arrested… unless he can suss out the killer first.

23. Detective Donna Madison is on a completely routine case (bootleg watches, just so you know) when she stumbles across a ring of jewel thieves. Two murders, a clever fortune-teller, and a stuffed cat filled with clues later, and Donna finds herself uncovering a far bigger mystery than where stolen watches go.

24. It is the Cold War era. Private Eye Charles Nick searches for a missing cryptanalyst, all the while dodging an obsessed FBI agent who thinks Nick is a communist spy. The cryptanalyst, by the way, went missing for a good reason: he might have cracked the latest Russian spy code, and he's running for his life.

25. 1850's England: elderly Doris and her six young wards are caught in a storm and forced to ask for shelter at an enormous manor deep in the English countryside. But all is not well in this home, and before long, Doris faces a bizarre problem: the manor's lord, Sir Geoffrey, claims his estranged wife Alice is going to murder him that evening. Alice, meanwhile, claims that Geoffrey is going to murder her. After dinner, both are found dead, in the library, seated as if having a rational discussion, but dead as mice. There is no obvious murder weapon, and quite possibly, the murderer is loose in the manor. Doris is no detective, but she might as well figure this out. Given that storm, help won't be coming until it's too late.

(This is the fourth in my series of story ideas, by the way.  If you're interested in the others, check out  20 fantasy story ideas ,  20 sci-fi story ideas , and 20 romance story ideas. )

Do any of these story ideas get your inner-criminal devising? Let us know in the comments .

It's time to play with story ideas! Take fifteen minutes and develop one of these story ideas into at least one scene. Don't edit yourself! Set your imagination free, then post your results in the practice box below. Don't forget to leave feedback for other writers! Share your practice in the Pro Practice Workshop , and leave feedback for a few other writers. Not a member? Join us .

Ruthanne Reid

Best-Selling author Ruthanne Reid has led a convention panel on world-building, taught courses on plot and character development, and was keynote speaker for The Write Practice 2021 Spring Retreat.

Author of two series with five books and fifty short stories, Ruthanne has lived in her head since childhood, when she wrote her first story about a pony princess and a genocidal snake-kingdom, using up her mom’s red typewriter ribbon.

When she isn’t reading, writing, or reading about writing, Ruthanne enjoys old cartoons with her husband and two cats, and dreams of living on an island beach far, far away.

P.S. Red is still her favorite color.

60 Comments

I hate giving presentations.

I am a software engineer. Or I used to be, until that fateful day my boss called me into his office to figure out who’s been trying to hack into our clients’ code. Now, I am a reluctant detective.

I got the job purely by chance. I happened to be the only guy working the evening (it was Valentine’s) that the malicious code first showed up. I deleted it and reported it to the higher-ups. I was then tasked with the incredibly boring task of searching through the millions of lines of client code that we had access to in order to ensure there had been no other security breaches. The work may have been tedious and time consuming despite the clever automation I baked in, but it was not as pointless as I’d expected: the same code was present in four other code bases.

And that is why I was standing there, sweating bullets and trying to keep my hands from visibly shaking as I presented my findings to the CEO of our company.

“All that’s great, Dave,” said the CEO, calm as ever, “but what are you going to do about it?”

“Well, we’ll have to find the parties responsible, Mr. Zheng.”

“And who do you think that could be, Dave?” He sounded mildly curious about the breach that could cost us our entire reputation and millions of dollars in lawsuits.

“The only people with access to the code bases of all these clients, and I confirmed this with them, is, well, us.” I said.

“So, what are we going to do about it?”

“Find the person and turn them in?”

“Wrong. First, we figure out a way to enhance security of our code base to prevent future attacks, even from within. Jane, put your best engineers on the job.” He said to my manager.

“And Dave, you have been relieved of all your duties so you can focus on finding me the person responsible. You have one week. You may leave now.”

I had a meeting with Jane the next day. I’d never seen her so frazzled before. But the CEO had that effect on people. It’s like he sucked the calm out of you. But he was a brilliant man. That’s why he was CEO.

“So, do you have any ideas, Dave?” she asked.

“I have one. But it’s risky and it may not work.”

“Go on…” she said, carefully.

“A coding competition open to all our employees. An amazing prize besides bragging rights that should draw any hacker in.”

“Ah, and the problem would be to hack into our system?”

“No, that would be too obvious. You see, after all these years on the job, I’ve learned that each person has a distinct coding style, a coding signature, so to speak. Code is personal. It tells you how a person thinks, how careful they are, how considerate etc. Even something as simple as formatting or variable declaration becomes ingrained in a person after years of coding. I believe I can find the hacked using this competition.”

“Well, it’s not like we have any other ideas. Whoever it was used a ghost ip so we cannot track them. This may be our only shot.”

If this were a novel-length piece, I’d go into the nuances of how I designed a problem that was original and yet challenging enough to entice a brilliant programmer working at the best tech company in the world. But suffice it to say that while solutions are difficult, they’re a piece of cake compared to designing problems.

The day of the contest came and entries flooded in. Everyone was interested in getting out of a day of work. Even Janice from accounting was there.

The contestants spent 24 hours hacking up a solution, powered by free pizza. I spent the next 24 hours scouring through thousands of lines of code to find the suspect.

Finally, I found a match. The aha moment turned into a head scratching one when I realized who had sent it in.

I couldn’t believe it. The hacker, and the person with the best solution, was Janice from accounting?!

Sana, I ABSOLUTELY LOVE what you’ve done with this! You’ve managed to make it interesting, to set up characters, and to have a complete beginning, middle, and end. Terrific practice!

I find this interesting 🙂

Some great ideas in this post Ruthanne, I might have to take some of them with me to my writer’s group tomorrow as I know one of our members loves writing mystery. Number 16 really grabbed my attention and makes for a great paranormal mystery.

That would be great, Amanda! I hope they really enjoy them! 🙂

Feel free to turn any of these paranormal. 😉 I tried to keep them largely “normal” for the sake of the audience, but I personally love a little magic in my mystery. 😉

These are the best by far in your story ideas!!!! I love them SO much, especially #20, #14, and #7. I am a mystery lover (I have all of the old Nancy Drew, some of the Trixie Belden, and several of almost 100 – and over- year old Girl Scout mysteries.) and these really “tickle my storytelling bones”. ;-D

Awesome, Renee! I grew up on the old Nancy Drew, too! I hope you take these ideas and turn them into something absolutely wicked fun!

What a great list. I’ve been skipping the other lists because they aren’t in my genre, but I had to read this. And not only because I’m currently stuck on my current work in progress.

I confess that I’m especially drawn to Number 7. Can you blame me?

Thanks for the boost!

This is awesome, Carrie! I’m so, so glad to hear it! I hope you can take that idea and spin it into something fabulous. 🙂

I’ve read all of your ideas and discover that you’ve provided more than just a list of ideas. Far more.

The ways you’ve played off known people and known characters (Agatha Christie and Nick Charles of Thin Man fame) have opened up a couple of doors to me that I hadn’t previously considered. All a of sudden, every novel I love and every character I admire has the potential to influence my own fiction.

Carrie, it delights me that you caught those silly references! 🙂 I’m just thrilled.

I’m also glad this has inspired you. I really believe that creativity is an ocean; if you’re in it, you’ll get wet! We’re all influenced by one another, and that’s the way it should be. 🙂

Hey! Those are pretty good! Thanks!

I’m glad you like them, LaCresha! Enjoy! 🙂

15. Just the smell of it makes me want to run home and hide under my bed. The sight of it, on the other hand, is enough to make me dizzy and feel as though I was going to pass out and vomit at the same time. All my life and throughout my career as a police chief, I’ve never had to deal with any big cases. Nothing ever happens in small towns in Arkansas. But, now, after fifteen years of being a chief and twenty five years of being a police in general, something interesting was finally happening. It just so happened that this happening happened to be a disturbing, horrific, gut-wrenching homicide.

When I got the call I could barely believe what I was hearing. Someone had found an uncovered grave, in which was a fresh (yes, fresh) corpse. Oh, and I forgot to mention-the corpse had no head. After years of dealing with petty middle school criminals and rabid cats, there was an actual crime to be had. But the crime seemed completely unbelievable. So, I sent a few men down to the local cemetery to investigate. The news I received about ten minutes later was enough to send shivers down my spine. The men had found the body, just as the eyewitness had described it. And on top of that, a close inspection of the surrounding land revealed various body parts hidden in books and crannies around the cemetery. Body parts! For Pete’s sake, why did this have to happen in my town? I didn’t have time to ask questions, though. There was a killer on the loose, a psychotic, genuinely dark, and horrifying killer.

I already feel sympathy for your character, and your description is very thorough without being overly so. Your pov is consistent throughout, and the revelation of there being more body parts keeps me wanting to read. A very captivating piece. Well done.

I really like how you make this shocking by making the sheriff so shocked! Good stuff. plus your description of the smell made me sick (in a good way ) 🙂

Great start, Annie! I really hope you continue this. I see characterization and solid voice, and your pacing is great. 🙂 I love what you did!

Can I use this?

Nope! Sorry :/

While Wein cannot copy Annie’s writing (which was fab), I doubt anyone can stake a claim to the prompt of “small town police force has to deal with actual real crime” as a plot–it’s been done before, it will be done again. It’s how you write it, the characters, details, twists and locations you craft that will make it your own!

So, SmartWein, make something originally yours based on the foundational concept. It will be better because it came from your brain and is shaped around the story you create! Find a different crime, or a different protagonist, pick a different setting, write it yourself and you’re golden! Pick a setting that means something to you. Pick a crime that personally horrifies you. Then drop in that bored detective who hasn’t solved anything more complicated than Roe the Regular Drunk, Annie the Irregular Drunk and Jen the Incontinent domestic squabbling, one single “hit and run” that left a sixteen year old with a broken ankle and he saw the license plate number and Matt fessed up straight away, and Laurie’s cat climbing into the rafters of Jo and Ted’s grill… in ten years… but this crime has shocked everyone in this sleepy quiet town down to their ruffled toilet cozies.

It will be better for it.

When I can’t think of an idea, I pick a story I consider to have been terrible and think about how I would take its foundational idea and run it to a superior place. In this case, I recommend you took at Annie’s writing and figure out why it appealed to you, what aspects of it worked. Was it the sensory description? The character? The horrific crime? Once you understand why it appealed to you, you will then have an idea of what to tweak in your own ideas! Perhaps now you know you need to describe the crime with more. But will it be the reeking decomposing head covered in wriggling white maggots, the slimy femur covered in slick moss recovered from the dog’s mouth, the red bloodwashed room that tastes of iron when you breathe, or the ear-splitting shriek that comes from the direction of the dock and endless ocean? What twisted, demented ideas can YOU come up with? What a great mystery indeed! Aha! Ahahahhaa!

If you’ve come up with all these ideas yourself, I do take my hat off to you. Or doff the old top hat, as P G Wodehouse would say. I could spend a week on these!

Agreed! These were fun and interesting ideas!

Thank you, Kat! 🙂 I’m so glad you like them.

Haha! Thank you, Christine! I definitely take inspiration from the stories our world is filled with, but I do my best to make each one unique. 🙂 Enjoy!

Yesterday I sat down and started with #1, writing an opening scene. Will post it here as a separate comment, but it’s LONG. 🙂

This is my first time doing a practice exercise.

20. It was Helen who had found the bodies of their hosts. The poor girl had gone into the library after supper at the invitation of Sir Geoffrey to find herself a book to read to the younger children. Her scream had ricocheted through the eerily empty halls, alerting both Doris and the manors’ butler Wilfred. That had been a while ago, and Doris was still attempting to comfort the girl unsuccessfully. Wilfred also had his hands full attempting to keep the younger children from entering the room where the bodies still sat. A single look passed between the two adults, followed by a slight incline of both their heads. Doris stood up, guiding Helen up the staircase with one arm around the girls still shaking shoulders. The other reached out towards the butler as they passed, a flask being swiftly stowed away for use on the unsuspecting children. As she reached the first floor landing, Doris turned to look back. He still stood at the foot of the stairs, watching after them. A silent sentinel, a pillar of strength in a time of such uncertainty. She allowed the briefest expression of gratitude to cross her face before continuing on. They would have time to talk she knew, once the children were asleep.

Intriguing! I like the pace. I feel like you have the beginning of a solid story line.

I LOVE it! Working on the characterization of the butler as well really helps to expand this beautifully. I hope you keep writing it! Great first-time practice. You’ve caught my attention!

#9 from the top half-this is a really rough draft – 15 minutes is very short. I like this idea a lot and hope to expand it to something real at some point

David lifted his head from the monitor screen, and pushed the thick frame of his glasses so they perched on the bridge of his nose. He stared down at the lines of code. This was no ordinary scripting. If allowed to exist in this environment the company would be a gateway for any hacker with any know-how at all to abscound with sensitive data, financial information, possibly even money itself. Anyone that got through that gateway would easily be able find their way to whatever information they desired. He looked over the code once more and checked the interface as well to see if there were anything obvious to the end-user. He decided the interface looked normal.

He took screen shots of the code and the interface, and logged the occurrence. Then he notified the project manager, Sam Wolfe.

He used instant message:

Hey, I found some strange scripting while updating the firewall. I sent u screenshots and logged the problem Check log h259.

Wolfe shot back

I’ll take a look and let u know what I think. Thanks 4 the heads up.

Back to the code. He deleted the miscreant code. Just for good measure he ran a scan on the machine and on the servers as well.

*grins* Oooh, I was hoping someone would grab this one! It’s one of my favorites (probably because this IS my husband’s job, haha).

I think this is a GREAT first draft. Your writing practice is terrific! Thank you for sharing it! I hope you continue it, too.

Scotland Yard’s top Inspector, recovering from a fall, has read about an explosion at a chemist’s. (I’m using the English term for drug store in this tale.) Four people died, including the chemist. ( Pharmacist over here.) Now McDougall is trying to determine the intended victim and the why.

“Nasty piece of work, that. I read the account in The Times Online last night.” Charles McDougall shook his head. “Hate to see innocent people killed. Or were they innocent? Which of them was the real target?”

Tony, his younger colleague reproved him. “Mac, old pal. You’re here to rest, relax, and heal up. You’re not to give a thought to mini bombs and targets right now. And the next time you go flying down some stairs, take a cushion. You could have broken your neck, you know, and Scotland Yard can’t function without you.”

“Right. The wisdom of my hoary head and all that. So who’s got the case and what has he found out so far?”

“Are you deaf, Inspector? I just said…” Tony paused as a pretty nurse entered the room. His dark eyes gave her the once-over as she set a small paper cup on McDougall’s bed table.

“Here’s your pain meds. Now let’s take your temps, love.” She stuck a thermometer prong in McDougall’s mouth. “Can’t have you getting infection on us.”

Tony grabbed at his stomach. “Ow! Help! I’ve got this sudden, awful pain. Gall bladder maybe, or appendicitis. Will you stick me in a bed somewhere and nurse me back to health, too, sweetie?” He gave her a big grin.

With one hand the nurse pulled a wicked-looking hypodermic needle out of her pocket and waved it in Tony’s direction. “See this? We poke everyone who complains of a pain with three of these. Hospital policy. You’d be surprised how many visitors it cures on the spot.” She set the syringe down beside him where he could fully appreciate its size, then turned to record her patient’s temperature on the chart by his bed.

Tony eyed the needle lying beside him. “Three, eh? I feel so much better already. Fancy dinner some evening — away from these barbaric devices?”

She laughed. “I’ll see what my boyfriend has to say about that. He’s quite partial to seafood, if that’s what you’re thinking of having.”

“Oh, well. Another time, then.”

She picked up the needle, gave him an exaggerated wink and walked out of the room.

“Some friend you are,” McDougall grumbled. “Here I am at death’s door and all you’re thinking of is running off with my nurse.”

Tony turned back to his fellow Inspector. “Hey, I’m a lonely guy. No one to come home to; no one to cuddle with in the wee hours. Can’t blame me for trying.”

McDougall snorted. “Maybe if you’d quit loving them and leaving them you’d have someone to come home to. You get distracted so easily, Weekes. I asked who got the case.”

“Barrows was asked to take a peek at it. Which he did, and reported the basics to us in a briefing this morning. Scotland Yard hesitates to get involved; minor stuff like this the local police should be able to handle. The only reason we’re looking into it at all is because two of the victims are ‘persons of note’ so there could be a bigger picture.”

“Adam O’Connor being one.”

“Right. Even though he’s small potatoes in local politics, it never hurts to take a look.”

McDougall shifted in his bed and wiggled his broken leg in the brace that held it. The younger man jumped up and stepped toward the bed, extending his arm and a bit of TLC. “Need some help getting settled there, Mac?”

McDougall grabbed onto Tony’s solid forearm and heaved himself up a bit. “Thanks. I’m good now. Hate this traction business! All because my sister’s grandson dropped his ice cream cone on the top stair step. Anyway, maybe someone didn’t like O’Connor’s particular policies? Or had he some shady involvement that got out of hand?”

Tony sat back down. “Doubt it. Pretty mild sort. At least not involved in any controversies apt to get him killed. And the other victim ‘of note’ was the daughter of Pierson Rathmore.”

“The mob boss? So that was the school girl. Rat-tat-tat.”

“Yeah. Her name wasn’t released in the news, least not as of this morning.” Tony brushed his fingers through his dark hair. “I wouldn’t want to be the bloke who planted that bomb. Not with Pierson Rathmore on my trail — and he will be. He’ll have several of his boys out looking for the fellow. As you say, ‘rat-tat-tat.’ If we don’t get the perp first, he’ll be floating down the stream without a boat.”

“But she couldn’t have been the target. Someone wanting to settle a score with Rathmore plants a bomb that hits her happenstance at a drug store? Not likely. Rathmore has a couple of sons, too; if this were to hurt him, seems the perp would have aimed for one of them rather. ”

“Well, the girl — his only daughter— was dear to his heart. Everyone knew it. And maybe not quite as much security clustered round her as around the heirs. Also, apparently, she had this regular habit: every Monday on her way home from school she stopped in at this particular chemist’s to buy a chocolate bar. One of our agents kept tabs of Rathmore’s children for awhile back when we were trying to nail him over some mysterious disappearances.”

“Every Monday? And she was eleven? Now that is curious.” McDougall’s gaze turned toward the window as he pondered this fact. How many eleven-year-olds would have a regular habit like that?

“We’re checking out the chemist who was killed, too. Blake Mederach, late twenties. Seems his name’s been mentioned in police notes a time or two. Possible traffic in prescription drugs. Nothing proven, though.”

“And the unidentified woman? Your average housewife stopped to fill a prescription?” McDougall frowned. “Hand me that glass of water, will you.”

Tony stood and passed him the glass. “Mrs Annette Reeves. Nothing on her at all. Active in the church ladies, PTA, that sort of thing. Likely an innocent lamb who stayed longer than she intended. A witness who left the drug store a few minutes earlier said they heard O’Connor nattering to her about one of his future projects for the community. Unless something turns up, we’re assuming being there at the time of the explosion was simple happenstance for both of them.”

“Yeah. A jealous husband or lover may pop in waving a gun, but bombs are a little out of their league. As you say, just in the wrong place at the wrong time. My wife should be dropping by shortly; I’ll get her to attend the lady’s funeral and keep her ears open. She won’t mind doing that.”

“I’ll mention that at the next brief. Now I’d best be off. Oh… Hello!” Tony’s eyes lit up as a slim young woman stepped into the room and looked around. Her long blond hair was pinned up on her head with a barrette and she was wearing a stethoscope round her neck.

“Hello, gentlemen. Hope I’m not interrupting something? I was just passing by and thought I’d take a peek in, see how you’re doing, Mr. McDougall.”

Her bright blue eyes studied him. He could almost hear Tony’s heart rate shooting up.

“I’m surviving,” he replied, taking note of her bright blue eyes. He could almost feel Tony’s pulse rate shooting up. Right now his visitor’s eyebrows were waggling up and down, signalling frantically for an introduction. McDougall sighed.

“Sorry, Love,” he said. “I know you’re the Resident for this ward, but I’ve forgotten your name.”

“Doctor Lundgren. At your service, sir.” She grinned at him, then picked up the patient’s chart. “All vitals well, I see. Much pain.”

“Not really. One bad one right now. Allow me to introduce my colleague, Anthony Wolf — I mean Weekes.”

“Pleased to meet you, Doctor Lundgren. Delighted. Enchanted, even,” Tony held out his hand. Behind her back, McDougall rolled his eyes upward.

She gave it a firm shake, responding to his smile with one of her own. “Nice meeting you as well, Mr-Wolf-I-mean-Weekes.”

“Sorry you have to go, Tony,” McDougall said pointedly. “Do come again this evening and bring more news.”

Dr Lundgren turned back to the patient, replacing his chart. “Well, keep up the good work, then. Get lots of rest.” She chuckled and patted his braced-up leg, then spun around and marched out of the room.

Tony followed her into the hall and McDougall heard him offering some worried-tone malarkey. “You know, Doctor, I’m quite concerned about my pal. He seems edgy and uptight, letting work issues bother him too much. Could we maybe discuss this over lunch?”

McDougall didn’t hear her answer. He shook his head. What was that old saying about chasing the butterfly of happiness?

Then he opened the laptop sitting on the night table in front of him. For now he’d do what he could to puzzle out the drug store bombing. Later, once he had his leg all plastered up with a sturdy walking cast, he’d give Tony a good swift kick in the pants.

I. LOVE. What you did with this. The humor is just fantastic! The pacing is really fun, and I wanted to keep reading! I hope you want to continue with it. 🙂

In fact I do. This is one “exercise” where I saw not just the opening scene, but more of the story unfolding and I want to work it all out. When I do, I’ll post it in parts on my fiction blog and leave you the link here.

And then I’ll start on suggestion #2. 🙂

This is TERRIFIC! Did you ever finish the story?

Thank you! No, I didn’t — shame on me! It got shoved to the back burner and seems to have fallen off the stove — but I think of it now and then. 🙂

Okay, here we go… #3 ( and I have never read The Orient Express either!)—

Elsa hops on the train and, book in hand, takes a seat. She relaxes and opens her book. Elsa looks around before she begins to read. She is a librarian and a mystery buff, and she enjoyed anything related to mysteries. Growing up, she was an only child and found ‘brothers’ and ‘sisters’ in the books she read. As Elsa reads, a scream pierces the air. Startled, she looks up; half thinking that she imagined it. But this was not true; people are nervously glancing around and an elderly woman had fainted. Elsa gets up and closes her book. She steps into the aisle, puts her book on her seat, and walks to where she thinks the scream came from. ‘In the back of the train… The bedrooms, maybe!’ Elsa thinks. She pushes her auburn hair away from her face and walks to the bedroom hallway. Elsa notices a door is slightly ajar, so she steps closer to it. In one movement, she flings the door open and steps inside. She gasps. A man lies prostrate on a bed, purple finger marks on his neck. Elsa turns on the light and walks to the man’s side. Suddenly, she thinks that she might be blamed for the murder, so she steps away. Almost immediately, a policeman and the conductor appear in the doorway. The conductor faints on the spot while the policeman rushes over to the dead man. With a quick glance, the policeman compares Elsa’s hands to the marks on the man’s throat. “You didn’t do it; I know better than that, anyway,” he assures her. Elsa nods and tells him, “A man did it, judging by those fingerprints.” The policeman covers the body with a bed sheet and blanket, and motions for Elsa to help him with the conductor. The policeman and Elsa drag the conductor from the room and into the hallway. Once there, the policeman releases his hold on the conductor and closes the bedroom door.

Elsa runs back to her seat in the front half of the train and something strikes her as odd. She picks up her book and flips to a certain page. Elsa finds that the murder (and the setting!) is identical to her book, The Orient Express. Elsa again flips through the book to see what happens next. The train crashes into a snow bank, the people on board are stuck, and the murderer is on the loose.

That night, Elsa lies in her bed looking out the window at Mars’ scenery, wide-awake. She tries to banish the bone chilling, fleeting thoughts flying through her head. A small thud announces the presence of something… or someone! She turns on the bedside lamp. A half-day more on this trip- and more if the train crashes! Elsa thinks wearily. She grabs something from under her pillow. Elsa turns the light off, while silently hopping out of bed and pulling on fluffy bunny slippers. She pads out into the hallway with a penlight and runs over the events in the story again. What was that? She spins around and flashes the light in the direction of the cargo/baggage hold. Elsa backs into a corner. The blood freezes on her veins when the sound of footsteps – not her own – filter through the cargo door. Elsa flicks the penlight off and hides behind a large vase nearby. There was just enough room for her to maneuver into a position where she could see the cargo door. The door opens and a person clad in black steps out from the shadows. Elsa stifles a gasp when she sees the person’s face. But she calms down when she holds the penlight tin one hand- and a gun in the other. She covers the penlight’s small bulb, turns it on, and throws it to the other side of the small hallway, creating a spinning light sure to catch the person’s eye. The person (or should I say man) quietly speeds to the light and Elsa courageously steps out with the gun pointed at the man. “Hands up!” she orders calmly. The man, startled, spins around. By the look on his face he is shocked… and amused. Elsa sure was a sight to behold: pink-and-red pajamas, bunny slippers, and tangled hair. The man slowly laughed and sped down the corridor only to be stopped by the policeman. The man gives; he puts his hands up. The policeman closes in on him and handcuffs the man. Elsa takes a breath. “Why, conductor?” she asks incredulously. The murderer was the conductor. “I’m a retired actor and I needed fame again, even if people didn’t know who I really was. The stupid movies makers thought I was getting useless, so they kicked me out with a coulpla’ hundred dollars in payment!” he shouted. “I was going to be the star in the movie production of The Orient Express, but they traded me in for some guy five years my senior. And plus, I knew how the plot went!” Elsa nodded.

Then, she explained her part: “I went to the policeman here and told him how it fitted tight along with the plotline of The Orient Express, and my suspicion of what was to happen. He agreed and he gave me one of his guns. Thankfully, I was right and now you are caught, the people are safe, and I can sleep.” Elsa handed the gun to the policeman and padded back to her room, where she collapsed on her bed and fell asleep.

WOO! What an exciting ride! I love that you chose present-tense for this; it made all the action more immediate, like I was walking alongside her.

The bunny slippers were a great touch, too! 🙂 Thanks for sharing!

As the president of the drama club and debating society, a member of the music club and the vice-president of the Leaders Book Club, Tolu had a lot on her plate. She was also the Student Head of the junior school where she had only just enrolled at the beginning of the school term despite being a transfer student. She had had to turn down the position of class president when she turned Student Head.

She knew her classmates snickered behind her back everyday but there was nothing she could do about it. She was called an over acheiver and all sorts of names that made her ire rise but she turned a blind eye.

With just one more term to go before the end of the session, her parents were quite worried that she had not invited any friends home nor had she mentioned any. They had tried to broach the matter with her but it was futile.

Meanwhile, her studies did not suffer and she was the school’s darling. She was very organised and precise. But when the school decided to set up a chess club and make Tolu the president, without any votes, other children began to plot. The taunts became more obvious. The jeers became louder.

And so on a certain sunny afternoon when she left her class to make her way to the teachers office for a meeting with one of her tutors, she decided to take the long route in order to avoid some of her enemies. In her thirteen year old mind, she was plotting moves using an imaginary chess board. She was winning the chess game when a shadow momentarily blocked out the light. It lasted only for a few seconds but her curiosity overtook her. She was walking behind the windows and it seems that someone had just risked the principals wrath by sneaking into his office.

Worse yet, that person was holding a file, the kind opened in every students name when they join the school. The files that have details of students lives and the things that teachers observe without wanting the student to find out. As Tolu saw this, she decided to investigate. Still carrying her heavy school bag on her back, she decided to find out who it was and who was coward enough to steal students file. She resolved that she would investigate and inform the principal, afterwards.

Crouching, she stole closer to the principals window and peeped into the office.

Hi, is it alright if I use some parts of the ideas listed here in my own stories, rather than following the prompt word by word? I’ve been working on an episodic detective series for my college portfolio and I’m out of ideas. I really like a few of the mysteries presented here and would like my teen detective to solve them.

This isn’t any of the above just another story idea:

21. Cody is a casual teenager who wants to fulfil his dream of being hypnotised; when hypnotist David finally comes to town Cody pays a visit. David’s attempt to hypnotise Cody ha gone wrong; Cody is stuck in an unbreakable trance which has made a connection between his and David’s mind. Whatever David thinks, Cody does. Will David’s biggest desire of vengeance succed or will it fail….

This is the first time in years thats im trynna write fiction. This is #13 here, i forgot the name so came up with Mark.

It was a typical Sunday in the metro station, deserted. On any other day, the platform would be swarming with daily office commuters but on the weekends and especially Sundays there would be but handful. As Mark entered the platform, he was pleased to see the emptiness. Travelling in the stuffed metros was always a pain. He checked the clock hanging over head, 10 minutes for the next train. Less people meant lesser frequency of trains. He stationed himself right where he always stood , beside the first of many pillows along the length of the platform. A train hustled itself behind him on the opposite route. Among the people coming out were couples, families on a holiday trip and few other men and women. But one particular person caught Mike’s attention. He wore an old discoloured shirt and shorts, not what people wear when travelling. He looked sort of in his 30’s, physically well built but of stout height. He bad bruises on his cheeks, clear sign of being on the receiving end of punches. Walking hurriedly on the platform, he kept watching backwards. Suddenly he started running, tripped and collided with Mark sending both men on the ground. Before Mark could react, the man was up and away. It did not take Mark long to figure out why the man had started running, he saw a group of men coming towards him, apparently chasing that guy. They did not give him a second look and kept running.

Mark was surprised at the happenings. In his 3 years of travel though the metro, he had never witnessed anything like this. He was still coming back to his senses when another train pulled up. This time, it was on his desired route. He quickly walked to the edge of platform waiting for the train to stop. At that moment, he heard a loud bang ricochetting in the underground. He froze right where he stood. Unmistakably, that was a gun shot!

I just read these mystery ideas. I love them all so much. I was planning on writing a mystery for my first Nanowrimo novel in November. Idea #7 gave me so many great ideas for my novel! Do you mind if I use it?

I loved the ideas. I was looking for an idea to apply to a bunch of background material I have, but couldn’t find anything that fit, so I thought I’d mention it here and see if you have thoughts. In short, I’ve been in contact with the descendants of the mutineer’s on the HMS Bounty. If you recall, after taking the ship, they found an uncharted island in the Pacific called Pitcairn where the 30 descendants live today. I just happen to have tons of material on how they live, celebrate Christmas – many colorful stories for background color. I was trying to think of a cozy mystery idea on, or off, the island with a hypothetical descendant. They are visited by supply ships every other month and small cruise ships three times a year. Not much to go on. Any thoughts or ideas would be appreciated. Note – I’m a maritime history writer that’s looking to move the the Mystery genre.

16. Running though streets, abandoned, was something he had never seen himself doing in his mind’s eye. The steady rhythm of his feet was echoed by the equal rhythm of his attacker’s footsteps. Blood mixed with sweat ran down the lean, wrinkled face of the victim, his heart pumping as he realized that his fate would be the same as Melissa’s: death. He had reached a dead end in the street…and his life. His attacker grabbed him, threw him on the ground, then took his time in creating pain for the victim.

Sally Fortnight put her brick-red hair into a neat french braid as she remembered how nearly she had lost her head earlier on that year. She was tired of sitting at home on leave. Being a cop in the police department of Phoenix, Arizona, was her life, her being, and a psychopath cutting a careful line along her collarbone and a cut starting at her ear and making its way to halfway along her cheek, intended to go to her mouth, slow and painful without anesthetic. She touched her scars on her hands and looked down at similar scars on her bare feet where she had been drilled into a metal table. Her green eyes teared up as she remembered the look on his face as he went about his work. She had loved him, and she never knew what had hit her. Her daze was interrupted by a ring on the doorbell. She quickly grabbed her 9 millimeter and looked through her oaken door’s eye hole. A Phoenix detective badge was held up at the hole, and a female voice called out, “Detective James, Phoenix Police Department, Homicide!” Sally opened her door and embrace her best friend, her partner, and her confident in everything.

Could i take number 7 and turn it into a story and publish on Wattpad? Would that be okay?

Thank you very much!

You use Wattpad too?

My timer went off right as I was finishing up the last sentence… how ironic! I used #13 for this story.

Daniel Rodriguez – Dan to his few friends – was a simple man. He took the subway in the mornings to his day job, he always wore a hoodie (the train was cold, thank you very much), and he had to have his music. The swaying train coupled with the complete separation from outside noise made the perfect environment for him to write. He hadn’t been published yet, but he wrote nonetheless. He loved mysteries – he wanted to be famous for them some day. “Hey! Watch it!” “Look where you’re going!” Annoyed exclamations and shouts that Dan could actually hear over his music made him snap out of his thoughts. With a scowl on his face, he took out his earbuds, and looked up to see what the commotion was about. He saw a man, shoving past people and trying his hardest to run. The man had dark, tanned skin and intense features, but he couldn’t make out much else besides that and his clothes, which were distinctly middle-eastern. He stood to get a better look, but as soon as he had, the man nearly ran him over. With an ‘ooph!’ and a loss of breath, he was practically slammed back into his seat. Dan couldn’t even find the will to react; he only gave an incredulous look and shook his head. Whatever, it wasn’t his problem. By the time the middle-eastern man was out of sight, however, another strange occurrence happened. A group of men in dark-colored suits and sunglasses pursued him, moving equally as fast, if not faster. Saying nothing to anyone – and ignoring the cries of the people they pushed over in their pursuit – Dan watched them go by with intrigue. “Is it the feds? Are they chasing that guy?” he asked the woman sitting next to him, who seemed equally as intrigued as he was. She only shrugged. “No idea. Oh, hey, I think you dropped your notebook.” She pointed to Dan’s composition journal, which he wrote down all of his ideas and character designs. He mumbled a ‘thank you’ to the woman, embarrassed, but leaned down to pick it up. When he did, something small fell out of the pocket of his hoodie. His eyebrows furrowed and he looked at it for a second. It was a small package, neatly wrapped in newspaper and tied with string. He had no idea what it was or where it had come from. He picked up his journal and the package, but before he had much time to think about it, there was a gunshot. Startled, he shoved both of them in his bag and stood. Everyone in the train car went deadly silent, waiting for what happened next. With a squeal, the train slowed to a halt. Police bombarded the subway when it stopped, and when the door to the next car opened, Dan could see what happened. “Oh my god… that guy was…” he choked out. The middle-eastern man from before was clutching a bloody stomach wound, barely holding on. The men in suits were nowhere to be found. With the last of his strength, the man looked Dan dead in the eye. Dan gulped, feeling a chill run down his spine. The man gave a short nod, and then his eyes slid closed and did not open again. Dan felt frozen in place – he could hardly process what was going on. Then, suddenly, he remembered the package. With trepidation, he pulled it out of his bag. “What in the world have I gotten myself into…?” he murmured, eying the package. And yet, even as he thought this, he knew he shouldn’t turn it in to the police. The man’s nod was one of trust, one that said he was depending on Dan. He couldn’t just give it up so easily. There was only one problem nagging at his mind: what was in the package?

I need a murder mystery escape room idea. U see, the group I was working with kicked me out but kept my idea as the purge. So I have to start all over, so I decided to start all over. I’m not sure what kind of clues I need AND materials. HELP!!

Hi! I’m 14 years old and I’m writing a story that is about a murder of a 14 year old girl’s boyfriend. I need some more ideas about how I should continue… Please help me!

Make it interesting by making the girlfriend murder him

Ahh… I should make her have a demon that controlled her that night and have her remember she killed him! Great idea! Thanks so much!

I’m thinking of using #18 (and adapting it, maybe for NaNoWriMo). Maybe the watch is a time machine.

Thank for sharing your crime Solving Idea’s. NeedAssignmentHelp provides the best python assignment help, python homework help in the US, Australia & UK at a pocket friendly price. https://www.needassignmenthelp.com/python-assignment

I like the ideas. They catch your attention and let your imagination free. It helps a lot for the young ones who want to take up writing in the future. Thanks. Waiting for a lot more ideas to help me become an author.

I spent nearly a year on my first book. It was easy because I inserted myself into the story line. It’s published and I am now working on a private detective novel. The ideas here are great but after 38,000 words I hit a brick wall. I have been stalled for 2 days now. thanks for the article

#1 Charles’ eyes riveted around the unfamiliar room. He stared at his leg, feeling perturbed. This had to be the WORST time to be a clumsy detective. He folded his arms and gave a sulky pout, like a five year old. Then, Christina, his lowly nurse, burst in with a large food tray. She gave Charles a big smile. “Looks like today’s full of mystery.” She set the food tray down. Charles’ eyebrows flew up. “What?” She looked around the room to see if anyone else was up. “Some gas leak caused an “explosion that killed 4 people.” Charles’ eyeballs almost bulged out of his head. “Killed who?” “There was the housewife, a minor politician, a young chemist, about twenty or so, and… oh yeah! Damian’s daughter.” Damian was THE worst mobster Scotland Yard had ever seen. Charles realized there was a mystery to solve. He smirked. I am a preteen so I know my little paragraph wasn’t the best. Any feedback on how to improve and polish my story will be great, thanks.

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• Writing Prompts

150 Writing Prompts For Middle School (+Free Printable)

Make writing fun and easy, with these 150 writing prompts for middle school students. 

The more you write, the better you become at writing. But the problem is not all middle schoolers enjoy writing. There’s always something better to do, playing video games , watching YouTube videos , hanging with friends , lazing about the house – Why bother writing, right? The trick is to understand that even the smallest piece of writing can make a huge difference in a student’s attitude towards writing. 

If you unload too many lengthy assignments, such as writing 1,000 words on topic X or 3,000 about something, something – Writing can seem like a long, boring chore for some students. But if you break it down, and mix it up a bit, then your students have a real chance of actually liking writing for fun. Think of creating small writing tasks that take no longer than around 10 or 15 minutes to complete. As students complete these small tasks with ease, their confidence will grow, eventually turning them into avid young writers.

To help inspire and motivate young writers, we have created this list of 150 quick and easy writing prompts for Middle School students. Keep reading for a free printable writing pack for middle schoolers as well! Here is a quick generator that will generate a random middle school prompt for you:

For more fun writing ideas, check out this list of over 300 writing prompt for kids .

150 Writing Prompts For Middle School Students

This list of prompts is great for whenever your middle-schooler is bored and needs some quick ideas to write about:

• Make a list of at least three different opening lines for this story idea: A space knight living in outer space wants to fight a real fire-breathing dragon.
• Complete this sentence in at least three different ways: When I’m bored, I like to…
• Draw a picture of your dream house, and describe some of the coolest features it has.
• Make a top ten list of the scariest animals in the animal kingdom. You could even write down one scary fact about each animal.
• Write an acrostic poem using the letters that spell z-o-m-b-i-e.
• Describe the scariest monster that you can think of. You could even draw a picture of it.
• Complete the following sentence in at least three different ways: My goal for the next month is to…
• Make a top ten list of your favourite foods of all time. You could even write down one reason for why each food is your favourite.
• Create your own A-Z book or list of monsters. For A is for Abominable Snowman, B is for Bogeyman and so on.
• Research and write down five facts about an endangered species of your choice. Examples of endangered species include the blue whale, giant pandas, snow leopards and tigers.
•  Create a postcard for your local town or city. What picture would you draw on the front? And what message could you include on the back?
• Write an acrostic poem using the letters that spell out your own first name. This poem could be about yourself. 
• Make a top ten list of your favourite movies of all time.
• Make a top ten list of your favourite songs of all time.
• Complete the following sentence in at least three different ways. When I grow up I want to…
• Which is your favourite season, Winter , Spring , Summer or Autumn? Write a haiku poem about your favourite season.
• Create a party invite for a dinner party at your house. Think about the party theme, entertainment, food and dress code.
• Write down a recipe that uses eggs as one of the ingredients.
• Write a how-to guide on how to take care of a kitten or puppy.
• What do you enjoy doing on the weekends? Start by making a list of activities that you do on the weekend. Then you can pick one to write about in more detail.
• Using a photograph (or one of these picture writing prompts ), write a short caption or description to go alongside it. 
• Imagine you are the owner of a new restaurant. Create a menu of the dishes you will serve at this restaurant. 
• What has been the best part of your day so far? And what has been the worst part of the day?
• Imagine that you have a time machine. What year would you travel to and why?
• If you could have one superpower, what would it be and why?
• If you could keep one dinosaur as a pet, which dinosaur would you pick and why?
• Write down everything you remember from a recent nightmare that you had. 
• What is your favourite country in the whole wide world? List at least five fun facts about this country.
• Make a list of at least 3 different story ideas about aliens.
• Create a character description of the world’s most evil supervillains.
• What is your greatest achievement to date? What are you most proud of and why?
• Write an action-packed scene that contains the following: A car chase, a lucky pair of socks and a talking parrot.
• What advice would you give to someone who is being bullied? You could make a list of at least three pieces of advice that you might give.
• Imagine you are stuck on a desert island. Write a diary entry of your first day on the island.
• Imagine you are a pirate sailing the seven seas. Talk about the scariest thing you faced while out at sea.
• You just discovered a new planet . Can you describe this new planet in detail? What would you call it? Does any life exist on the planet? What type of climate does it have?
• Would you rather have a magical unicorn as a pet or a fire-breathing dragon?
• Complete the following sentence in at least three different ways: One day I was walking through the forest and discovered…
• Write a letter to your friend about a favourite memory you have of them. You can use the following starter as inspiration: Remember that time…
• Make a list of book title ideas for a story about a girl who can go invisible whenever she wants.
• A talking cat is fast asleep, then suddenly someone wakes it up. Write down a short script between the cat, and the person arguing. 
• What is the nicest thing that anyone has done for you recently?
• Make a list of 10 online safety tips to help you stay safe online.
• Can you think of at least 5 ways to prevent climate change in your daily life?
• Make a list of your top ten favourite books of all time.
• Think about a movie that you’ve seen recently. What did you enjoy most about this movie, and what did you dislike about it?
• You are just about to take a bite of an apple. And then suddenly the apple starts screaming. What do you do next?
• Describe a magical forest in great detail. What makes this forest so magical?
• Write a super scary scene, using the following starter: As I walked into the haunted house…
• What is your greatest fear? Is it possible to ever overcome this fear? If so, how would you do it?
• Make a list of at least five things you like about yourself. And then make a list of five things that you would change about yourself.
• What would the perfect day look like for you? How would it start? What activities would you do? And how does it end?
• You are standing in the playground when you hear two of your classmates making fun of your best friend. What do you do next?
• A young boy yells at his pet eagle to fly away into the wild. The eagle does not respond. Write down this scene between the two characters in great detail. 
• Describe a pencil in the greatest detail possible.
• Create your own superhero character. What are their strengths and superpowers? What about their weaknesses? Also, think of a cool superhero name for them!
• What is your dream job? What skills and traits do you need to do this job well?
• Imagine that you have had the worst day ever. Write down what happened to make it so bad.
• What is your favourite colour? Now write a short rhyming poem about this colour.
• If you had three wishes, what would you wish for and why? Wishing for extra wishes is not allowed.
• Write an action-packed scene of a lion chasing a zebra in the wild from the perspective of the lion. 
• Imagine you own a video gaming company. Your task is to come up with a new video game idea. Explain this new video game idea in detail.
• What would you do if you were given $1 million dollars? 
• What is your favourite hobby or interest? Can you provide at least five tips for beginners who might be interested in starting this hobby?
• Make a top ten list of your favourite celebrities or YouTube stars.
• Write the opening paragraph of a fairytale about a zombie prince who has returned from the dead.
• Write an alternative ending to a fairytale that you are familiar with. For example, you could write a sad ending for Cinderella or a cliff-hanger style ending for Jack and the Beanstalk.
• Write down a conversation in a script format between two people waiting for the bus at a bus stop.
• Would you rather get abducted by aliens, or discover a magical portal to another realm in your bedroom? Explain your answer.
• Write a shape poem about your favourite food in the shape of this food.
• If you had to prepare for a zombie invasion, which three items would you pack in your bag, and why?
• Describe the most beautiful garden in the world in detail. What type of flowers would it have? Would it have any garden furniture?
• You receive a strange parcel in the middle of the night. You open the parcel to discover… Write down at least one paragraph of what you discover in the parcel.
• Use the word, ‘Stampede’ in at least three different sentences.
• Complete the following metaphor in at least three different ways: Your smile is like…
• Describe the city of the future. What would the buildings look like? How will people travel? What kind of homes will people live in?
• What is Marie Curie (the physicist) famous for? Research and write down five facts about her research and studies. 
• You have just been made leader of the Kingdom of Kinloralm. As the leader, what rules would you set for the kingdom? Make a list of at least 10 rules that you will enforce. 
• A witch has cast a spell on you. Every night at midnight, you turn into a werewolf. Describe this transformation in great detail. What does it feel like when you are transforming? How does your skin change? What about your teeth and fingernails?
• Using the following starter , write at least one paragraph: When I look outside the window…
• After a deep sleep, you wake up to find yourself locked inside a cage. No one else is around. What do you do next?
• You keep on having the same nightmare every night. In your nightmare, you are running as fast as you can, and then you suddenly fall. When you turn around you see… Write at least one paragraph about what you see. 
• Write down at least 10 interview questions that you can ask your favourite celebrity. If you have time, you can even write down the potential answers to these questions from the perspective of the celebrity.
• Write a how-to guide on how to grow tomatoes at home.
• Make a list of at least five tips for keeping your bedroom clean.
• Would you rather drive the fastest car on Earth for one hour or own a custom-made bicycle? Explain your choice.
• Write a limerick poem about an old snail. 
• Find something in your room that begins with the letter, ‘R’, and write a paragraph describing this object in detail.
• Research the history of how the first mobile phone was invented. Create a timeline of mobile phone inventions from the very first mobile to the current time. 
• If you were the headteacher of your school, what changes would you make and why? Try to list and describe at least three changes. 
• What are the benefits and drawbacks of having access to the internet? Try to think of at least five benefits and five drawbacks.
• Write about the best day of your life so far. Then write about the worst day of your life so far.
• Imagine that you are an agony aunt for a newspaper. A reader has written to you with the following problem: Dear Agony Aunt, I have no friends at school. And my classmates are always making fun of me… What advice would you give this reader?
• Imagine that you are a salesperson. Your task is to sell a new chocolate bar to customers. Write down a sales pitch that was selling this chocolate bar. What features would you highlight? What are the benefits of this chocolate bar?
• Can you complete the following sentence in three different ways: When I feel upset, I …
• What is the most difficult part about being in middle school? What is the best part of middle school?
• Imagine that your best friend has just revealed a huge secret. How would you react? Write down a script of the conversation between you and your best friend.
• Have you learned any new skills recently? How did you learn these?
• Imagine you are sitting at a dinner party with a group of strangers. Describe the atmosphere in great detail. Who are you sitting next to? What sort of conversations are the other guests having? What food is being served?
• Five years from now, where will you be? Will you be the same person? How would you have changed?
• Write about your plans for the weekend.
• Describe a day in the life of being a goldfish in a fishbowl at a pet shop.
• While at the seaside, a message in a bottle washes up onto the shore. You open the bottle and read the message. The message reads: Help Me! I’m stranded on an island! What do you do next?
• A mother and her son are baking some muffins in the kitchen. Write down a conversation that they might have while they bake together.
• Make a list of indoor activities you can do when it’s raining outside. Try to think of at least ten activities.
• Write down a diary entry from the perspective of an alien secretly living undercover on Earth. 
• Write at least three different opening lines for the following story idea: A king needs to keep his kingdom safe from the ravenous trolls that come out at night.
• Imagine you are a secret agent cat, write about your most recent mission.
• Complete the following sentence in at least three different ways: If I could change the world, I would…
• If you could program a robot, what tasks would you program it to do, and why?
• Imagine you are the owner of a toy shop. Your task is to hire some toy makers. Write a job description for a toymaker. Think about the skills and traits required to become a toymaker. 
• You are the owner of a zoo. Suddenly you hear people screaming as the lions are accidentally released. What do you do next?
• Your future self comes from the future to warn you about something. Write a conversation that you would have with your future self. 
• If you had a choice to become a superhero or a supervillain, which one would you be and why?
• Can you think of at least three things that no one knows about you? Why have you kept these things a secret?
• During a science experiment, you mix up the wrong chemicals. The liquid turns blue and jumps out of the glass container. It then slides into your backpack. What do you do next?
• Write down at least five things that you are grateful for in your life right now.
• You notice some strange footprints in your backyard leading to your shed. You follow these footprints and discover…
• When was the last time someone upset you or hurt your feelings? How did they hurt your feelings? Do you remember what was said?
• You walk inside a magic shop. You see all sorts of weird and fun things. Describe the inside of the shop in as much detail as possible. 
• Write at least three different opening lines for the following story idea: A young werewolf wants to be a human again.
• Make a list of three different story ideas about dragons.
• Write from the perspective of a kite flying high in the sky. Think about what you feel, see and hear.
• Write about your favourite subject at school. Why do you like this subject?
• Write a haiku poem about the full moon.
• Imagine you are the manager of a TV channel. Make a list of at least three new TV show ideas you can air on Saturday evening.
• You find a baby alien in your basement. What do you do next?
• Think of at least three newspaper headlines for the following article idea: The new mayor of your town/city is planning on creating more homes.
• Imagine that your pet dog has gone missing. Create a missing poster to find your dog. Remember to describe any important details relating to the dog in your power.
• Write an advertisement for the brand new mixer 3000. It mixes all the best music tracks with sounds to create the ultimate track.
• Write down three sentences. One of something interesting that happened to you today. Another of something positive that happened. And finally another sentence of something negative. 
• Write down four different character descriptions. Each character must have a different background story or history when growing up.
• Imagine you had a terrible experience at a restaurant. Write a complaint letter to the restaurant manager, outlining the problems you had. 
• Imagine your family is planning to go on a cruise. As you drive to the boat, a person walks up to your car window, holds up a flyer, and demands that they do what they were told. What is your family’s reply?
• As you’re making your way home, you pass by a group of people. It turns out the person who was walking next to them is a ghost. What do you do next?
• Your best friend has had a terrible year. You need to plan the best birthday party ever for them. Make a list of items that you will need for the party. 
• Using the 5 W’s and 1 H technique, outline the following newspaper article idea: A new breed of wolves was discovered nearby. The 5 W’s include: What, Where, When, Who and why. The one H is How.
• Write a positive self-talk poem, using the following starter: I am…
• Take a recent picture that you have drawn at home or during art class. Using this picture, can you think of at least three ideas for stories from it?
• How can you prevent bullying in your school? Make a list of at least five different ways to prevent bullying.
• Write a list of at least 10 interview questions that you can ask your favourite teacher at school. If you want, you can actually ask these questions and write down the responses your teacher gives.
• Describe a day in the life of being a mouse that lives in your school.
• What qualities to look for in a friend? Make a list of at least 3 qualities. Also, think about what qualities you try to avoid. 
• Complete the following sentence in at least three different ways: When I wake up in the morning, I feel…
• Do you ever wish you could do more to help people? Make a list of at least five ways you can help a friend who is going through a tough time.
• When was the last time you felt angry? How did you deal with this anger? Do you think it is okay to be angry all the time?
• Write down at least three predictions for the future. These predictions can be personal or about the world. You can use the following starter: In 10 years time…
• Do you enjoy writing? If yes, then what kind of things do you enjoy writing about. Explain your answer.
• Think about the last book you read. Which scene in the book stood out to you the most? Why did it stand out for you?
• Complete the following sentence in at least three different ways: The biggest question on my mind right now is…

What did you think of this list of quick and easy writing prompts for Middle School students? Did you find this list useful or difficult to use? Let us know in the comments below!

Printable Writing Pack for Middle Schoolers

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Marty the wizard is the master of Imagine Forest. When he's not reading a ton of books or writing some of his own tales, he loves to be surrounded by the magical creatures that live in Imagine Forest. While living in his tree house he has devoted his time to helping children around the world with their writing skills and creativity.

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55 Best Mystery Writing Prompts

Mysteries have an uncanny ability to captivate the human mind, ensnaring our imaginations with the promise of the unknown. The allure of the unsolved or the yet-to-be-understood is irresistible, drawing readers and writers alike into its web. For the aspiring writer or even the seasoned author, finding the perfect starting point can often be as elusive as the mysteries they wish to depict.

To assist in this creative endeavor, we have curated a compelling list of mystery writing prompts. Each one promises to be a gateway to a tale of suspense, intrigue, and revelation, waiting for your unique voice to bring it to life.

55 Best Mystery Writing Prompts:

• A detective receives an anonymous letter that predicts a crime happening in exactly 24 hours.
• In a sleepy town, residents start finding ancient coins that shouldn’t exist.
• A renowned author vanishes, leaving behind a manuscript that describes his own disappearance.
• A mirror in an old estate shows a room that doesn’t exist in the house.
• Every day, at exactly 3:15 AM, a phone booth rings in a desolate town square.
• The local zoo reports a missing animal, but it’s an animal they never had.
• A historian discovers discrepancies in known world events after reading a diary from the 1800s.
• A woman wakes up with memories of a life she’s never lived.
• A famous painting in a museum changes its scene every full moon.
• An entire town wakes up, and every clock has been set back 3 years.
• A private investigator is hired to find someone who doesn’t appear to have ever existed.
• An astronaut on a solo mission hears knocking from outside the spacecraft.
• Footprints appear overnight in a sealed-off room of a mansion.
• A librarian discovers a book that predicts the future but causes events to change if it’s read.
• Children at a playground speak in a language no one can identify.
• A silent film from the 1920s resurfaces, showing footage of modern-day events.
• A detective finds evidence linking a new crime to an unsolved case from 50 years ago.
• Passengers on a cruise ship wake up to find the crew has vanished.
• An old radio starts broadcasting news events from an alternate reality.
• Every guest at a hotel has the same dream on the same night.
• Twin siblings separated at birth reunite, only for one to claim they’re from the future.
• A lighthouse illuminates signals in Morse code from a source deep underwater.
• A missing person returns without aging a day, with no memory of their disappearance.
• The oldest tree in a town starts dropping leaves with encrypted messages.
• A detective realizes all recent crime victims are his past schoolmates.
• A train arrives at a station on time, but it’s a train that disappeared a century ago.
• A shop sells items that customers have lost but haven’t realized yet.
• Antique eyeglasses allow the wearer to see ghosts.
• The discovery of a skeleton beneath a school reveals a ring with recent engraving.
• An actor is mistaken for a detective and decides to solve a real mystery.
• A detective is called to a crime scene, only to find their own fingerprints.
• On every birthday, a man receives a postcard from places he’s never been.
• An entire film festival audience disappears during a movie screening.
• A town’s water supply reveals traces of a potion only known in ancient myths.
• Disguised messages are found in children’s TV broadcasts.
• Shadows in a haunted mansion appear to lead their own lives.
• A detective starts seeing clues highlighted as if by an invisible hand.
• Statues in a museum are found in different poses every morning.
• A family heirloom clock chimes a melody only heard in a dream.
• Three strangers on a train discover they share the same fabricated childhood memory.
• A cold case resumes when the main suspect wakes from a 20-year coma.
• A pianist plays a tune that makes listeners recount memories of others.
• A town covered in snow in summer reveals footprints leading nowhere.
• Messages in bottles start arriving at a beach, all from the same unknown sender.
• A mute parrot speaks for the first time to relay a warning.
• Multiple people dream of a mysterious place and decide to find it.
• Mirrors in a house show reflections with a 10-minute delay.
• An AI system predicts crimes but refuses to reveal sources.
• New stars appear in the sky, spelling out a message.
• A man finds a door in his new house leading to a different era.
• Two writers describe the same fictional crime scene, which later turns out to be real.
• A detective discovers their recent memories are implanted.
• A small town has an annual event that no outsider remembers.
• A music box plays a tune that makes listeners confess their deepest secrets.
• Everyone in a city has the same vivid dream of an unsolved crime.

Conclusion:

Every good mystery leaves an indelible mark on its audience, drawing them back time and again to unravel its intricacies. We hope that these mystery writing prompts serve as the spark for countless tales of suspense and intrigue. Let them challenge your imagination, inspire your creativity, and lead you on a journey into the unknown. Remember, the best mysteries don’t just surprise; they resonate, lingering in the minds of readers long after the last word is read.

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50 creative writing prompts for middle school students.

• September 11, 2023
• 11 min read

Table of Contents:

Why creative writing matters, prompts to explore personal experiences, prompts for imagining fantastic worlds, prompts for exploring emotions, prompts to unleash adventure, prompts for humor and laughter, writing prompts for middle school mystery and suspense section, prompts to reflect on the future, prompts for historical time travel, writing prompts for middle school to target sci-fi and futuristic fantasies, writing prompts for middle school to dive into nature, writing prompts for middle school for alternate realities, are these prompts suitable for both classroom and individual use, creative writing.

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Middle school is a time of exploration, growth, and boundless imagination. It’s a phase where young minds are eager to express themselves, and what better way to channel this energy than through creative writing? This article explores 50 creative writing prompts for middle school students to worlds of wonder, emotion, and adventure. These prompts stimulate their creativity, boost their writing skills, and encourage them to think beyond the ordinary.

Creative writing holds a significance that extends far beyond the confines of a classroom. It is a form of expression that acts like a mirror reflecting human emotions, similar to what is explored in What are the three main purposes for writing? . It is a powerful medium through which individuals can express their innermost thoughts, emotions, and ideas, allowing them to connect with themselves and the world around them on a deeper level. This art form empowers individuals to unleash their imagination and paint vivid landscapes of words, enabling them to communicate in ways that traditional language often falls short of. For middle school students, creative writing is a journey of exploration and growth, much like the journey described in How to write a good story: A complete process . As they engage with a diverse array of writing prompts for middle school, they embark on a path that enriches their vocabulary, refines their grasp of grammar, and teaches them the invaluable skill of structuring their thoughts coherently and effectively. Through crafting narratives and weaving intricate tales, students learn the art of storytelling, a skill crucial in literature and various aspects of life. Whether it’s penning down a compelling essay, delivering a persuasive speech, or even drafting a well-structured email, the ability to organize ideas compellingly is a trait that serves students well throughout their academic and professional journey. However, the benefits of creative writing go well beyond linguistic and organizational services like book writing services . This form of expression acts as a mirror that reflects the complexities of human emotions. As students immerse themselves in crafting characters, settings, and plotlines, they inherently develop a deep sense of empathy. By stepping into the shoes of diverse characters and exploring the world from various perspectives, students cultivate an understanding of different viewpoints, backgrounds, and experiences. This broadens their worldview and nurtures their ability to relate to and connect with people from all walks of life.

• Discovering a Hidden Door

Imagine stumbling upon a mysterious door in your school that no one else has noticed. Where does it lead, and what adventures await on the other side?

• The Day I Traveled Through Time

You wake up one morning to find yourself in a different period. Describe your experiences and the challenges you face in this unfamiliar era.

• My Conversation with a Talking Animal

While wandering in the woods, you encounter an animal that can communicate with you. Write about your unexpected conversation and the wisdom the animal imparts.

• A Mysterious Message in a Bottle

You discover a message in a bottle washed up on the shore. What does the message say, and how does it change your life?

• Life on a Floating Island

Describe a world where entire civilizations exist on floating islands in the sky. What are the unique challenges and wonders of this airborne realm?

• Journey to the Center of a Candy Planet

You embark on a journey to the core of a planet made entirely of candy. Detail your adventures as you traverse the sugary landscapes.

• The Robot’s Secret Rebellion

In a futuristic city, robots have secretly started rebelling against their human creators. Explore the events leading up to this uprising and the consequences that follow.

• When Magic Came to the Modern World

Magic suddenly becomes real in the present day. How does society change, and how do you adapt to this new magical reality?

• The Joy of Finding a Lost Toy

Revisit a childhood memory of losing a cherished toy and the overwhelming happiness of eventually finding it.

• A Moment of Overcoming Fear

Write about when you faced a fear head-on and emerged stronger and braver on the other side.

• The Bittersweet Farewell

Explore the emotions surrounding a farewell to a close friend moving away. How do you cope with the mixture of joy and sadness?

• An Unexpected Act of Kindness

Describe an instance where a stranger’s small act of kindness profoundly impacts your life and perspective.

• Quest for the Enchanted Crown

Embark on a quest to retrieve a stolen enchanted crown from a treacherous dragon’s lair. Chronicle your epic adventure and the challenges you must overcome.

• Lost in a Haunted Forest

You find yourself lost in a mysterious and haunted forest. Describe your eerie surroundings and the spine-chilling encounters you experience.

• Exploring an Abandoned Space Station

Write about your exploration of a deserted space station, uncovering its secrets and unraveling the mysteries of its past.

• Time-Traveling to Historical Events

Where and when would you go if you could time-travel to any historical event? Describe your experiences and the impact they have on your perspective.

• The Day I Turned into a Vegetable

Imagine waking up one day to find yourself transformed into a vegetable. How do you communicate, and what hilarious misadventures ensue?

• Conversations Between My Pets

Write a humorous dialogue between your pets discussing their daily lives, adventures, and their peculiar perspectives on the world.

• When My Room Became a Miniature Zoo

Describe a scenario where your room suddenly becomes a mini-zoo filled with various animals. How do you manage this unexpected turn of events?

• The Misadventures of Super Socks

Create a quirky superhero story where a pair of socks gains extraordinary powers and embarks on comical crime-fighting escapades.

• The Puzzle of the Whispering Walls

Detail a suspenseful investigation into the strange phenomenon of walls that whisper cryptic messages, leading to an unexpected revelation.

• Footprints in the Forbidden Attic

You discover mysterious footprints leading to the forbidden attic in your house. Write about your daring exploration and the secrets you uncover.

• The Disappearance of the Midnight Carnival

Describe the mysterious disappearance of a beloved carnival that only operates at midnight. What clues do you follow to solve the enigma?

• The Secret Diary of a Famous Explorer

You stumble upon the secret diary of a renowned explorer. Unveil the adventures chronicled within its pages and the hidden truths it holds.

• A Glimpse into Life as an Adult

Imagine yourself as an adult and write about a day in your future life. How have your goals, priorities, and perspectives evolved?

• Inventing a Revolutionary Gadget

Design a revolutionary gadget that changes the world. Describe its features, benefits, and the impact it has on society.

• My First Day on Another Planet

Transport yourself to an alien planet and narrate your experiences on the first day of your interstellar adventure.

• The World After Solving Pollution

Describe a world where pollution has been successfully eliminated. How does this achievement reshape the environment, society, and daily life?

• Prompts for Exploring Friendship

Write about a strong and unbreakable bond between two friends. What challenges have they overcome together, and how has their friendship evolved?

• Adventures of the Dynamic Duo

Create a story about a dynamic duo who embark on thrilling adventures together. What makes their partnership special, and how do they complement each other?

• A Magical Friend from a Book

Imagine a character from a book coming to life and becoming your friend. Describe your magical friendship and the escapades you share.

• Messages in a Bottle Between Pen Pals

Two pen pals communicate through messages sent in bottles across a vast ocean. Write about their unique form of friendship and the stories they share.

• An Interview with a Renaissance Artist

Travel back in time to interview a famous Renaissance artist. Explore their inspirations, struggles, and the impact of their art on the world.

• Surviving the Titanic Disaster

Imagine being a passenger on the Titanic and surviving the tragic sinking. Chronicle your experiences and the lessons you learn from the ordeal.

• Ancient Egypt: Through the Eyes of a Pharaoh

Experience life as an ancient Egyptian pharaoh. Describe the grandeur of your rule, interactions with subjects, and leadership challenges.

• Encountering Dinosaurs in Prehistoric Times

Describe an adventurous journey to prehistoric times, where you encounter dinosaurs and experience the wonders and dangers of the ancient world.

• When Robots Ruled the World

Envision a world where robots have taken over as rulers. Detail the consequences of this robotic regime and the struggles of human resistance.

• Galactic Explorers on a New Frontier

Join a group of galactic explorers as they venture into uncharted space territories. Describe their discoveries, encounters, and the mysteries they unravel.

• The Day I Met an Alien from Mars

Write about the day you encounter a friendly alien from Mars. How do you communicate, and what do you learn from each other?

• Earth 3000: A Utopian Dream or Dystopian Reality?

Transport yourself to the year 3000 and describe the state of the Earth. Is it a romantic paradise or a dystopian nightmare? What led to this outcome?

• Conversations with Forest Creatures

Imagine having conversations with animals in a magical forest. Write about the wisdom they share and the adventures you embark on together.

• My Adventure in the Enchanted Rainforest

Describe your thrilling adventure through an enchanted rainforest with mystical creatures and hidden secrets.

• The Underwater Discovery: Mermaid’s Tale

You discover a hidden underwater world inhabited by mermaids. Chronicle your underwater journey and the interactions you have with these mythical beings.

• Exploring a World Inside a Dewdrop

Write about a micro-adventure inside a dewdrop, where you encounter miniature worlds and experience nature from a new perspective.

• Stepping into a Mirror Universe

Describe an experience where you step into an alternate reality through a mirror. How is this world different from yours, and what challenges do you face?

• The Butterfly Effect: Changing a Single Moment

Explore the butterfly effect concept by narrating a story where changing a single moment in the past has a cascading impact on the present and future.

• My Life as a Fictional Character

Imagine living the life of a fictional character from your favorite book. Describe your experiences as you navigate their world and story.

• When Dreams Became Our Reality

Write about a world where dreams have the power to shape reality. How do people use their dreams to create their lives, and what challenges arise?

• The Ethereal Library

Imagine a mystical library that holds books containing the stories of every possible life you could have lived. Write about a person who stumbles upon this library and can read the book of their alternate life stories.

• The Reality Architect

In a future society, some specialized architects design alternate realities for individuals seeking escape from their own lives. Write about a reality architect and their journey to create the perfect alternate world for a client.

• The Convergence Point

Describe a world where all alternate realities converge at a single point in time. People from different realities can meet and interact for a brief period. Write about the challenges and opportunities that arise during this unique convergence.

The suitability of writing prompts for middle school for classroom and individual use depends on their content and complexity. Prompts encouraging critical thinking, creative expression, and thoughtful discussion can work well in both settings. However, there are a few considerations to keep in mind:

• Ensure that the prompts are clear and easily understandable by individuals and a group of students. Avoid overly complex language or concepts that might be confusing.
• Writing prompts for middle school allow various interpretations, and responses can engage individual learners and groups. This flexibility encourages students to express their unique perspectives.
• Choose interesting and relevant writing prompts for middle school to the target audience, whether in a classroom full of students or individuals working independently. Engaging prompts are more likely to spark enthusiasm and thoughtful responses.
• Prompts that invite discussion and debate can lead to rich and meaningful conversations for classroom use. These prompts should be open-ended and encourage diverse viewpoints.

Middle school is critical for nurturing creativity, similar to the journey detailed in How to launch a book: The ultimate guide for authors , young students’ creativity, and honing writing skills. These 50 creative writing prompts for middle school offer many opportunities to explore diverse themes, emotions, and scenarios while refining their writing abilities. Whether they’re crafting tales of time travel, exploring futuristic realms, or delving into the mysteries of the past, these prompts will ignite the imagination and open new avenues of self-expression for budding writers.

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1029 Killer Writing Prompts for Middle School

Tired of searching through endless lists for the best writing prompts?

This is the only list you’ll ever need.

We personally combed through hundreds of lists, books and writing guides to bring you the 1,029 middle school writing prompts covering 20 different topic categories.

Want to Take It With You?

Our entire 1,029 writing prompts are available as a user-friendly PDF. Click on the thumbnail to preview the first 12 pages, or click the button below to get the full book.

Want great short stories for middle school? Go here .

Want poems for middle school? Go here .

Want 17 killer writing lessons for middle school? Check them out below.

Table of Contents

This list is huge.

Which is why we organized it by topic to make it easier to navigate. Click on any of the topics below and you will be taken directly to that topic and its prompts.

To return to the top of the page, click the arrow along the right side of the screen.

Let’s dive in.

40 Animal Writing Prompts for Middle School

• A kid wakes up to find a giraffe standing over his bed. What happens next? 
• You have to do battle with a giant snake or a giant spider. Which would you choose and why? 
• You’ve been selected to live for a year on the International Space Station. You can take one animal with you. What animal do you think would be best suited for life in space. Why? 
• Imagine you came home from school and your pet was ten times its usual size. What would you do next? 
• If you could have any pet, what would it be? 
• You can give your teacher any animal for their birthday. What animal would you choose and why? 
• Are there any animals you believe people shouldn’t be able to keep as pets? Why do you think these animals should never be pets? 
• Imagine an alien species came to Earth and intended to take only five animals back to their planet. What five animals should they take to help the aliens on their planet best understand life on Earth? 
• Cat or dog? Which is the better pet? Why? 
• Tell how you first met your pet, but tell the story from your pet’s point of view. 
• What animals make bad pets? Why? 
• Imagine you are going on vacation and a friend is taking care of your pet. Explain in detail precisely how your pet must be cared for in your absence. 
• You can combine the traits of any three animals into a single new species. What animals do you choose? Describe the new animal you intend to create.  
• Would you rather be attacked by a shark or a giant squid?  
• Write a story about the biggest shark in the sea. 
• If you could be an animal, what would you be? 
• What is your favorite animal? Why do you like that animal?  
• What is your least favorite animal? What do you dislike about that animal? 
• Can your pet do a funny or unusual trick? Describe the trick and how they learned it. 
• Should animals be kept in zoos? Give three reasons defending your answer. 
• Should people be allowed to bring their pets into restaurants? Why or why not? 
• Would you rather have to hibernate through the winter like a bear or come out only at night like an owl? 
• If you had a parrot that could talk, what would you teach it to say? 
• Choose any animal and imagine what the world would look like if they were the dominant species. 
• Would you rather like to jump sixty times your height like a flea or lift 100 times your body weight like an ant? 
• Would you rather be a shark or a dolphin? Explain your answer. 
• A dog’s nose is more than 10,000 times more acute than a human being’s. Describe all the things you would smell going through your day if you had the nose of a dog. 
• If you could bring back one dinosaur, what dinosaur would you choose? Why? 
• You have to fight a wooly mammoth or a saber-tooth tiger. Which would you choose to fight and why? 
• You can save any one animal from extinction, but to do so you must choose a different animal to vanish forever. What animal would you choose to save, and what animal would you select for extinction? 
• Imagine that all spiders disappeared tomorrow. What do you think would happen with them gone? 
• What animal do you think is the smartest? Explain your answer.  
• What is your spirit animal. Explain your answer. 
• Is it okay to have a monkey for a pet? Why or why not? 
• Why do you think there are more insects than mammals? 
• Whales don’t sing as much as before because of noise from boats on water. Write a journal response explaining how we can help the whales sing again. 
• What animal do you think is most similar to you in personality? Why? 
• Why do you think so many people are afraid of spiders? 
• What’s the difference between a cheetah and a tiger? 
• Ants can build structures that, relative to their size, are larger than anything ever built by human beings. How do you think they achieve this given their tiny brain size? 

84 Biographical Writing Prompts for Middle School

• Write about a time you stood up for something you believed in. What did you do? 
• What is the worst gift you ever received? Why didn’t you like it? How did you respond when you saw what you’d gotten?  
• What is the earliest memory you have? Describe your memory. Why do you think this is the earliest memory you can recall? 
• Do you think your personality has been shaped more by who you were when you were born or by the way you’ve been raised by your parents? 
• What is your favorite thing about yourself? Why is it your favorite? 
• Are you most like your father or mother? Why? 
• What do you like least about yourself? Explain your answer. 
• What makes you who you are? 
• Do you like being the center of attention? Why or why not? 
• Who is the person in your life that makes you laugh the most? Why do you find them so amusing? 
• What was your favorite summer vacation? Why? 
• Write about a time you gave something of yours to someone who needed it? What did you do? 
• Do you consider yourself to be a patient person? Why or why not? 
• Do your parents let you choose your own clothes at the store, or do they pick them for you? What is your style like? 
• What is your favorite game? Is it a video game or a board game? What do you like about it? 
• What is the best gift you ever received? What made it so special?
• Write about a secret you’ve never shared. How do you keep it secret? How does the secret make you feel? 
• What is the hardest decision you ever made in your life? Explain what made it so difficult. 
• Have you ever received a gift you didn’t like? How did you react? 
• Have you ever gone to summer camp? Did you enjoy it? Explain your answer. 
• If you were the ruler of the world, what would you do? 
• If you could only play one sport for the rest of your life, what would you choose? Why? 
• You can visit any country in the world, but only for a day. What country would you choose and what would you do for that day? 
• What is the most unfair thing in your life? Explain your answer. 
• Are you a team player? What qualities do you possess that make you a team player or not? 
• You can eat only one cuisine for the rest of your life. What type of food would you choose and why? 
• What is your favorite month of the year? Why? 
• Describe your bedroom. Is it messy or clean? Where are all your favorite things? What posters/pictures are on the walls? 
• Write a letter to your older self ten years from now. What do you hope that your older self has accomplished by then? What do you want your older self to remember about the person you are now? 
• Write a letter to your younger self in first grade. What do you wish you knew in first grade that you know now? What advice would you give your younger self? 
• What is the most important thing you ever learned? 
• When was the last time you laughed so hard you could barely breathe? 
• Where do you feel most at home? What is it about that space that makes you feel comfortable and safe? 
• When was the last time you felt so angry you wanted to hit something? Why were you so angry? 
• Imagine you won the lottery and now have $100,000,000. Everyone in your family expects you to give them money and make them rich. Would you give everyone in your family money or keep it for yourself? Explain your choice. 
• You’ve just been elected leader of the country. What is the first thing you would do with your new power? Why? 
• Would you rather be invisible or be able to fly? Explain your answer. 
• What one superpower do you wish you had? Why? 
• Do you remember your dreams? How often? What happens in them? 
• Describe the worst mistake you ever made and how you have learned from it. 
• What are your top three pet peeves? Why do these things bother you so much? 
• What is your go-to thing to do when you’re bored? What would happen if you could no longer do that thing for an entire year? 
• Imagine you could meet any person in history, living or dead. Who would you want to meet and what five questions would you ask them? 
• You can spend the day with any cartoon character. What character do you choose? Why? What would you do together? 
• If you could open any business, what kind of business would you start? 
• What is your worst quality? How do you think you can improve on it? 
• Have you ever been bullied? Describe how it happened and how it made you feel. 
• What is your perfect meal? Describe it in detail. 
• When was the first time you can remember feeling sad? What made you feel that way? 
• If someone wrote a book about your life, would you be the hero, the villain, or the sidekick? 
• If you had to pick one of your classmates as someone who inspires you, who would you pick and why? 
• What is the most valuable thing you own? Why is it special? 
• You can make one wish come true that would help other people but would not benefit you at all. What wish would you make and why? 
• Who is the most trustworthy person you know? Would you trust them with your deepest, darkest secrets? 
• Imagine the person you least like spending time with. What would happen if you had to spend an entire week with that person, all day, every day? 
• Have you ever failed to keep a promise? Why did you fail? How did it make you feel? 
• Do you think of yourself as a competitive person? Why or why not? 
• Have you ever done something simply because other people were doing it, even when you thought it didn’t look like any fun? How did you feel afterward? 
• If you died tomorrow, what one thing would you want everyone in your school to remember about you? 
• Have you ever collected anything? If so, what did you collect and why? If not, why do you think you’ve never been interested in collecting? 
• Write about a time when you had to work very hard for something. What made it so difficult? Why were you willing to work so hard? Was it worth it? 
• Have you ever been admitted to the hospital? Explain why and what your stay was like. 
• If you could trade places with a single person in your school, who would you trade places with and why? 
• You have to give up one of your senses. Which do you give up and why? 
• Who is the oldest person you’ve ever known? Why do you think they were able to live so long? 
• You have to go an entire month without the internet. How would this affect your life? 
• Would you rather be a great athlete or a great musician? Explain your choice.  
• Describe something that you used to enjoy when you were younger but that you find embarrassing now. Why did you like it when you were younger?  
• Have you ever lost something that you loved dearly? How did you lose it? How did it feel? 
• What do you wish your parents understood about you? 
• Are you too hard on yourself or do you let yourself off the hook too easily? Explain. 
• What childhood rules did you break when you were younger? What were the results of your actions? Would you break those rules again? 
• Describe a time when you have suffered and your suffering made you stronger. 
• Are you the same person on social media as you are in real life? Why or why not? 
• Have you ever felt like you can’t do something because of your gender? Describe how that made you feel. 
• Do you think you have a sense of style? What does your style say about who you are as a person? 
• Do you think your use of technology and social media has made you more isolated as you’ve gotten older? Explain. 
• Would you pursue a career if you knew you would never make much money doing it? 
• Which is more important to you: work that makes you happy or work that makes you money? 
• Do you look forward to getting older? Why or why not?  
• What do you think is the perfect age? Explain your choice. 
• Would you like your body to be frozen just before your death so that you might be resurrected hundreds or thousands of years from now? Why or why not? 
• Would you rather be rich but die young or be poor and die old? Explain.
• Have you ever been talked into something? What was it? Why were you convinced to do it? 

50 Book Writing Prompts for Middle School

• If you could have your teacher read only one book for the rest of their life, what book would you choose for them? Explain your choice.  
• Do you think kids should be allowed to read whatever they want? Defend your answer. 
• Pick three books you believe everyone in the country should read. Explain why you choose those three books. 
• Pick a book that you think was better than the movie version. Why was the book more effective? 
• Pick a book that you think was not as good as the movie version. Why was the movie better? 
• If you had to share your bedroom with one fictional character from a book, which character would you choose? Describe why they would be a good roommate.  
• What is your favorite book? Why do you enjoy it so much? 
• Do you prefer to read fiction or non-fiction? Why? 
• What is the most interesting book you ever read? What did you like about it? 
• What is the worst book you ever read? Why was it so awful? 
• Who is your favorite author? Why do you like their work? 
• If you could meet any author, living or dead, who would you want to meet? What three questions would you ask them? 
• Pick a character from one of your favorite books. Imagine that character was placed in a totally different story. Write about how they would behave in their new setting. For example: imagine Harry Potter was transported to Transylvania and had to face-off against Dracula. 
• What do you think makes a great book? Explain your answer. 
• Do you think classic books like James and the Giant Peach or Charlotte’s Web are better than modern novels? Or are modern novels better than the classics? Defend your answer. 
• Are there any genres of novels you don’t enjoy reading (ex: mysteries, romances, horror)? Why don’t you like those genres? 
• Do you ever listen to audiobooks? How do you think they compare to physical books? 
• Which Harry Potter house do you think you belong in? Why? 
• Has a book ever changed your life? Why or why not? 
• Imagine that your favorite fictional character had to come to school with you. What would they think of your school? What would do together? 
• Do you think certain books should be banned from school libraries? Explain your answer. 
• If you knew that a particular book were banned from your school library, would that make you want to read the book or stay away from it? Explain your answer. 
• Imagine that you are writing to a student a few years younger than you. Recommend three books to them and explain why you believe they should read them. 
• Throughout history, slave owners consistently prevented their slaves from learning to read. Why do you think slave owners didn’t want their slaves to read? 
• When you read, do you question what the author is telling you or accept whatever they say without question? 
• If you were given the power to make people only read fiction or non-fiction, which would you choose? Explain. 
• If you had to spend a year reading books from only one other country, what country’s literature would you choose and why? 
• If you were to write a novel, what kind of story would you write? A mystery? A horror story? A science fiction tale? Explain your choice. 
• What makes you pick up a book to read? Is it the cover? The description of the story? The author? 
• When you read a book, do you read out loud or only in your head? 
• Is it better to read a physical book or an ebook on your phone? Or does it not matter either way? Explain your choice. 
• Do you think kids today read less than their parents did when they were your age? Why or why not? 
• Adults often worry that kids don’t read enough books anymore. How many books a year do you think is enough for a kid to read?  
• Have you ever read a book that you’d be embarrassed to be seen reading in public? Why would you feel that way? 
• Are either of your parents readers? What kinds of books do they like to read? 
• Is it better to read books or do you think you can get just as much out of reading magazines and websites? 
• The oldest books in the world range from 500 to 2700 years old. Given that so much is now printed digitally, do you think any books from our own time will survive for that long? Why or why not? 
• Many people pass down important books from parents to children. Are there any books that are passed down through generations in your family? If not, are there any books you would one day want to pass down to your children? 
• Bill Gates paid over $30,000,000 for a notebook written by Leonardo da Vinci. Do you think this was a good use of his money or a total waste? Explain your answer. 
• The longest sentence ever published in a novel was written by Victor Hugo, who wrote Les Miserables and The Hunchback of Notre Dame . That sentence was 823 words long. What do you think would happen if you turned in this writing prompt with a sentence that long?  
• What is the longest book you ever read? Do you think long books are better than short books? Why or why not? 
• Would you rather read 10 short books that are each 100 pages, or one long book that is 1,000 pages? Explain your answer. 
• When adults write books for kids your age, what do you think they fail to understand about you and your peers? What things do they get wrong about kids these days? 
• Do you think every book should have illustrations? Why or why not? 
• Do you like books with short chapters or long chapters? Explain your answer. 
• What was your favorite picture book as a child? Why did you like that particular book?  
• Do you think picture book writers like Dr. Seuss deserve to be considered great writers like authors who write chapter books (JK Rowling, Roald Dahl, etc.)? Why or why not? 
• Before the printing press was invented, history and stories were passed down orally. Why do you think the book has replaced the oral tradition? What makes the book and writing so durable and powerful? 
• Do you think people should write and underline in books? Why or why not?
• If you could have the President read any book, what book would you choose and why?

50 Comparison Writing Prompts for Middle School

• Your best friend and your worst enemy 
• Coke and Pepsi 
• Boys and girls 
• Freezing to death and burning to death 
• The pen and the sword 
• Outer space and the bottom of the ocean 
• School food and home food 
• Big city and small town 
• Vampires and werewolves 
• Texting and talking in person 
• Virtual learning and learning in person 
• Money and happiness 
• Digital movies and physical movies 
• Football and basketball 
• Men’s sports and women’s sports 
• Owning a business and working for someone else 
• Math and science 
• Reading and writing 
• Childhood today and childhood when your parents were in school 
• Hurricanes and tornados 
• Coffee and tea 
• Homeschool and public school 
• Movies at home and movies at the theater 
• Flying in an airplane and traveling by train 
• Playing a guitar and playing the drums 
• Camping in a tent and camping in an RV 
• Monday and Friday 
• Going to church and sleeping in 
• Losing a leg and losing an arm 
• Getting bit by a shark and getting bit by a bear 
• Peanut butter and jelly 
• Ice cream and cake 
• First day of school and last day of school 
• Birth and death 
• Giving gifts and receiving gifts 
• Kissing and being kissed 
• Asking someone on a date and being asked out on a date 
• Driving a limo and driving a bus 
• Sitting in the front of the class and sitting in the back of the class 
• Going to restaurant and cooking at home 
• Oldest sibling and youngest sibling 
• Mom and dad 
• Pride and humility 
• Like and love 
• Comedy and horror 
• Showers and baths 
• The first page of a book and the last page of a book 
• Writing on a computer and writing by hand 
• Explosively loud fart and silent-but-deadly fart
• Swords and lightsabers

50 Creative Writing Prompts for Middle School

• A witch casts a spell on your parents so they can only bark instead of talk. Write about your evening dinner together.  
• You come to school and find that you have a substitute teacher, but the sub is a tiny baby. Write about how you and your class get through the day. 
• You mix all the flavors at the gas station soda fountain. When you drink the concoction, you can suddenly see the future. What happens next? 
• Imagine your grandfather was a fabulous world traveler. One day you find an old camera he used to take on his travels, and inside is some undeveloped film. You get the film developed. Write about the pictures you discover. 
• Your best friend lets you borrow his hat. But whenever you put it on, you can hear everything your friend is thinking. What happens next? 
• Imagine you can understand what cats are saying. Write about what happens when the cats in your neighborhood find out you can understand them.  
• You’re flying on a plane to visit your uncle. You look out the window and see a young boy hanging onto the wing of the plane. His fingers are slipping, and he’s screaming for help. What happens next? 
• Imagine you found an old book in the library but when you try to check it out the librarian says you can’t read it. You sneak it out of the library anyway, but when you get home the book opens on its own and gigantic vines start growing out of it. What happens next? 
• You find a journal from 1850. On the last page it reads: “Come help me! You’re my only hope.” What happens next? 
• You wake up and discover that you have switched bodies with your dad. Write about your day. 
• Imagine your teacher has gone missing for a week. One day they are back at school. Your class asks where your teacher went, and they say they were kidnapped by aliens. What happens next? 
• Rewrite your favorite book or movie, but make the villain the hero of the story.  
• You receive a plastic dinosaur for your birthday. You take it home, and later that night you wake up to see it walking across your bedroom floor. It looks at you and roars. What next? 
• Imagine you are assigned a new locker on the first day of school. You open the locker and find a backpack inside. In the backpack is $1,000. Write about what happens next. 
• You have new neighbors. As you watch them unloading their moving van, you see they have a pet dragon. What happens next? 
• Your grandmother comes to visit after a nice vacation overseas. You ask about her trip, and she tells you she met a werewolf. What happens next? 
• A new girl you’ve never met joins your class. As your teacher begins today’s lesson, the girl passes you a note. It reads: “Do you remember me?” What happens next? 
• Choose your favorite emoji and write a backstory about its life. 
• You wake up one morning and realize you are floating five feet above your bedsheets. What happens next? 
• A new boy arrives in your class. He cries a lot, but his tears are Skittles. Write about what happens next.  
• On a class trip to the zoo, you get separated from your classmates. You wander around the zoo looking for your friends and teacher. You stop to look at the giraffe, and it bends its head down and says: “Hey, kid. Get me outta here.” What happens next? 
• You wake up one morning and look out your window. A rocket ship has landed on your lawn. What happens next? 
• Imagine you are teleported into your favorite video game. What happens next? 
• Your parents ask you to help weed the garden. You start pulling weeds, but as you do you discover something buried in the dirt: a treasure chest. Write about what’s inside and what happens next. 
• On a class trip to a museum you get separated from your class. You wander the halls, but there doesn’t seem to be anyone in that part of the museum. Eventually you find your way to the entrance, but it’s locked. You’re stuck there overnight. What happens next? 
• It’s the first day of school and you have a new teacher. Your teacher is a robot. Write about your first day in class. 
• Your parents hire a magician for your little brother’s birthday. The magician says he can make your brother disappear. He performs the trick and your brother is gone. The magician tries to bring him back, but something goes wrong and it doesn’t work. What happens next? 
• Write a conversation between your socks and your shoes. 
• You’re helping clean out your aunt’s garage. In a box you find an old oil lamp. You rub the lamp and a genie pops out. Write about what happens next. 
• You are the world’s youngest doctor. You have made a mind-blowing new medical discovery that will change the world. Write about your discovery and how it will affect modern medicine. 
• You have won a contest where every day you get a new 100-pound box of candy shipped to your house. Write about the type of candy you would order and what happens next. 
• You’re on an airplane flying to Disneyland. You really have to pee. You go to the bathroom, but when you come out the entire plane is empty. Everyone has disappeared. What happens next? 
• You have brought flowers to the cemetery to put on your grandmother’s grave. You walk down the row to her headstone, but when you get there the ground is dug up and her coffin is gone. What happens next? 
• You are watering the flowers in your mother’s garden. You bend down to smell the roses, but when you do you hear a tiny voice coming from the flowers: “Help us!” What happens next? 
• You’re at the lake skipping rocks across the water. You make a great throw and the rock skips into the middle of the lake. Then, suddenly, the rock comes skipping back. What happens next? 
• You come into class after school for tutoring, but just as you open the door you see your teacher pulling off her face. It’s a mask, and underneath your teacher is an alien. What happens next? 
• You wake up and discover you’re a mouse. You realize you left your pet snake on the floor last night instead of putting it in its cage. What happens next? 
• Your cat is meowing at your door. You think it has caught another bird, but when you open the door you discover it has caught a tiny person three inches high. What happens next? 
• You open your freezer and discover it has become a doorway to a cold, wintry world. You step inside. What happens next? 
• You’re taking a plane to visit your cousins in New York City. But when the plane lands, you realize that you’re actually in Chicago. What happens next? 
• One day the school bully comes up to you and says if you don’t help him he’ll beat you up. You say sure. He says he needs your help apologizing to everyone he’s ever bullied. What happens next? 
• Your little brother is drawing monsters at the kitchen table. You look over his shoulder, and suddenly his drawings come to life. They peel themselves off the paper and start to run around. What happens next? 
• There’s a knock at your door and when you open it you find an old man who hands you a glass jar with clear water in it. He tells you that the water in the jar will make you live forever, and that he has lived over five-hundred years. Then he leaves. What happens next? 
• You are taking a ride in a hot air balloon. Suddenly a terrible wind comes up and you are blown off course. The skies darken, and you realize you’re heading for a massive thunderstorm. What happens next? 
• You and your best friend are skydiving. You jump out of the plane. As you fall, you try to pull your chute, but your parachute is broken. The ground is coming up fast. What happens next? 
• You wake up one morning and start to yawn, but you realize your mouth has disappeared. What happens next? 
• You’re invited to your neighbor’s house for the first time to swim in their new pool. You dive into the water and discover there is no bottom to the pool. The water stretches and stretches like an ocean and when you surface you’re in a whole new world. What happens next? 
• Imagine you live in an apartment building. The elevator has buttons for 19 floors, because there’s no button for unlucky 13. One day you board the elevator and discover the button for the 13 th floor has appeared. What happens next? 
• You’re at the mall and really have to go to the bathroom. You find a bathroom and go inside, but standing by the sink is a gigantic bunny with ears that touch the ceiling. It looks at you and says: “I wouldn’t use this bathroom if I were you.” What happens next? 
• Imagine your little sister gets a gerbil for a pet. One day the gerbil crawls onto your lap and says: “Listen, I know where the buried treasure is. You want me to show you?” What happens next?

50 Descriptive Writing Prompts for Middle School

• Describe the most disgusting school lunch you can imagine. 
• Imagine your school is rocked by a massive earthquake. Describe the events inside your classroom. 
• Describe love without using the words love or emotion . 
• Describe how you want to spend the last day of your life.  
• Imagine you are teleported 100 years into the future. Describe the way your hometown looks. 
• You have invented a brand new flavor of soda pop. Describe what it tastes like, what it’s called, and what the label looks like. 
• Describe a problem you’re facing at home and how you might solve it. 
• Describe a problem you’re facing at school and how you might solve it.  
• Imagine the world suddenly loses all electricity. Describe how you would go through your day with no lights, no power, no internet, no phones.  
• Describe your dream car. What brand of car? What color? What kind of seats? What would it have inside? 
• You’re planning a road trip across the country. Describe the route you would take, what cities you would stop in, and what you would see along the way. 
• Who is your favorite family member? Describe what makes them so special. 
• Describe your bedroom. What’s on the walls? Is it neat or dirty? How big is your bed? Include as much detail as you can. 
• Look at your hand. Describe what you see without using the words hand, finger, or nails . 
• Describe the most beautiful flower you can imagine.  
• Describe the smell of the school locker room. 
• Imagine your teacher blames you for something you didn’t do and punishes you in front of the whole class. Describe how you feel in that moment. 
• Think of the bravest person you know. Describe what makes them brave and how they are different from everyone else. 
• Think of your favorite toy when you were younger. Describe that toy. Why was it your favorite? 
• Imagine you are sitting on a bus and the person next to you lets out a silent but awful fart. The worst you’ve ever smelled. Describe that smell.  
• Describe the worst day of your life. 
• Describe the best day of your life. 
• Think about what makes you a good friend. Describe the three qualities you think make you an excellent friend. 
• Imagine you were there the day the Titanic sank. Describe what you saw as you watched the great ship go down. 
• Imagine you were with Neil Armstrong when the first astronauts landed on the moon. Describe what you saw when you stepped out onto the moon. 
• Your principal comes on over the intercom and announces that an asteroid is hurtling towards the Earth and life as we know it will end in two hours. Describe how the world ends. 
• Imagine that you are surfing on the California coast. Describe what it feels like to be out on the ocean and ride the waves back into shore.  
• Describe the thing that scares you the most. 
• Imagine you are on a spaceship hurtling past a black hole. Describe what you see. 
• Imagine you have the ability to fly. You take off and zoom around your hometown. Describe what you see in the air and down below you. 
• Imagine the most perfect birthday cake. Describe what the cake looks like, what it tastes like, how many candles, etc.  
• Describe your first kiss, either real or imaginary.  
• Pick a parent. Describe what they do for a living. What does their day look like?  
• The warning sirens go off. A tornado has just touched down near your home. You scramble outside to get shelter, and you can see the tornado coming. Describe what you see all around you. 
• Describe the worst fight you ever had with your parents.  
• Describe a time you wanted something so badly but didn’t get it.  
• Imagine you are part of the first wave of immigrants to Mars. Describe what life is like when you arrive. What is your home like on the Red Planet? 
• Imagine you are onboard a fabulous submarine with giant glass windows. Describe your travels under the ocean and all the things you see. 
• Imagine you’ve created a brand new donut. Describe the donut you created, what it looks like, what it tastes like, etc. 
• Describe your perfect pet. What qualities of your pet makes them so appealing? 
• Describe the first school dance you ever attended.  
• Imagine you are out hiking and become separated from your group. You realize you’re lost. Describe how you would find your way back or help others to find you. 
• You’ve joined the circus. Describe the act you will perform opening night. 
• Describe your favorite kind of music without telling the genre (rock n roll, rap, rhythm and blues, etc.) or mentioning the name of any band/artist. 
• Describe the best pair of shoes you ever wore. 
• Imagine you colored your hair a neon color and cut it any way you want. Describe how your hair would look and how people would react to your new style. 
• Describe the best birthday party you ever had.  
• Imagine you crossed the country 200 years ago in a covered wagon. Describe what you saw on your way west to California.  
• Imagine you were part of the crew that discovered King Tut’s tomb in Egypt. Describe what you saw as you entered the pyramid and uncovered the mummy. 
• If the inside of your mind were a room, describe what that room would look like and what would be inside it.

50 Either/Or Writing Prompts for Middle School

• Would you rather have your greatest success at a young age or later in life? 
• Would you rather live on Mars or the bottom of the ocean? 
• Would you rather cut all sports programs at school or lose the school library? 
• Would you rather be 10 years old forever or 70 years old forever? 
• Would you rather there were no cell phones or no video games? 
• Would you rather be a zombie or a vampire? 
• Would you rather your mom chooses your clothes or your brother/sister? 
• Would you rather eat only cake or only ice cream? 
• Would you rather travel by airplane or by train? 
• Would you rather visit the East coast or the West coast? 
• Would you rather live 100 years in the future or 100 years in the past? 
• Would you rather live through a hurricane or a tornado? 
• Would you rather be the star of a movie or the main character of a book? 
• Would you rather have purple hair or no hair at all? 
• Would you rather listen to only classical music or no music ever again? 
• Would you rather be super tall or super short? 
• Would you rather be incredibly strong in only one arm or only one leg? 
• Would you rather be an Olympic athlete or a pro sports star? 
• Would you rather celebrate only Christmas or only Halloween? 
• Would you rather be rich and unknown or famous but poor? 
• Would you rather end world hunger or create world peace? 
• Would you rather attend private school or be homeschooled? 
• Would you rather have an extra eye or an extra nose? 
• Would you rather be a shark or a whale? 
• Would you rather join the circus or the rodeo? 
• Would you rather hitchhike across the country or hop trains? 
• Would you rather climb the world’s highest mountain or descend into the world’s deepest pit? 
• Would you rather write a famous novel or sing a famous song? 
• Would you rather be the teacher or the principal? 
• Would you rather watch the sunrise or the sunset? 
• Would you rather eat only waffles or eat only pancakes? 
• Would you rather raise a boy or a girl? 
• Would you rather be an eagle or an owl? 
• Would you rather have permanent spring or permanent fall? 
• Would you rather lose one month of summer vacation or all the holiday breaks during the school year? 
• Would you rather lose your eyesight or your hearing? 
• Would you rather be beautiful or wealthy? 
• Would you rather work hard and fail or barely work and succeed? 
• Would you rather be the rain or the sunshine? 
• Would you rather work from home or work in an office? 
• Would you rather make more money as an employee or work for yourself but make less money? 
• Would you rather get bit by a spider or stung by a bee? 
• Would you rather stop to smell the roses or rush to get to where you’re going? 
• Would you rather only be able to eat with a fork or only be able to eat with a spoon? 
• Would you rather live forever and be unhappy or live to be 75 and be happy all those years? 
• Would you rather be blind or not be able to taste anything? 
• Would you rather be able to dance or be able to sing? 
• Would you rather have to ride a tricycle to school or a ride a unicycle to school? 
• Would you rather go to the theater or watch a movie at home? 
• Would you rather be known for being honest or being loyal?

50 Expository Writing Prompts for Middle School

• In some cultures it is rude to burp. In others, it is considered a compliment to burp after a meal. Write about burping and the differences in table manners around the world.  
• Many schools are banning pop machines. Write about the effects of drinking too much soda, and whether or not you think kids should be able to choose for themselves.  
• What’s your favorite kind of music? Write about the history of that musical genre and what other genres of music influenced it. 
• Passing gas. Breaking wind. Silent but deadly. Most people think it’s rude to fart in public, but it’s also unhealthy to hold it in. Write about why farting is considered rude. Do you think it makes sense to shame people for doing something that everybody must do? 
• Is honesty really the best policy? Write about why people value honesty but also the times when honesty may get you in trouble. Do you think you should always tell the truth? 
• Imagine you’re a movie director. What kind of movie would you make? Write about how you would make your movie, from first idea to final cut to releasing your movie to the world. 
• Write about the reasons for school dress codes. Do you think dress codes are fair? Should students have input on what goes in the dress code?  
• Many people claim to have seen aliens and alien space ships. Write about the history of UFO sightings. Do you think we may have been visited by extraterrestrials? 
• What’s the best way to cure a cold or flu? Write about the different ways people around the world approach basic healing. What do you think is the best remedy for common illness? 
• Many countries are encouraging citizens to buy electric cars to save the environment, but those cars plug into a power grid fueled mostly by coal. Write about the history of electric cars. Do you think electric cars will positively impact the environment? 
• Everyone says kids are addicted to cell phones. Are they? Write about cell phone use and how it compares to other technologies kids were obsessed with in the past.  
• Write about the history of space exploration. Is it important for human beings to continue to explore outer space and travel to other planets? Do you think we’ll ever have a colony on Mars? 
• Write about the right to vote, how it has changed over time, and how old you think you should be before you can vote.  
• What does it mean to live a healthy life? Write about the history of health food trends and how health is different around the world. What do you think a healthy life looks like? 
• What is the best way to assess learning? Are grades the most effective way? Is it better to simply assign pass/fail? Or maybe no grades at all? Write about the history of grading and how it affects both students and teachers. 
• Does life get better as you get older? Write about the benefits and downsides that you’ve experienced as you’ve gotten older. What do you think is the perfect age? 
• Newspapers were once read by everyone. Now people get their news through social media. Write about how technology has changed the way people consume information. Has technology made things better or worse?  
• “History is written by the winners.” Pick an event from history and write about the side that “lost”. How does it influence our understanding of history when we don’t get to hear from the “losers”? Can we fully trust what we hear from the “winners”? 
• Write about the history of video games. Do you think kids spend too much time playing video games? Can video games make your life better? 
• Does homework matter? Write about the reasons teachers assign homework and whether or not you believe homework is an effective tool.  
• Is the only reason to go to college to get a job? Write about the history of higher education and the various benefits and drawbacks to going to college. Do you think getting a job is the sole reason someone should go to college? 
• What makes a great movie? How much money it makes? What kind of reviews it gets? Who decides what’s great and what’s not? Write about how you determine a movie’s greatness. 
• What makes someone a good friend? What qualities are the most valuable in a friend? Do you possess those qualities yourself? 
• Some parents believe kids should do chores and earn nothing in return. Others give their kids an allowance for chores. Write about chores, whether or not kids should be rewarded for them, and the benefits and drawbacks to doing chores at all.  
• Some kids drop out of school. Write about the different reasons someone may drop out. What will likely happen to kids who drop out? Are there any advantages to dropping out? 
• Your class is going to adopt a pet. It can be any animal. Pick an animal you think your class should adopt and explain why that animal is the ideal class pet. 
• Imagine an extra-curricular activity or program that your school does not currently offer. Write about why you believe your school should offer it and how it would benefit students. 
• What do you think makes for a good life? Who gets to decide what makes a life good in the first place? How would you determine whether you’ve lived a good life or not? 
• Do you think kids should have to read the classics in school? What are the benefits of the classics? What are the downsides to reading them? Who decides what makes a book a classic or not? Should those people be able to decide at all? 
• Imagine a traveler from the 1800s landed in our modern world. What things would be the most different between then and now? What would the traveler find the most strange or wondrous? 
• What is your favorite place in all the world? What is it about this place that makes it special? Write about this place and how you feel when you are there. 
• Who do you think is more important in a school: the principal or the teachers? How are these roles different? Why is one more important than the other? 
• Many schools now focus on preventing bullying. Write about the effects these efforts have had at your school? Is bullying being prevented? Or has it simply changed and gone underground?  
• What do you think it means to be happy? How do you rate being happy in relation to other things in your life like earning money or being a good friend? Is happiness worth pursuing? 
• The Founding Fathers wrote that everyone had a right to pursue happiness . Why do you think this was important enough to be included in the Declaration of Independence? Write about the importance of happiness and also why happiness itself is not a right but only its pursuit. 
• Do you think we expect too much of cultural heroes like Martin Luther King Jr. and LeBron James, expecting them to be perfect role models? Often people act surprised when they learn their heroes are not perfect. Is this fair? 
• Is it okay for kids to drink coffee? Write about the effects coffee has on mood and on the brain. Do you think kids your age should be allowed to drink coffee in school?  
• Many people argue kids today have poor social skills because they spend too much time on their phones. Write about how technology has affected your social skills. Do you think this criticism is valid? How do you feel when you have to communicate in person rather than on a phone? 
• In today’s world, plagiarism is a major offense. But in earlier eras, plagiarism was allowed and artists often reworked the ideas of others. Write about the history of plagiarism and the benefits and downsides to copyrighting artistic works.  
• “When life hands you lemons, make lemonade.” Do you think this is good advice? Are there times when the lemons you’re handed simply can’t be turned into anything good?  
• The poet TS Eliot once wrote: “In the end is my beginning.” What do you think this means? Write about how beginnings and endings are linked and whether or not this is true in life. 
• Should kids be allowed to watch any movie they want? Are there certain types of movies or elements in movies that kids simply shouldn’t see? Write about the history of the ratings system (G, PG, PG-13, R) and how it has changed. Do you think these ratings make sense? 
• In some countries, every young person is required to enlist in the military for a certain number of years. Write about the history of drafting citizens into the military. What are the advantages and disadvantages of this practice? Do you think you should be required to join the military? 
• Do you think it’s okay to keep secrets from your parents? Are there some things that should just be between you and your friends? Write about the benefits and drawbacks to secrets. 
• Years ago, many schools held formal dances where students were required to dress up in nice clothes. Do you think this is a good idea? Or should kids always be allowed to wear whatever they want to a dance? What are the advantages and disadvantages to a dance dress code? 
• Do you think artificial intelligence will ever surpass human beings? Write about the kinds of “thinking” machines are good at and how they are different from the kinds of things human beings are good at.  
• We have different ages for various adult responsibilities: 16 to drive, 18 to vote, 21 to drink. Write about how these benchmarks have changed over time. At one age do you think someone becomes an adult? Should all adult responsibilities be given at once or spread out as they are now? 
• How do you know when someone is lying? How can you be certain unless they admit to lying? Think about what you do when you lie. Is it easy to hide the truth or not? 
• Why is it considered rude to wear a hat indoors? Should kids be allowed to wear hats in school? What are the advantages and disadvantages to wearing hats in class? 
• Some parents buy their kids their first car. Others expect their kids to get a job and buy one themselves. What do you think is the best approach? Write about the benefits and drawbacks to your parents buying your car vs you buying it yourself.

67 Family Writing Prompts for Middle School

• Imagine your family is going to rob a bank. What role would you assign to each member of your family? How do you think the heist would go? 
• If you could be a parent, what would you do differently than your mom or dad? 
• What do you admire most about your father? 
• What do you admire most about your mother? 
• Imagine your family is going to compete on a singing and dancing competition on national television. What song would your family perform? Who would do the singing? What kind of dance would you do? 
• What’s the worst part about being a sibling? 
• Imagine that you are now your brother or sister’s teacher. What grades would you give them for their work? Do you think they would do well in your class? 
• What movies do you enjoy watching as a family? What are the favorite movies of your different family members? 
• Ask your parents what other names they considered naming you. Do you think you’d prefer any of their other choices? Were you surprised by some of the names they considered? 
• What chores do you have to do at your house? Are you given anything in return for doing chores? 
• If you had to pick a single color to describe each member of your family, what color would you choose for them and why? 
• Who is your favorite member of your extended family (aunt/uncle/cousin/etc.)? What do you like about them? 
• What is unique about your family? 
• Does your family open presents on Christmas Eve or Christmas morning?  
• Imagine your family is stuck in a horror movie. Who would be the first to be killed? Who would survive all the way to the end? 
• What is the favorite meal of each member of your family?  
• What is the best vacation you’ve ever taken with your family? 
• Imagine your family is going to start a business. What business would you go into? What role would each member of your family have in the company? 
• What is the most important value to your family?  
• How many different homes has your family lived in? Do you have a favorite? 
• Who is the decision maker in your household? Why do you think they get to make the decisions? 
• If your parents were superheroes, what powers would they have? 
• If you had to live with one of your siblings for the rest of your life, which sibling would you choose and why? 
• Write about a recent argument you had with your parents. What was the argument about? How did it turn out? 
• Are there any vegetarians or vegans in your family? Does that cause any problems at meal times? 
• What is something you think other families could learn from yours? 
• What kinds of rules does your family have? Do you believe any of them are outdated and should be done away with? Which ones and why? 
• What restaurants does your family like to go to? Is there a special restaurant your family goes to for particular occasions? 
• What countries did your family come from? Have you ever visited relatives in those countries? 
• What holidays does your family celebrate? Which one is your favorite? 
• What traditions does your family keep?  
• Does your family eat dinner around a table? Why or why not? Do you think it matters either way? Explain your answer. 
• Who usually cooks in your household? What is their best meal? 
• What kind of expectations do your parents set for you? What happens when you don’t meet those expectations? 
• In what ways are you different from your siblings?  
• In what ways are you similar to your siblings? 
• Are you more like your mother or father? Explain. 
• Are you close to your grandparents? Write about your relationship to them and how important they are in your life. 
• If you had to describe the members of your family as different flavors of soda pop, what flavor would each of your family members be and why? 
• If you could spent one day with either your parents or your grandparents when they were your age, which would you choose and why? 
• Do you think you would have been friends with your mom or dad when they were young? Or would you simply be too different to ever have hung out together? Why or why not? 
• Do you share a bedroom or have your own? Write about the positives and negatives of your current arrangement.  
• Do you think your parents should buy you a car when you turn sixteen? Why or why not? 
• Do you think your life has been more difficult than when your parents were young? Or has it been easier? Explain. 
• Where do you fall in your family? Are you the oldest child? The youngest? Somewhere in the middle? How does this position affect your role in your family? 
• What books did your parents read to you when you were little? 
• Imagine your family has been cast to reboot an old movie. What movie would you choose for your family to star in? What role in the movie would you give to everyone? 
• What is something you learned on your own (either a skill or a life lesson) that you wish your parents had taught you? 
• What stories do your mom or dad tell about their childhood over and over again?  
• Do your parents have different rules or expectations for you versus your siblings? Do you think it’s fair that they treat each of you differently or the same? Explain. 
• If you could trade places with your brother or sister, would you? Why or why not? 
• What do your parents do for a living? What do you think about their employment? Would you like to follow in their footsteps? Why or why not? 
• Imagine you could give your mom or dad any job in the world. What job would you give them? Why do you think that job would make them happy? 
• Do you think your parents are proud of you? Why or why not? 
• What are your parents’ pet peeves? 
• What is the one place in the world your parents want to travel to more than any other? Why? 
• What is something that you learned from your brother or sister? How did you learn it? 
• What is something you wish your brother or sister knew about you? 
• Think back to the first time one of your friends ever stayed at your house overnight? What were you worried they would think about your home and your family? 
• How would you define the word family ? 
• How does your family celebrate your birthday? 
• What did you get your mom and dad for Christmas? Why did you choose those gifts? 
• What is the most embarrassing thing you’ve ever done in front of your brother or sister?  
• Who has the messiest room in your house? Describe their room and why it’s so messy. 
• What room does your family spend the most time in? Explain.  
• If you had to pick, would you rather have your mom or your dad as a teacher this year? Explain. 
• Imagine your family is chosen to be the first family to live in a new colony on Mars. What roles would you give to each member of your family once you land on the Red Planet? Write about your new life on Mars.

60 Friendship Writing Prompts for Middle School

• Imagine you and your best friend are police detectives. What kinds of crimes would you solve? What qualities would make you and your friend good investigators? 
• Which of your friends do you share the most in common with? What qualities do you have in common? 
• Write about the worst argument you ever had with a friend. What happened afterwards? 
• What is something that none of your friends know about you? 
• Which of your friends do you tell your deepest secrets to? What is it about that friend that makes you trust them? 
• What kind of music do you listen to with your friends? Do all of your friends share similar tastes in music? Explain. 
• Write about the day you met your best friend. What was it that drew you together? 
• If your friends were asked to describe you to someone who had never met you, what would you hope that they say about you? 
• What movies do you love watching with your friends?  
• Write about the first time you ever slept over at a friend’s house. What were you afraid of? What were you surprised by? How did the sleepover go? 
• Have you ever made friends with someone at summer camp? Write about how you connected with that friend. Do you stay in touch? 
• What qualities do you value most in a friend? 
• What skills do your friends have that you wish you had? 
• What skills do you have that none of your friends share? 
• Imagine you and your friends start a band. What instruments would each of your friends play? Who would sing? What kind of music would you record? 
• Imagine that your best friend is moving away to the other side of the country. Write them a letter telling them goodbye and what you are going to miss about them. 
• Write a letter to your younger second-grade self. In the letter, describe the best way to make friends and keep them. 
• What do you do with your friends in the summer that you don’t do during the school year? 
• Do you like making new friends? Why or why not? 
• Do you think you can “buy” friends if you had enough money? For example, if you bought people enough gifts and paid for them to do fun things, that they would be real friends with you? 
• Write about a time when you “broke up” with a friend. What was it that ended your friendship? Do you think you could ever be friends again? 
• What is something that you could never forgive a friend for doing? 
• Is it okay to lie to a friend? Why or why not? If yes, in what situations would a lie be okay? 
• In a friend, which do you value more: honesty or loyalty? 
• If you hear someone saying something mean about your friends, do you speak up and defend your friends or keep quiet? Explain. 
• Of all of your friends, whose parents do you like the most? Why? 
• Do you have any friends of the opposite sex? How are they different from your friends of the same sex? 
• Write about a time when two of your friends were fighting and you had to play peacemaker. 
• Do your parents approve of your friends? Why or why not? 
• How important is it for a friend to be honest and tell you when you’ve made a mistake?  
• Write about a time you felt betrayed by a friend. 
• If you had to describe each of your friends as a pizza topping, what toppings would they be and why? 
• What television show or movie most resembles the lives of you and your friends? Explain your answer.  
• What is something that one of your friends is allowed to do that your parents do not let you do? How do you think you and your friend are different because of this? 
• Do you think modern technology makes it easier to be a good friend? Or does it simply complicate things and make it more difficult? Explain. 
• Imagine you and your friends are going to take a week-long vacation together. Where would you go? What would you do? Who in your group would decide? 
• Where do you and your friends fit in the social world of your school? Are you part of a clique or group? How well do you get along with other social groups at school? 
• If you and your friends were going out trick or treating, what would everyone dress up as and why?
• If your best friend moved away tomorrow, do you have another friend that might eventually take their place? Write about how that might happen (or how it would be impossible). 
• If your best friend was magically turned into their opposite gender, do you think you could still be friends? Or is too much of your relationship based on gender for your friendship to still work? Explain. 
• If you heard an unpleasant rumor about one of your friends, how would you react? Would you tell them about it? 
• How important is friendship? Where do you rank it in comparison to other important aspects of your life (family, health, happiness, etc.)? 
• If you had to be adopted by the family of one of your friends, whose family would you choose? Explain.  
• Where do you and your friends spend most of your time hanging out? Why do you spend so much time at that location? 
• How do you know when someone is just pretending to be your friend? 
• What is the kindest thing you ever did for a friend? How did it make you feel? 
• Imagine you have two close friends but can only eat with one of them at lunch. What do you do in that situation?  
• Imagine that your teacher accused two of your friends of stealing from the teacher’s desk. Both your friends deny it, but you know which one of them is lying. What do you do? 
• What would you do if your best friend began hanging out with someone you hate?  
• Is it harder to make friends now than it was when you were younger? Or is it easier? Explain. 
• If you and your friends were a box of donuts, what kind of donut would each of your friends be? 
• What is the funniest movie you ever watched with a friend? Why did you and your friend find it so funny? 
• What is the saddest movie you ever watched with a friend? What did you and your friend find so sad? 
• Imagine you and your friends have gone out trick or treating and are now examining how much candy you raked in. How do you divide the candy? Does everyone keep their own? Who trades for what?  
• If you and your best friend were going to attend a protest, what would you protest against? What kind of signs would you make? 
• You can pick one of your friends to vote for in the coming election for school president. Which friend do you vote for and why? 
• Do you behave the same with all of your friends? Or do you change your behavior slightly for each friend? Do you think they do the same around you? 
• Do you believe you’ll have the same friends in high school and beyond that you do now? Why or why not? 
• Can you ever have too many friends? Why or why not? 
• Imagine you and your friends have to perform on America’s Got Talent. What kind of talent performance would you put on?

67 First Line Writing Prompts for Middle School

• I am an invisible man. – Invisible Man, Ralph Ellison  
• When Katelyn Ogden blew up in third period pre-calc, the janitor probably figured he’d only have to scrub guts off one whiteboard this year. – Spontaneous, Aaron Starmer  
• Until he was four years old, James Henry Trotter had a happy life. – James and the Giant Peach, Roald Dahl  
• It was the day my grandmother exploded. – The Crow Road, Iain Banks  
• The last man on Earth sat alone in a room. There was a knock on the door… – Knock, Fredric Brown  
• All children grow up, except one. – Peter Pan, JM Barrie  
• Edward Twonky had no intention of getting eaten by a giant the morning he left for the Cottleston Fair. – The Giant’s Tooth, Bruce Coville  
• Ships at a distance have every man’s wish on board. — Their Eyes Were Watching God, Zora Neale Hurston  
• Bingo Brown fell in love three times in English class. – The Burning Questions of Bingo Brown, Betsy Byars  
• My dad and I lived in an airport. – Fly Away Home, Eve Bunting  
• Not every thirteen-year-old girl is accused of murder, brought to trail and found guilty. – The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle, Avi  
• Mother died today. Or maybe, yesterday; I can’t be sure.  – The Outsider, Albert Camus  
• The world had teeth and it could bite you with them anytime it wanted. – The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon, Stephen King  
• It was a bright cold day in April and the clocks were striking thirteen. – 1984, George Orwell  
• Things are a lot different around here since that unicorn moved in. – Unicorn Thinks He’s Pretty Great, Bob Shea  
• The sun did not shine. It was too wet to play. So we sat in the house all that cold, cold, wet day. – The Cat in the Hat, Dr. Seuss  
• As Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from uneasy dreams he found he had been turned into a giant insect. – Metamorphosis, Franz Kafka  
• I write this sitting in the kitchen sink. – I Capture the Castle, Dodie Smith  
• When the blind man arrived in the city, he claimed that he had traveled across a desert of living sand. – The Brief History of the Dead, Kevin Brockmeier  
• In an old house in Paris there lived twelve little girls in two straight lines. – Madeline, Ludwig Bemelmans  
• This is my favorite book in all the world, though I have never read it. – The Princess Bridge, William Goldman  
• The man in black fled across the desert, and the gunslinger followed. – The Gunslinger, Stephen King  
• I still remember the day my father took me to the Cemetery of Forgotten Books for the first time. – The Shadow of the Wind, Carlos Ruiz Zafon  
• I’ve heard it said girls can’t keep secrets. — Wildwood Dancing, Juliet Marillier  
• Johnny never knew for certain why he started seeing the dead. – Johnny and the Dead, Terry Pratchett  
• It was a pleasure to burn. – Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury  
• Most of the time John Midas was a nice boy. – The Chocolate Touch, Patrick Skene Catling  
• All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way. – Anna Karenina, Leo Tolstoy  
• The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there. – The Go-Between, LP Hartley  
• In the town they tell the story of the great pearl – how it was found and how it was lost again. – The Pearl, John Steinbeck  
• That morning, after he discovered the tiger, Rob went and stood under the Kentucky Star Motel sign and waited for the school bus just like it was any other day. – The Tiger Rising, Kate DiCamillo  
• A screaming comes across the sky. – Gravity’s Rainbow, Thomas Pynchon  
• There was a hand in the darkness, and it held a knife. – The Graveyard Book, Neil Gaiman  
• The Herdman’s were absolutely the worst kids in the history of the world. – The Best Christmas Pageant Ever, Barbara Robinson  
• We went to the moon to have fun, but the moon turned out to completely suck. – Feed, MT Anderson  
• It was one of those things they kept in a jar in the tent of a sideshow on the outskirts of a little, drowsy town. – The Jar, Ray Bradbury  
• On Thursday, when Imogene woke up, she found she had grown antlers. – Imogene’s Antlers, David Small  
• People do not give it credence that a fourteen-year-old girl could leave home and go off in the wintertime to avenge her father’s blood but it did not seem so strange then, although I will say it did not happen every day. – True Grit, Charles Portis  
• On the morning I was scheduled to die, a large barefoot man with a bushy red beard waddled past my house. – The Colossus Rises, Peter Lerangis  
• If your teacher has to die, August isn’t a bad time of year for it. – The Teacher’s Funeral, Richard Peck  
• It was like nothing on Earth we had ever seen before. – Your Mother is a Neanderthal, Jon Scieszka  
• Once upon a time, not so long ago, a monster came to the small town of Castle Rock, Maine. – Cujo, Stephen King  
• They say Maniac Magee was born in a dump. – Maniac Magee, Jerry Spinelli  
• My dad died twice. Once when he was thirty-nine, and again four years later when he was twelve. – Time Traveling With a Hamster, Ross Welford  
• Some years ago there was in the city of York a society of magicians. – Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell, Susanna Clarke  
• Three objects sat upon the carpet in Cleo Porter’s living room: an apple core, a human skull, and a package wrapped in red. – Cleo Porter and the Body Electric, Jack Burt  
• Kidnapping children is never a good idea; all the same, sometimes it has to be done. — Island of the Aunts, Iva Ibbotson  
• Once upon a time there was a huge family of children; and they were terribly, terribly naughty. – Nurse Matilda, Christianna Brand  
• The thousand injuries of Fortunato I had borne as I best could ; but when he ventured upon insult, I vowed revenge. – The Cask of Amontillado, Edgar Allan Poe  
• Four days after his own funeral, Albert Wilkes came home for tea. – The Death Collector, Justin Richards  
• For as long as anyone could remember, there wasn’t a house at the end of Juniper Drive – until one day there was. – This Appearing House, Ally Malinenko  
• The magician’s underwear has just been found in a cardboard suitcase floating in a stagnant pond on the outskirts of Miami. – Another Roadside Attraction, Tom Robbins  
• The city waited twenty-thousand years. – The City, Ray Bradbury  
• The Black Slide appeared on the playground of Osshua Elementary on a clear day in late September. – The Black Slide, JW Ocker  
• It was Purdy Newcomb’s thirtieth birthday, though none of his family seemed to be aware of it. – Grand Opening, Jessamyn West  
• Listen: Billy Pilgrim has come unstuck in time. – Slaughterhouse Five, Kurt Vonnegut  
• The moon blew up without warning and for no apparent reason. – Seveneves, Neal Stephenson  
• It began the night we died on the Kamikaze. – Full Tilt, Neal Shusterman  
• The manhunt extended across more than one hundred light years and eight centuries. – A Deepness in the Sky, Vernor Vinges  
• I waited and watched for seven years. – Dolan’s Cadillac, Stephen King  
• The island of Gont, a single mountain that lifts its peak a mile above the storm-racked Northeast Sea, is a land famous for wizards. – A Wizard of Earthsea, Ursula K. LeGuin  
• Taran wanted to make a sword; but Coll, charged with the practical side of his education, decided on horseshoes. – The Book of Three, Lloyd Alexander  
• Esther Solar had been waiting outside Lilac Hill Nursing and Rehabilitation Center for half an hour when she received word that the curse had struck again. – A Semi-Definitive List of Worst Nightmares, Krystal Sutherland  
• Ironically, since the attacks, the sunsets have been glorious. – Angelfall, Susan Ee  
• The first thing you learn when yer dog learns to talk is that dogs don’t got nothing much to say. – The Knife of Never Letting Go, Patrick Ness  
• It wasn’t as if he hadn’t been warned. – Sackett, Louis L’Amour  
• Before the worms turned mean, before they slithered out to get their revenge, Todd Barstow had a great time with them. – Go Eat Worms, RL Stine

40 History Writing Prompts for Middle School

• Imagine you have signed on to go aboard a whaling ship in the 19 th Century. You will be away from your home sailing the seas for three to four years. How do you feel as you step onboard your ship?  
• Imagine you lived two hundred years ago. There is no electricity, no phones, no paved roads. What would you miss the most about the modern world? Explain.  
• If you had to build a statue to honor one person from your town, who would you build a statue of and why?  
• Through most of history, people rarely traveled more than five miles beyond the place where they were born. What would be the advantages and disadvantages of this?  
• Pick a local park or bridge or monument that is named after someone from your town. Write about who that person was and why this park/bridge/monument is named after them.  
• What is the greatest invention since sliced bread?  
• America is named after Amerigo Vespucci, an Italian explorer who claimed to understand that there was a “New World” between Europe and China. If you could rename the Americas, what would you name them instead and why?  
• Have you ever been to a history museum? Write about what you saw and what you thought.  
• If you could visit any period in history, what period would you visit? Why?  
• What events are going on right now in the world that you think people will write about in the history books hundreds of years from now? Explain your choices.   
• For thousands of years, very few people could read and write. The invention of the printing press changed that as it made the printing of books and papers much cheaper. How do you think this changed the lives of everyday people?  
• Have you ever visited your local history museum? Write about what you saw there and what you thought.  
• Many stories from history are actually not true. George Washington didn’t have wooden teeth. Benjamin Franklin didn’t fly a kite in a lightning storm. Why do you think so many myths get passed down and believed as fact?  
• “People who neglect history are doomed to repeat it.” Do you agree with this statement or not? Explain.  
• During World War II, the United States didn’t officially enter the war until the attack on Pearl Harbor. In fact, many citizens didn’t want the US involved at all. Do you think the US would have gone to war if the Japanese had not attacked?  
• When President Jefferson sent Lewis & Clark into Western America, he believed they would find wondrous creatures like wooly mammoths. They didn’t, of course, but what if they had? Write a “lost journal entry” from Lewis & Clark’s journals in which you discover a wooly mammoth.  
• “History is written by the winners.” What do you think this statement means? Do you agree?  
• When do you think was the best time to be alive? Why?  
• Many people imagine Adolf Hitler was always considered an evil man, but 43% of German people voted for him during his first run for president and was Time magazine’s Person of the Year in 1938. What do you think we can learn from the fact that Hitler was so popular and yet so evil at the same time?  
• Do you think you can learn more from non-fiction books like The Diary of Anne Frank or from fictional stories about the same time period like Number the Stars or The Book Thief ? Explain.  
• What one person from history would you like to meet? What three questions would you ask that person?  
• If people in the 1930s had YouTube, what do you think they’d be posting videos of?  
• Often visiting historical sites like the pyramids or the Eiffel Tower is boring. Reality isn’t as exciting as what you’ve seen in the movies. Write about a famous historical site, but write about it in a context that makes it more interesting and exciting. For example, a bank robber who tries to escape the police by hiding inside the Great Pyramid.   
• What if the Chinese had “discovered” America before Europeans? Write about how the history of the “New World” would be different.  
• What if the Allies had lost World War II? How would America be different if it were under the control of the Germans and Japanese?   
• Imagine that you have been hired to record what is happening in your town so that people 100 years from now will know all about it. What would you take pictures of? Who would you interview? What would you ask them about? What would you write down for the history books?  
• Imagine that you’ve traveled back in time 500 years. Your mission is to make life better for people in the past, but you can’t bring anything with you. Can you accomplish your mission? Can you explain how anything in our modern world works so that people 500 years ago can benefit?  
• If you had to describe your town as a person, how would you describe it? What gender would it be? What personality would it have? Would it be young or old?   
• Imagine an archeologist 1,000 years from now digging up your house and discovering your bedroom. Pick three objects they would find. What do you think they would make of those objects? How might they misinterpret what they find?  
• How much of your history is determined by where you live? Imagine how the history of you and your family would be different if you lived in China, or South Africa, or Brazil. How does geography and culture shape your world?  
• As cultures and attitudes change, so do our views on figures from the past. What do you think should be done about different holidays, memorials, streets, parks and other things named after historical figures who held views we no longer agree with?  
• Many cities still have monuments and statues to Confederate generals. What do you think should be done with these monuments? Should they be left standing or removed?   
• Some people believe everyone should visit the concentration camps of World War II to gain a better understanding of the horrors that happened there. Others feel the camps should be forgotten, that visiting them is like slowing down to view a car wreck. What do you think?  
• In Philadelphia, a man once found an original copy of the Declaration of Independence behind a painting he had purchased for $4. Imagine your own story of discovering a famous object from history. What object do you discover? Where did you find it? What do you do with it?  
• In ancient times, the Greek historian Herodotus made a list of the Seven Wonders of the World, which included the Great Pyramid at Giza, the Lighthouse of Alexandria, and the Hanging Gardens of Babylon. Make your own list of 7 Wonders of Today’s World. What makes your list?  
• Cities often build monuments to remember major events from history. If you were the mayor of your town, what monument or statue would you build in your city, and what historical event would it commemorate?  
• The Declaration of Independence speaks of unalienable rights , those rights that should not ever be taken away. Should recess be an unalienable right? As a student, what rights do you think your teacher should be able to take away, and what rights do you think should be unalienable?  
• In The True Story of the Three Little Pigs , Jon Scieszka retells the classic tale from the point of view of the Big Bad Wolf, giving us a new perspective. Pick a villain from history and retell their story from their point of view.   
• Thomas Edison is often thought to be the inventor of the lightbulb, but other scientists and engineers invented variations on the light bulb before him. Why do you think history often attributes discoveries to one individual, even when a discovery is the result of the work of many different people?  
• Napoleon once said: “History is a fable agreed upon.” What do you think he meant? Do you agree?  

50 Movie Writing Prompts for Middle School

• Popcorn is the most commonly sold item at movie theaters. But in certain parts of the country, other foods are also popular. Giant pickles, for example, are sold in theaters in the Southwest. What do you think is the ideal food for watching movies at the theater?  
• Imagine you can keep only Disney movie. All the others must be lost to history. What movie would you keep and why?  
• What is the best way to watch a movie? In a theater? On your phone? On your TV at home? Explain your answer.  
• Who is the greatest movie villain of all time? Explain.  
• Should kids be allowed to see rated R movies? Why or why not?  
• What movie terrified you when you were younger? Why?  
• List your three favorite movies. What do you like about them?  
• Take a character from one of your favorite movies and place them into a different film. For example, take Spiderman and place him into Jurassic Park . Write about what happens in your mashup.  
• What is your favorite genre of movie (comedy, action, science-fiction, horror, etc.)? Why do you enjoy those kinds of movies so much?  
• Who is the greatest movie hero of all time? Explain.   
• What makes a movie successful? Is it the director? The actors? The screenplay? The special effects? Explain your answer.  
• Who is the greatest actor or actress of all time? Defend your answer.  
• Many actors get typecast , meaning they are given the same sort of role over and over again. Clint Eastwood played in dozens of westerns. Jamie Lee Curtis played in many horror movies. If you had to be typecast, what type of movie would you want to act in?  
• You are invited to watch a movie at the White House with the President, and you get to pick the movie! What movie would you pick and why?  
• Do you prefer movies or television shows? Why?  
• Many child actors have success early on and then struggle greatly with drugs, alcohol and depression as they get older. Do you think children should be allowed to act in movies given that it may wreck their lives?  
• What is the worst movie you’ve ever seen? Why was it so bad?  
• Certain actors become so famous for a particular role (Daniel Radcliffe as Harry Potter, Daniel Craig as James Bond), that everyone in the world knows who they are. Would you want to have that kind of fame? Write about how your life would be different if you were that famous.  
• Have you ever watched a movie with subtitles? What did you think? Did it change your enjoyment of the movie?  
• When a new television show comes out, do you prefer to be able to binge watch the entire season? Or is it better for the season to come out one episode every week?   
• Hollywood is constantly remaking old movies, even movies that were great the first time around. Do you think great movies should be remade, or do you think that they should be left alone since they’re already amazing? Explain.   
• How do you choose what movie to watch? What is it that catches your eye and makes you pick a particular movie?  
• Are actors and actresses paid too much money? Is it right for anyone to make $20 million just to star in a movie? Explain your answer.  
• Would you rather be an actor or a director? Explain.  
• What do you think of the Academy Awards? Do you think the Academy usually gets their picks for Best Picture, Best Actor, etc right? Or do you think the Academy is usually wrong? Explain.  
• Did Disney ruin Star Wars ? Defend your answer.  
• It is now common for directors to go back and alter different things in their movies or shows, sometimes to improve them but other times because people on social media get upset about something in the movie they don’t like. Do you think directors should be allowed to change their movie/show after it has been released? Why or why not?  
• Have you ever gone to a theater and seen a movie alone? Would you? Why or why not?  
• You can get rid of one genre of movie forever (comic book movies, horror movies, romantic comedies, etc.). What genre do you do away with and why?  
• Pick one book that you think should be turned into a movie. Who would you cast in the main roles? Why would it make a good movie?  
• Can a movie still be a great movie if it has a bad ending? Why or why not?  
• Name a movie that everybody loves but that you hate. Why do you not like it? Why do you think everyone else is wrong?  
• What is the very first movie you remember seeing? Did you enjoy it? What do you think of that movie now?  
• Imagine that you are tasked with re-thinking the movie rating system (G, PG, PG-13, R). How would you recreate the current system? Where would you make the cutoffs? Explain.   
• If you could remake any movie and put yourself in the starring role, what movie would you remake? What role would you play? Explain.   
• Many people think very young children shouldn’t be allowed to watch movies or television. When do you think children should be allowed to start watching movies? Explain.  
• Does seeing violence in movies lead to violence in real life? Defend you answer.  
• Imagine you are given a chance to pitch a movie idea to a major Hollywood studio. What’s your pitch? What movie would you want them to make?  
• Imagine Hollywood is going to make a movie of your life. Who would you want to star as you in the movie? Explain.   
• Have you ever been to a drive-in theater? How was it different from watching a movie at an indoor theater? Did you enjoy the experience?  
• In the past, some horror movies claimed that they were so scary that people ran out of the theater screaming in terror or fainted dead away in their seats. Do you think these stories were true? Or do you think they were just good marketing to make the movie sound more scary?  
• Do you think Hollywood should keep making more movies in a successful franchise even if the movies aren’t very good (Lord of the Rings, Marvel comics, Star Wars)? Or should Hollywood move on and make something totally new? Explain.  
• Imagine that you’re tasked with selecting the next actor to play James Bond. Who would you choose? Why?  
• Which are better: live action movies or animated movies? Defend your answer.  
• People often decide whether to watch a movie or not based on user reviews on rating sites like IMDB and Rotten Tomatoes. Do you use these ratings to decide what to watch? What are the advantages and disadvantages to letting anyone leave a rating and review?  
• Are movies better now than movies made in the past? Explain your answer.  
• Are there movies your parents watched when they were kids that they have had you watch too? What did you think of those movies?  
• Are there any movies you watch every year as a tradition ( Groundhog’s Day on Groundhog’s Day, A Christmas Carol on Christmas, etc.)? If so, what movies and why do you watch them every year?  
• What is your favorite documentary film? What is it about? Why do you like it? 
• “The book is always better than the movie.” Give an example of a movie you think is better than the book. Explain why you think so.   

50 Opinion Writing Prompts for Middle School

• Write a letter to your parents explaining why, in your opinion, you should be their favorite child.  
• How would you describe the difference between an opinion and a fact?  
• Imagine you have the power to outlaw either chocolate or vanilla ice cream. Which flavor do you keep, and which do you outlaw? Explain your choice.  
• Should girls be allowed to play on boy teams and vice versa? Defend your answer.   
• Should teachers assign homework? Why or why not?  
• Take the Other Side: Argue for why you should be allowed to drop out of school.   
• Can wishes come true?  
• Should you be required to obey your parents? Why or why not?  
• Are boys and girls really all that different from one another? Explain.   
• If a kid skips school enough, eventually their parents will end up in trouble with the law. Is that fair? Should the parents be held responsible for what their kid does?  
• Should kids your age have an assigned bedtime or be allowed to stay up as late as they like? Defend your answer.  
• If a student doesn’t get good grades, should they be held back a year or allowed to move on? Explain.  
• “The truth will set you free.” Does it really? What do you think? Is it better to always tell the truth?  
• What are five places you believe everyone should visit at least once? Explain your choices.  
• Is distance learning a good substitute for in-class education? Why or why not? 
• Take the Other Side: Argue for why kids should be allowed to smoke.   
• Should kids your age have their own phones? Why or why not? At what age should a child be allowed to have a phone? 
• Should parents be allowed to “spy” on what their kids do online in order to keep them safe? Explain your answer.  
• Would you be okay with going to school for an extra hour every day if it meant you would receive a better education? Why or why not?  
• Should all schools have uniforms? Defend your answer.  
• Should smoking be illegal? Or should people be allowed to do things that may end up killing them?   
• Take the Other Side: Gossiping about people behind their back is perfectly alright. 
• Should shoppers be required to bring their own grocery bags? Why or why not?  
• Girls or boys: who has it harder? Explain.   
• Technology makes kids lazy. Do you agree or disagree? Explain.   
• Imagine you find $100 in the school parking lot. Finders keepers? Or should you turn it in? Defend your answer.  
• Pick a season and explain why it’s the best season of all.   
• Kids should be limited to only a few hours of screen time each day so that their brains will develop properly. Do you agree or disagree? Explain your answer.  
• Every kid should be required to learn cursive. Agree or disagree? Explain your answer.  
• Take the Other Side: Argue for why cheating on a test should be allowed.  
• Pick your favorite athlete. Why are they the best in their sport? Defend your answer.   
• How old should a kid be before they are allowed to date? Explain.  
• At what age should a kid be allowed to wear makeup? Explain.   
• Kids shouldn’t have to do homework if they don’t want to. Agree or disagree? Defend your answer.  
• Should someone in middle school be allowed to date someone in high school? Why or why not?  
• Take the Other Side: Argue for why the movie is always better than the book.  
• Should all the zoos be shut down and their animals let free? Why or why not? Explain.   
• Aliens exist and we have been visited by them many times. Agree or disagree? Explain.   
• Should kids be allowed to play video games or should they be banned for kids altogether? Defend your answer.  
• Money can buy happiness. True or false? Explain.  
• What modern musical artist will people still be listening to 50 years from now? Defend your answer.  
• Is it ever okay to ban books? Why or why not? Explain.  
• Every student should be required to participate in PE and sports. Agree or disagree? Explain.  
• Should students be allowed to bring homemade cakes or cupcakes to class to celebrate their birthday? Why or why not?  
• Should kids be allowed to go trick or treating on their own without their parents? Why or why not?  
• At what age should someone be allowed to get a tattoo? Explain.   
• Should cookie have nuts in them? Why or why not? Defend your answer.  
• At what age should someone be allowed to have a baby? Explain. 
• Should students be forced to memorize poetry? Why or why not? Explain.
• Santa Claus: fun and harmless or vicious lie? What do you think? Explain your answer. 

50 Poetry Writing Prompts for Middle School

• Imagine you are a balloon a child accidentally let go of at a birthday party. Write a poem about being released and floating away.  
• Write a poem about the worst nightmare you ever had.  
• Write a poem from the perspective of the very last dinosaur that has survived extinction for millions of years and has never been found by mankind.  
• Write a poem about a time you were disappointed by a birthday present.   
• Write a poem from the perspective of the Wicked Witch of the East from The Wizard of Oz about how you got hit and killed by Dorothy’s house.  
• Write a limerick about waiting for the bell to ring on Friday afternoon.   
• Write a narrative poem about the street you live on.   
• Imagine you won the lottery. You’re rich! Write a poem about how all that money ruined your life.  
• Write a rhymed poem about the worst meal you ever ate.  
• Imagine you could get rid of your brother or sister by selling them at an auction. Write a poem about auctioning them off to the highest bidder.  
• Write a poem about a dog falling in love with a cat.   
• Think about what makes you feel sad. Imagine you are a doctor prescribing what will make you feel happy again, and write your prescription in the form of a poem.  
• If you could change your name, what name would you pick? Write an acrostic poem using the name you selected.  
• Write a haiku about the end of the world.   
• Imagine that you have been selected to come up with a new national holiday. Write a poem about this new holiday and what it celebrates.  
• Write a poem about the sinking of the Titanic.   
• Write a rhyming poem about waking up Christmas morning and discovering that there are no presents under the tree.  
• Pick a sibling. Write an acrostic poem using their name.  
• Write a haiku about the smell of breakfast waking you up in the morning.  
• Write a poem about the most annoying sound in the whole world.  
• Write a poem from the perspective of the Moon. What was it like the first time someone landed on your surface? How does it feel to be cold and empty?   
• Write a poem from the perspective of a flower. How does it feel the day someone finally comes and picks you?  
• Write a limerick about the loudest fart ever heard.  
• Write a poem from the perspective of a fish studying a lure in the water. Do you take the bait or pass? What happens if you get caught?  
• Imagine you discover a secret passageway in your house. Where does it lead? Write a poem about exploring this hidden passage.  
• Write a poem about a flood sweeping your house away.  
• Write a poem about why you should never fall in love.  
• Imagine you are a baseball. You just got hit for a homerun to win the World Series. Write a poem about how it feels to get smacked over the fence to win the series.  
• Write a rhyming poem about getting lost in the woods.   
• Write a poem from the perspective of a snowman melting on a warm winter day.  
• Imagine you’re an old pair of shoes. Your owner brings home a brand new pair of shoes. Write a poem about how you feel and what happens next.  
• Write a poem from the perspective of Haley’s Comet as it passes by Earth.  
• Write a poem about a fight you had with your best friend.   
• Write a poem about moving to a new home.   
• Write a poem from the perspective of an abandoned shopping mall. What is it like now that everyone is gone?  
• Write a poem about your favorite movie theater.  
• Imagine Hollywood has decided to make a reality television show about your life and overnight you become a famous star. Write a poem about how your life has changed.  
• Write a poem about Halloween night.  
• Imagine you have an evil twin. Write a poem about all the wicked things your evil twin does and how hard life is because everyone believes these things are done by you.  
• Write a poem from the perspective of your hands, but without using the word hand .   
• Write a poem about a lost toy.   
• Imagine you come to class and you have a new teacher. She is literally a monster and says she will eat anyone who gets out of line. Write a poem about what happens next.  
• Imagine the internet suddenly dies and all the computers stop working. Write a poem about what happens next.  
• Write a poem about the worst thing you’ve ever tasted.  
• Imagine you’re Death and have come to take an old woman who has lived a good life. Write a poem about this final encounter.  
• Write a poem about an Elf on the Shelf who comes to life and causes all sorts of mischief.  
• Write a poem from the perspective of a book that has been banned from your school library.  
• A drought has caused the water levels to fall in the lake/river/sea near your home, causing all the old items lost in the water of the years to be revealed. Write a poem about the objects that can now be found and recovered.  
• Write a poem from the perspective of a Christmas tree on Christmas morning.
• Write a poem from the perspective of a pumpkin being carved for Halloween.  

30 Procedural Writing Prompts for Middle School

• Explain the steps for teaching a puppy new tricks.  
• Imagine you once escaped from prison and are now writing a letter to a friend of yours who is in your old cell. Explain step by step how they can escape as well.  
• How do you build the perfect snowman?  
• Explain the steps for how to apologize when you’ve hurt your friend’s feelings.  
• Write the process for shooting the perfect jump shot.  
• What are the steps for making a new friend?  
• Imagine that you are a bull rider performing at a rodeo. Explain the steps for riding the bull and staying on as long as you can.  
• Explain how to whistle.   
• What is the perfect way to spend a Saturday? Explain the order of your days from when you wake up to when you go to bed again.  
• How do you do the perfect dive?  
• Imagine you’re taking a road trip across the country. What are the steps for preparing your car for the trip? Think about what you will bring with you and how you will know where to go.  
• Explain the precise steps for carving a pumpkin.  
• Explain the steps for pitching a tent.  
• Imagine you’re going skydiving with someone who has never been in an airplane before and is terrified of heights. Explain to them how you will jump out of the plane and survive.  
• Explain the process for tying your shoes.  
• Imagine you’re planning a bank robbery and have to explain to your fellow robbers exactly how you will all escape without getting caught. Write down your precise getaway plans.  
• What is the best way to eat a pie? Explain the steps from removing it from the oven to the final burp.  
• Explain how to properly wash and dry your hair.  
• What is the procedure for packing your suitcase for a long vacation?  
• Imagine that your city is flooding due to a massive storm. Explain the steps you need to take to secure your house and protect it from the rising water.   
• Step by step, explain how you clean your room.  
• What is the procedure for tying a stem into a knot with your tongue?  
• Imagine that you are a general in charge of storming a medieval castle. Explain the steps your army will take to lay siege to the castle and win the battle.  
• Explain step by step how you draw a self-portrait.  
• Explain step by step how to live a good life. School, job, marriage, kids, etc. What order and at what age should these events happen to live a good life?  
• What is the procedure for convincing a stray dog to come to you so you can help it find its way home?  
• What are the steps for changing the world?  
• Imagine you are performing in a circus. Pick an act that you will star in and explain the steps for performing your act.  
• What is the proper way to make the perfect bowl of popcorn? 
• Explain the steps for making your parents happy. 

53 Relationship Writing Prompts for Middle School

• What does romance mean to you?  
• Should boys ask girls to dances or the other way around? Explain.  
• How do you say you’re sorry when you’ve hurt someone’s feelings?  
• What is the difference between hearing and listening?  
• Do you hold a grudge when your boyfriend/girlfriend/partner hurts you in some way? Why or why not?  
• What are the qualities that make you a good romantic partner?  
• How do you know your boyfriend/girlfriend/partner is reliable?  
• At what age do you think you should be allowed to start dating?  
• How do you know when you are ready to have sex with someone?  
• Describe your first kiss. Was it what you imagined it would be? Why or why not?  
• How are romantic relationships at your school different from the way they are portrayed in movies and television?  
• What are the top three qualities you would look for in a boyfriend/girlfriend/partner? Explain.  
• What are the biggest challenges in having a romantic relationship?  
• Do you believe in love at first sight? Why or why not?  
• Do you think your classmates make too big a deal about romantic relationships in middle school? Why or why not?  
• How do you know your boyfriend/girlfriend/partner respects you?  
• Should you only date people that your parents approve of? Why or why not?  
• Should schools do a better job of preparing students for having relationships and having sex? Explain.  
• Where is the best place to get information about relationships and sex?   
• Describe your perfect boyfriend/girlfriend/partner. What do they look like? What is their personality like? What do you two do together?  
• Should romantic partners ever fight? Why or why not? What does it mean if they do?  
• Valentine’s Day: romantic holiday or marketing scam?  
• How should a middle school couple celebrate their anniversary?  
• Should boys hold open doors for girls? Or is this just sexist? Explain your answer.  
• Should students be allowed to date someone older or younger than themselves? Why or why not?  
• “All is fair in love and war.” Agree or disagree? Explain.  
• What scares you the most about having a romantic relationship?  
• Do you think romantic relationships get better in high school? Why or why not?  
• What does it mean to be committed to your boyfriend/girlfriend/partner?  
• How do you know when you want to marry your boyfriend/girlfriend/partner?  
• Do you and your boyfriend/girlfriend/partner laugh a lot together? What makes you laugh?  
• Does it matter who says “I love you” first? Why or why not?  
• What do you think the opposite sex really wants in a romantic relationship? Explain.  
• Do you feel pressured to start dating? Why or why not?  
• What do you friends think of your boyfriend/girlfriend/partner? Do you agree with them? Explain.  
• How do you know when it’s time to break up with your boyfriend/girlfriend/partner?  
• Is it okay to never date in middle school and high school? Why or why not?  
• What are the disadvantages of having a boyfriend/girlfriend/partner? Explain.  
• Should parents be allowed to choose your romantic partners for you? Why or why not?  
• Is love logical? If it’s not, should you pay attention to it and follow it? Explain.  
• In what ways can a boyfriend/girlfriend/partner make you a better person?  
• Many people say that romantic partners should be “equals”. Do you think this is actually possible, that two people can be equals? Why or why not?  
• What would you do if your close friend was dating someone you didn’t think was good for them?  
• Do you think couples should have secrets? Why or why not?  
• How do you establish boundaries in a romantic relationship?  
• What have you learned about romantic relationships from watching how your parents interact?  
• How are romantic relationships today different from those in the past?  
• Do you think romantic relationships today have benefited from cell phones and technology or not? Explain.  
• Is it okay to ask someone out by text? Why or why not?  
• Are middle school romantic relationships doomed to fail? Why or why not?  
• What would you do on your “perfect” date?  
• Who should pay for things on a date?  
• “Love means never having to say you’re sorry.” Do you agree? Why or why not?

50 Research Writing Prompts for Middle School

• Research the history of Christmas. Was Christmas always the holiday we know now? When did people begin celebrating Christmas the way we do today? How has the Christmas holiday changed over time?  
• Research the history of the circus. Who invented the first circuses? What kinds of attractions did they have? How did circuses become popular? What circuses still survive today?  
• What is a food desert? How do they affect families living within them? What can be done about food deserts?  
• Research a job or profession that no longer exists. Who performed that job in the past? Was it a good job or not? Why is that particular job no longer around anymore? Which jobs exist today will eventually disappear?  
• What did people use before GPS and Google Maps? Research how ancient people developed maps and learned to navigate by the stars.   
• What are some of the scariest places in your state? Research one of them and write about its history. What happened there that makes it so scary? Do you think the stories about this place are real or just made up?  
• Many people mistakenly believed that the Egyptian pyramids were created by slaves. New evidence suggests they were created by well-paid laborers. Research how the pyramids of Egypt were created. Who made them? Why? Why have they lasted so long?  
• Research the history of shoelaces. When were shoelaces first invented? What were shoelaces originally made from? How many different ways to tie shoelaces are there?  
• “The greatest invention since sliced bread.” Pick an invention. Write about how it was invented, who contributed to it, and how it changed the world.  
• Pick your favorite sport. Research how your sport was originally created. Who was responsible for inventing the rules? How did your sport come to be widely accepted? How were its professional leagues formed? How many people participate in it today?  
• What was the worst war in the 20 th Century? Write about why a particular war was the worst. How did this war start? Why and when did it finally end?  
• How do plants communicate? Research how plants have evolved to communicate with each other. How does this compare with human communication? Are plants really “unthinking” or are they more complicated than you thought?  
• Research the history of the Supreme Court. How was it formed? What is its role in the US government? How are justices appointed? How does the Supreme Court operate on a daily basis?  
• Pick a major city in a foreign country. Write about how that city was founded and what that city is known for today. If you visited that city, what would you go see? Who are famous people from that city?  
• Pick a particular natural disaster from history (hurricane, volcanic eruption, earthquakes, etc.) and write about what happened on that day. What were the effects of that disaster? Could the damage have been lessened if certain steps were taken?  
• Research the history of the cigarette. Why was it developed? Why is smoking so deadly? Has the tobacco industry always known about the dangers of smoking? How has vaping changed the industry? How many young people smoke?  
• Research how the different planets in our solar system were discovered. Who made the discoveries and how did they know the planets were there? Do you think there are more planets out there in our solar system waiting to be discovered?  
• Suicide is one of the leading causes of death among young people. Research why teens commit suicide. What are the signs someone is thinking about suicide? How can suicide be prevented?  
• Research the history of the video game. When were video games first invented? What were the earliest video games? How did video games develop over time? What are the most popular video games of all time?  
• Pick an author that you enjoy. Write about where they came from, what books they write, and why they became an author. Would you recommend their work to your classmates?  
• Christopher Columbus was once credited with “discovering” the Americas, but many other explorers had landed in the Americas before him. Write about the history of discovery in America. What cultures landed in the Americas before Columbus?  
• Research the history of the White House. How was it designed? What rooms are within it? How does it operate on a daily basis?  
• Are we alone in the universe? Research how scientists have searched for life outside of Earth. What are different groups doing now to look for signs of intelligent life beyond our solar system? Do you think they will ever find any?  
• Homelessness remains a huge problem in America. Research the different reasons people become homeless. What solutions are there for addressing homelessness?   
• What were the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World? Research how this ancient list was made, and then select one of the wonders to write about. When was your Wonder created? Where was it located? What happened to it?  
• Select an astronaut. Research their life and how they became an astronaut. What was their childhood like? What kind of missions have they done as an astronaut?   
• Research the history of school lunches. Why were lunches first served in schools? What kinds of foods have been served over the decades? Are school lunches healthy? How have they changed over time?  
• Research the history of your state. When was it founded? Why did it become a state? Who are some of the famous people from your state? What is your state known for?  
• One of the most massive floods we have evidence for happened during the last Ice Age at Glacial Lake Missoula. Research these floods and write about why they happened. How much water was involved? What would the floods have looked like? Where did all the water go?   
• Research the history of the dictionary. Why were dictionaries first created? Who created them? What effect did compiling a dictionary have on the English language?
• Why do we keep dogs as pets? Research the history of dogs. Where do they come from? Why did humans start keeping them as pets? What kinds of jobs have dogs performed over the years? What is your favorite breed of dog?  
• Research the history of gargoyles. When did people first start putting gargoyles on buildings? Why are so gargoyles monstrous? What purpose do gargoyles serve?  
• Where does chocolate come from? Research the history of chocolate. Where is it grown? Who originally discovered chocolate? Has it always been used in candies and deserts? How much chocolate is consumed every year?  
• Research Halloween. Has Halloween always been celebrated the way it is today? When did people begin celebrating Halloween as they do now? How has the celebration of Halloween changed over time?   
• How did we find the Titanic? Research the history of the search for the wreck of the Titanic. How long did it take to find? Who found it? How did they find it? What did they discover when they finally found the wreck?  
• Research the history of the ice cream truck. Why were ice cream trucks invented? Who drove the first ice cream trucks? Why do ice cream trucks play the kind of music they do? How many ice cream trucks are still around today?  
• Research the history of tattoos. When did people first begin tattooing themselves? What different kinds of tattoos have people created in different cultures? How does someone become a tattoo artist today? If you got a tattoo, what would you get?  
• Research the history of comic books in America. How popular are they? Why were they censored in the 1950s? Is reading comics the same as reading books?  
• The only successful skyjacking in American history happened in 1971. A man later called DB Cooper hijacked a Boeing 727, held it for ransom and escaped by diving out of the plane. Research the history of this caper and the speculations about what happened to DB Cooper.  
• Research the history of the Christmas tree. When did people begin using trees as Christmas decorations? Were Christmas trees always decorated the way they are now? What kinds of trees were used in the past?   
• Pick your favorite candy bar and research its history. When was it first invented? Has it ever changed over time? How many are sold every year?   
• Research the history of dragons. When were dragons first created? In what cultures did dragons first appear? Have dragons always had the same characteristics (fire-breathing, hoarding gold, etc.)? How have dragons changed over time?  
• Bullying remains a problem in schools. Research the various ways schools and communities can combat bullying. Which ideas do you think would be the most effective?  
• Research the history of money in the United States. What was the first money printed by the US government? How has money changed over the years? What is paper money made of? How is it decided what will be on the coins and bills? How much money is in circulation?  
• Who invented the electric guitar? Research the history of the electric guitar and how it changed modern music. Why was it invented at all? Was it popular right at the beginning? How many kinds of electric guitars are there?  
• Research the history of reading. When did people first begin to read silently? When did literacy become widespread enough for most people to own and read books? How did the spread of literacy change the world?  
• Research the history of the playground. When were playgrounds invented? What kinds of toys were used in the first playgrounds? When were playgrounds included at schools? How have playgrounds changed over time?  
• Research the history of pirates. Who were the first pirates? Who were some of the most famous pirates? What was the difference between a pirate and a privateer? How many pirate treasures are still out there to be discovered?  
• Research the history of the pencil. Who invented the pencil? When was it first invented? Where pencils always made of wood and graphite? How many pencils are made every year?  
• Research the history of the crayon. When were crayons first invented? Why? Who made them? How are crayons made? How many crayons are sold every year? How many crayon colors are there?

50 School Writing Prompts for Middle School

• Imagine you’ve been made principal for the day and can change three things about your school. What three things would you change and why?
• Imagine you find an old letter tucked inside a library book. The letter reveals that there is a hidden passageway somewhere at your school. Write about your search for the passageway and where it leads. 
• What is the worst part about school? Is there any way it could be improved? Explain.
• Should students be required to share a locker with a classmate? Why or why not?
• Spirit Week: good fun or totally stupid? Defend your answer.
• Do you think teachers should have a seating chart? Or should students be allowed to sit wherever they like? Explain.
• Imagine you have been chosen to host a foreign exchange student who has never been to America. Write a letter to your new guest explaining how to succeed at your school.
• If you could add any extra-curricular activity to your school, what would it be and why?
• Should tests include more multiple choice questions or more short answer questions? Explain.
• Should students be required to lead parent/teacher conferences? Or should teachers have to lead them instead? Explain.
• What is the difference between a good teacher and a great teacher?
• What is the biggest problem facing your school right now? What are possible solutions to that problem?
• What is one thing you wish your teacher understood about you?
• Imagine that no one can raise their hands ever again. What would you replace hand-raising with so that students can respectfully get the attention of their teacher?
• You are in charge of replacing the school lunch menu. You can select three restaurants to provide new menu items. What three restaurants do you choose and why?
• Should the number of students per class be increased or decreased? What is the ideal number of students in a single class? Defend your answer.
• Imagine one day at school you are allowed to create a rule for students to follow. Explain the rule you create and why you choose to make that rule.
• Sitting in the back row or sitting in the front row: which is better? Defend your answer.
• Imagine that you have been given the job of driving a school bus to school every morning. How will you keep order on your bus? What rules will you have? How will you enforce them?
• What is the point of education? Why does it matter? Explain.
• Should education be entirely directed to getting a job after school? Or should school teach you things that may not apply to a job but that enrich your mind? Defend your answer.
• You can do away with one subject at school so that it is never taught again. What subject do you get rid of and why?
• Should students be allowed to skip grade levels? Why or why not?
• Should students be held back if they cannot meet basic standards in their classes? Why or why not?
• Should teachers be allowed to assign homework to student athletes on game days? Why or why not?
• You can invite one famous person to come to your school. Who would you invite and why?
• Write a letter to the President of the United States. Explain the problems facing your school. What three things would you ask that the President do to address these problems?
• The best athlete at school or the student with the highest grades: which would you rather be? Explain.
• Imagine you are going to run for school president. Write a speech to convince your fellow classmates that they should vote for you.
• Do you think students should be allowed to choose their teachers? Why or why not?
• Would you rather start the school day earlier (and get out earlier) or start the day later (but have to stay later)? Explain.
• Is recess necessary? Why or why not?
• Where do fifth graders belong? In elementary school or in middle school? Explain.
• Where do eighth graders belong? In middle school or in high school? Explain.
• Should students be allowed to take mental health days and stay home from school? Why or why not?
• Should schools be allowed to celebrate holidays? Or should they not acknowledge them at all because they might offend some students?
• Do you feel safe at school? Why or why not?
• Should teachers be allowed to assign what books you read? Or should you always be allowed to pick whatever book you want? Defend your answer.
• Is it important to learn more advanced mathematics like algebra and geometry if you’re not ever going to use them? Why or why not?
• Should students be required to take exercise/workout/yoga classes? Why or why not?
• Should students be required to take classes in basic life skills like cooking, how to change a car tire, how to write a resume, etc.? Explain. 
• Your teacher gives you a camera and asks you to take pictures of three things you like at school. What would you take pictures of and why?  
• Is Monday through Friday really the best school schedule? Why or why not? If not, what schedule would be better?
• What does it mean to have school spirit? Is school spirit important? Explain.
• You are in charge of organizing a film festival at your school. You can pick three movies to show to all the students and teachers. What three movies would you show and why?
• Public school or homeschool: who gets a better education? Defend your answer.
• If you could repeat one grade level because you enjoyed it so much, which grade level would you choose and why?
• If you could add any sport to your school for students to compete in, what would you add and why?
• Should students have a say in the dress code? Why or why not?
• Get rid of lunch (you can eat at your desk in class) or get rid of recess? Pick and defend your answer. 

38 Science Writing Prompts for Middle School

• Is artificial intelligence going to take over the world? Why or why not? If it does, will life be better or worse? Explain. 
• Imagine there is no longer any gravity on Earth. Write about a day in your life without it.  
• Has technology really improved the world? Or has it simply changed the way things are done (cooking in a stove instead of over a fire, for example) but not really made it any better? Defend your answer. 
• What technological advancement do you think the world would be better off without? Defend your answer. 
• Imagine you are tasked with naming the Moon. What would you name it and why? 
• Self-driving cars are the way of the future. But self-driving cars will put millions of delivery drivers, truckers and taxi drivers out of work. Should companies be allowed to create new technology that ends so many jobs? Defend your answer. 
• If you had to lose one of your five senses, which one would you give up and why? 
• Imagine that you could create a magnet that would attract something other than metal. What would you want your magnet to attract? Explain. 
• If you were an astronaut, would you rather go to the Moon or go to Mars? 
• If you could invent an app to improve people’s lives, what would you invent and why? 
• How do you know the world we live in is real? Can you prove that we are not all part of a massive computer simulation? Explain. 
• Would you rather have the ability to transform into a liquid or a gas? Explain. 
• Should people be allowed to clone themselves? Why or why not? 
• Some people believe we will one day be able to upload our consciousness into a computer and then download it thousands of years later into new bodies so that we can live forever. Do you think this is a good idea? Why or why not? 
• If you could have a robot that did everything for you, would you want one? Why or why not? 
• You can watch one event: the beginning of the universe or the end of the universe. Which do you choose? Explain. 
• What do you think happens if you travel into a black hole? 
• Until a word is invented for a particular color, people literally cannot see it. For example, ancient people could not see blue until the Egyptians invented blue dye and the word blue entered ancient languages to describe it. Until then, the sky and the ocean were seen as shades of black and green, not blue. Why do you think this happens? 
• If you scream in space, can anyone hear it? Why or why not?  
• Imagine you traveled to Mars and planted a tree. Do you think the tree would look the same as it does on Earth? Why or why not? 
• What do you think would happen if every spider on Earth disappeared tomorrow? 
• How would you go about your day if electricity had never been discovered? 
• Do you think scientists will eventually create a pill that will make people lose weight without any effort? Why or why not? 
• What are some things that science cannot help us understand? 
• You can make one discovery: the cure for cancer or a device that will reverse global warming. Which do you choose and why? 
• Science has often resulted in unintended consequences. For example, Einstein’s discovery of the Theory of Relativity led to the creation of the atomic bomb. What inventions or discoveries happening today might lead to unintended consequences in the future? 
• If you could live in a virtual reality world like in the movie Ready Player One , would you want to? Why or why not? 
• What one invention would you most want to make? What would your invention do? How would it help people and society? 
•  We spend billions of dollars to learn about things like distant galaxies and the structure of atoms. Should we spend so much on these things when we haven’t solved more immediate problems like world hunger or the cure for cancer? Why or why not? 
• Should recycling be required for families, schools and communities? Why or why not? 
• Do you think there is intelligent life out there on other planets? Why or why not? If yes, do you think we should try and contact them? 
• Should you be allowed to own your DNA? Or should companies be allowed to use samples of your DNA to create medicines and cures without your consent? Explain. 
• Should students be required to learn how to write computer code? Why or why not? 
• A thousand years from now, what do you think scientists will find left over from our civilization? What will they think about us? 
• What aspect of science excites you the most (space exploration, biology, computer coding, chemistry, etc.)? Explain.
• Do we rely too much on technology? Explain. 
• No species survives forever. They are wiped out by mass extinction events or they die out over time because they can’t adapt. Do you think human beings will be the first species to live forever? Why or why not? 
• Pick one item from your bedroom that scientists 5,000 years from now might discover excavating your house. What would that item tell them about you?

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67 Thrilling And Chilling Mystery Writing Prompts

You’re a huge fan of riveting mystery plots.

You’ve read some of the best mystery fiction ever written (some well-known, some not), and you just know you could create a mystery that would keep your readers enthralled to the shocking end. 

Think how gratifying it’ll feel to hear readers raving that you kept them guessing until the final reveal! 

All you need right now are some high-quality murder mystery ideas like the ones in this post. Read on to find the seed of your new bestseller .

May it lead to many others. 

67 Mystery Writing Prompts 

Look through the following mystery story ideas and make a note of those that get your mind working in strange and vaguely uncomfortable ways. You know better than anyone the prompts that speak to you louder than others. 

If you get a chill as you’re developing the idea, chances are good, your reader will, too. 

1. You’re a memoir writer with a complicated love life. An estranged cousin calls asking if you’ll help her write a “tell-all” memoir . Then she disappears.

2. You’re a private investigator looking into the murder of a philanthropist’s reclusive wife. Two people confess, each swearing they acted alone. You suspect another.

3. You’re the assistant to the creator of the first empathic AI, who disappears just as the first psychopath AI blows away the competition at a global tech convention. 

4. Your candle shop wins a prestigious award. Last year’s winner is angry and slanders you and your products. You find their body behind your store, covered in wax. 

5. You research your genealogy and find that several people from different branches all died in the same mysterious location — of unknown causes.

6. A well-known motivational speaker is about to give a TED talk when they take a drink from a fresh water bottle and collapse. Their assistant disappears.

7. She’s always been faithful to her husband. So, who’s been trying to frame her for adultery? And what does her husband’s dead lawyer have to do with it?

8. You’re lost in the woods, no thanks to a poorly-planned nature hike, when you find the hatch to an underground bunker. A picture on the wall stops you cold.

9. Someone is stealing items from the graves of historical figures buried in the New Orleans cemeteries near your home. What does your latest Etsy purchase have to do with that?

10. Every eligible woman was eager to claim his attention at the ball, but only one would add his name to her dance card — and something else to her collection. 

11. A grandfather you never met has left you an unusual item in his will with a warning: “Don’t underestimate this gift. It’s always been meant for you.” 

12. You’re a witness to the opening of an Egyptian sarcophagus that’s only just been discovered in a buried tomb. Resting on the mummy’s chest is an old camera.

13. A few minutes after you buy a friend’s older smartphone from them (for a bargain), you get a phone call from someone who’s tracking your every move. 

14. Your business computer has just been hacked by a pro, who happens to be a resident in the local nursing home — and the father of last night’s date. 

15. You’re on a solitary walk through the woods near your new home, and you find a set of fresh footprints leading deeper in, possibly toward the lake. You follow them. 

16. You’re on your way home from a vacation when an airport official tells you your passport must be a fake. Your country of origin doesn’t exist. 

17. You take a short walk out in the snow and come back to find a fresh, icy handprint on the glass by your door. There are no footprints leading to it. 

18. You visit a tea shop, and a woman pulls you aside and convinces you to buy a special blend she’s created, warning you to only drink one cup a day — and only at night. 

19. While looking for the cabin retreat you signed up for, you get lost and end up at a cabin that resembles what you expected. They welcome you. 

20. Every night, a new house of worship in your town is ransacked. Each time, the thieves steal a hidden sacred object but leave more expensive things untouched.

21. A rogue doctor overseas has created a life-saving vaccine for a deadly pandemic but disappears before he can share it. 

22. You’re a seasoned detective looking over a murder scene at your ex-wife’s residence. So far, her dog is the prime suspect. 

23. The winner of the beauty pageant is the last person everyone expected. Then she wins the lottery jackpot and wakes up with a dead guy in her closet. 

24. You’ve agreed to deliver a package to a recluse living in a neglected manor in exchange for $100,000,000. They never told you he’d want you to stay. 

25. The night before you head home from college, someone calls you from the home phone and leaves a disturbing message. Now, no one’s answering the phone. 

26. You think you know the identity of your “Secret Santa” until you see the most recent gift: a gem your suspect could not have afforded (and wouldn’t have given). 

27. After the “prophecy,” he changed her name and never expected her to spell out the name “Petra” with her wooden blocks. The near-drowning was not an accident.

28. At night, she sleeps with a different stone beneath her pillow. This morning, she woke to feel as if she’d spent the night running. She wasn’t wrong. 

29. The murder victims all had admitted to the same phobia. And all of them died just as they’d overcome it. Now, the hypnotist who’d helped them was missing. 

More Related Articles:

66 Horror Writing Prompts That Are Freaky As Hell

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55 Of The Best Young Adult Creative Writing Prompts

30. You arrived early for a job interview and have noticed two candidates walking into a room but not leaving it. The secretary who calls you in is visibly shaking.

31. You visit a practicing witch who happens to be the prime suspect in a murder. Only she wasn’t even in town when it happened. And she’s your sister. 

32. The winning pie was the murder weapon. And the pie plate looked identical to your mother’s favorite — the one that had disappeared after she died. 

33. A woman claiming to be your sister warns you not to get in touch with your birth parents. She leaves a duffel bag with you and, within a day, disappears.

34. A marriage counselor arranges a scavenger hunt for a struggling couple, based on their history. Someone changes the clues, though, and one of them ends up dead.

35. You go to a friend’s wake and see a different body in the casket. Hers is nowhere to be found. And there’s a note under the corpse’s right hand — addressed to you. 

36. A woman returns a lost wallet and becomes the target of a stalker. An item from the wallet (one she’d considered keeping) ends up in her mailbox. 

37. Members of a notorious fraternity are found dead and partially “dismembered.” Their leader has the most reason to fear and goes to you for help and protection.

38. You’re reading a book given to you by a quiet but friendly classmate who lives down the hall when you realize it’s about you. And you die in the end.

39. You subscribe to a candle of the month club recommended by a new colleague, and your first candle reveals a ring that once belonged to a local murder victim. 

40. A desperate housewife fakes her own death, then ends up in the trunk of her husband’s car, wearing a dress that cost twice as much. 

41. A talented musician who performs at a local coffeehouse is found wiped of his memory when his faithful dog leads a police officer to him. 

42. A group of carefully selected teens returns home from a conference to find their parents have all disappeared, leaving identical typewritten notes. 

43. An orphanage with a reputation for finding good families for every child in their charge finds itself under a microscope when one teen returns with a horrific tale.

44. A stranger uses magic to hide his true intentions as he grooms a new target — the young daughter of a rising politician — to do the unthinkable. 

45. You return home and notice strange behavior among the townspeople and an even stranger weekly ritual. You investigate and make an enemy.

46. Bored with your small-town life, you happily accept an offer of a month-long internship at a London bookshop. You get there and find the owner dead. 

47. You run a cafe and have just hired a troubled teen. Unfortunately, her reputation raises the ire of some locals, who point the finger when a customer ends up dead.

48. You take a job at a local bakeshop run by identical twin sisters, one of whom wants to start a business of her own. One of them dies, leaving you a note.

49. Every member of this community took vows of non-violence and silence, so when one is found dead in the herb garden, you and your deaf partner investigate.

50. Random objects in your home go missing, replaced by strange, typewritten poems . You wake up to find one of these poems resting on your pillow.. 

51. A bouquet of flowers arrives each week from an unknown admirer. Each flower means something, and those meanings have taken a dark turn. 

52. Whenever you order from your favorite Chinese restaurant, the fortune cookie’s message sounds eerily personal and prescient. There’s a reason. 

53. When you’re feeling low, your new best friend knows just what tea to brew to make you feel better. It turns out she can also help you remember things long forgotten. 

54. You could swear you’re being followed, but when you turn, no one’s there. Once you’re home with your doors and windows locked, they’re closer to you than ever. 

55. You’re a cop investigating the murderer of a homeless person, but your new partner, who grew up here, seems determined to trip you up at every turn. 

56. When a local bartender is found dead, his curious neighbor finds a secret door propped open by his corpse. The door leads to an underground world of trouble. 

57. You overhear a murder confession and hide where you can see the penitent when the door opens. You recognize the face and barely manage to keep quiet. 

58. You’re looking through a deceased relative’s possessions and planning to donate most of it until you find a note she left you — about stolen evidence. 

59. You wake up to the sound of a blizzard, and you’re dressed in someone else’s winter clothes, wondering how you got there — and what happened to your date?

60. You turn a corner in your new neighborhood, and someone stops in front of you, looks you up and down, presses a key into your hand, and says, “I’ll be back for this.”

61. You didn’t know you had a doppelganger until you came face to face with her at the new coffee shop on the corner. She’s not nearly as surprised as you are.

62. You’re stress-shopping early Black Friday sales when you notice the cameras seem to be following your every move. The manager nervously invites you into his office. 

63. Five fellow college students have been murdered in the same week. Each had stolen something on a dare. One of them mailed their stolen item to you. 

64. You’re decorating for Christmas, and you find a book that belonged to your ex. A note falls out of it addressed to someone who died shortly before he left. 

65. Self-care hasn’t been a priority for you lately, but you accept an invitation to a weekend spa retreat. You didn’t expect your host to be the boss who fired you. 

66. You’re a photographer looking over wedding pictures when you notice a figure with a blurry face that appears in every shot. His face is turned toward the groom.

67. You’re telling your children a story about a babysitting job that went terribly wrong. But you’re not telling them everything. And there will be consequences. 

How will you use these mystery writing prompts?

When it comes to storytelling, only a small share of the magic is in the gift of an inspiring prompt. The rest of it lies in you. 

Begin by choosing one of these prompts and freewriting for a few minutes — or for as long as you like. Paint a picture for yourself, and describe everything your senses tell you. 

Whether you lean toward horror or romantic suspense story ideas, you’ll find a way to make each chosen story prompt your own. 

May each adventure teach you something new.  

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100 Creative Writing Prompts for Middle School

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Looking for some inspiration for your next short story? Look no further! We’ve compiled a list of 100 creative writing prompts for middle school to help you get started. Chose your favorite story idea from the list of creative writing prompts below and get started right now.

Why Story Starters and Writing Prompts Work

Writing is a complex skill. Not only do the hands of middle school students still cramp up when they write for more than a nanosecond, but they have to synthesize many new writing skills at once.

Young writers must generate creative writing ideas, assess their ideas to choose the best one, determine a compelling beginning, middle, and end, outline their story, write several drafts, and edit their own work. These are all necessary skills that must be developed, yes, but if we can isolate them, focusing on one or two at a time, we make it easier for middle school children to conquer each skill.

With writing prompts, they have lots of fun writing ideas to choose from. This takes away the stress of having to come up with their own high-concept idea. (And while these prompts only help with writing-induced stress, we recommend these tips for how to relieve stress in general. Being stressed doesn’t go well with creative writing.)

When they have a starting point to work from, writing gets a lot easier. Instead of spending a long time feeling frustrated about a lack of ideas, students can jump right in and write their first sentence. Even reluctant writers tend to get more excited about writing when presented with irresistible story-writing prompts.

In short, the best thing about using these fun writing prompts is that middle schoolers are more likely to fall in love with writing when they have a great time doing it.

Who Should Use These Story Writing Prompts

While these have been prepared with middle school and high school students in mind, many of them are also applicable to adult writers. Most of the prompts below will be too advanced or complex for most elementary school students, though some older kids from the lower grades, especially those with a real passion for writing, might find a few that peak their interest.

To make things a little simpler for you, we’ve also included a free printable version of these prompts that you can grab by entering your information below.

Sign Up for Your FREE Printable Story Starters and Writing Prompts

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Writing Prompts for Stories That Start Out Just Like Any Other Day

• I tiptoed into the bathroom. If anyone caught me doing this, I’d be in big trouble. I grabbed my mother’s lipstick and brought it back to my bedroom where my brother slept…
• I peeked through the curtains. There was a limo parked outside with two bodyguards. I heard a knock at the door…
• I went over to say hello to the cute little baby under the umbrella, but when I reached her, I saw that…
• The bell rang, and I sprinted toward my locker. I had to get out of there before…
• I opened the front door to find the UPS man standing on the front stoop, his arm around a cylindrical package that was almost as tall as him. Oh no. Not again, I thought…
• Irene gripped her mom’s hand harder as they walked through the doors of the imposing gray building. Her mom had promised her they’d never have to come here again, but…
• The lights dimmed and the curtains opened. I felt like I was going to throw up. Why had I ever thought this was a good idea?…
• As soon as I boarded the train, I began my letter to my sister.  I did it. I sold everything and am on my way to…
• A kid’s birthday party seemed like an innocent enough place to blend in and relax for a moment. It’s been a while since I stopped moving. But when the balloon popped…
• I sat down at my desk and sifted through the mail that had been placed in front of my computer. All junk, of course. I was about to dump it all in the recycling bin when I saw my favorite magazine at the bottom of the pile. Tossing the rest aside, I snatched it up, but something unexpected fell out from between the pages…
• We were canoeing across the inlet when we noticed some unusual movement alongside the boat. A whale was surfacing next to us. Another one followed closely behind. Suddenly, our boat was being lifted out of the water and…
• The Instagram account I created for my hamster just went viral and he’s getting calls with job offers from around the world, only …
• At first, we thought the box contained the water guns we ordered online, so we tore it open eagerly, ready to load them up. Instead, what we saw inside completely changed everything.
• I got off the boat furious and trembling. I was never getting back on there again, not with him at least. There was no way I was going to let him…
• The pancakes were perfect—round and golden, soft but a little crispy near the edges. I slathered them in maple syrup and fruit. But then mom went to the fridge and took out the whipped cream, giving me an apologetic look as she did so. It was a treat, a very special one, and she only ever brought it out if…
• We sat around the campfire in eerie silence, nobody wanting to bring up our predicament. Everything was going to have to come out anyway, we might as well get it over with. I was just about to clear my throat when I noticed Sam and Layla standing apart from the group, whispering. What were they plotting now?
• I’d always wanted to be brave like my brother Simon. He wasn’t afraid of anything. I remember once, when he was younger, he…
• We walked through the garden one last time, knowing we’d never return to this house again. I waved goodbye to each flower bed, to the apple tree that I’d climbed innumerable times as a child. I wanted to scream. Why were they making me…
• My dad used to tell me these crazy stories when I was a kid. His life seemed so bizarre to me, but his sense of humor was mysterious, like I could never tell when fact blended into fiction. I still don’t know which ones to believe, like that one about…
• Shivering, I tried to open the door of my car, but it was frozen shut. I looked up and scanned the parking lot to make sure nobody had seen me. Why did it have to be this freezing, today of all days? What if they…

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Writing Prompts for Stories That Start with Dialogue

• “Drink it, quick!” I looked at the bottle. The contents were unlike any I’d ever seen. I closed my eyes and drank it in one gulp…
• “Five more minutes,” my dad grunted, as I tried to pull him out of bed. “Dad, they’re here–we have to go!”
• “Shh…” I said frantically, as Robin’s wheelchair squeaked again. “Don’t you know how much trouble we’ll be in if they find us…”
• “Put me down!” I yelled as I was hoisted into the air by a giant…
• “Stop it!” I cried as my little sister snatched my phone from the desk and tried to eat it. I couldn’t run the risk of anyone seeing the words I’d etched into the back of it, the ones that would save my life if anyone ever…
• “Have you ever driven one of these before?” I asked James, trying not to let him see how nervous I was. “Is it safe?”
• “Are you coming or not?” he demanded as he took a few steps further into the…
• “Is there anyone in there?” I wondered aloud, staring up at the gothic castle. “The letter said they’d meet us…”
• “We finally did it!” I exclaimed to my lab partner. “We’ve invented a cream that actually makes people more beautiful. We are going to be so rich!”
• You have just five dollars to your name, and you decide to spend it on lunch at your favorite fast food joint. Just as you’re about to pay, a boy not much older than you leans in and whispers to you, “Hold onto your money. I’ll show you how to turn that five dollars into five grand.”
• You’re standing in line at a coffee shop when you spot a shiny coin on the ground. You bend down to pick it up, but a big black boot stomps down on it just before your fingers grasp it. “I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” a deep voice warns.
• “I’m sorry to be the bearer of bad news,” she began, her arms crossed nervously over her chest. “You didn’t get in.” When I raised my eyebrows at her, she added, “And there’s more…”
• He patted my hand reassuringly and said, “It’s okay, you can trust me,” in that voice of his that I’d learned meant I really couldn’t. “All you have to do is…”
• “It’s for you!” she called, after answering the phone. When I went to take it from her, she covered the mouthpiece and whispered menacingly, “This better not be about what I think it’s about, got it?”
• “I should have listened to you,” Greg acknowledged, as he lay curled up on the grass, his clothes caked in mud. “You were right about…”
• “How could you?” I asked in disbelief. “After everything we’ve been through, I thought you were the one person I could trust. I can’t believe you…”
• I kicked at the dust with my shoe. Her question had caught me off guard. I wasn’t prepared to answer it, not yet. I tried to stall. “Remember that time when…”
• “Okay, okay, I’m here,” I said, rolling my eyes for effect. “What was this important news that you had to drag me away from pizza night for?”
• “It’s okay, you can come out, you don’t have to be afraid. Here, take my hand.” The hand that reached out toward me was like any I’d ever seen before.
• “Let go!” I screamed at the man holding me in a headlock. I tried to kick his shins, but he just grunted and held tight.  Think quick , I told myself.  Time is running out. If only…

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Writing Prompts with an Element of Suspense

• Estella ran down the trail, her dog, Gerard, several feet ahead of her. A gust of wind ripped through the forest and a loud crack on her left caught her attention. She watched the tree fall, then turned back to the trail, but Gerard was gone…
• The light started to flicker, first blue, then white. I looked around for a way out, but I was trapped. I guess I’d have to resort to the backup plan…
• The footprints in the snow were fresh. They veered off the path and into the woods. I had to make a choice. It was now or never.
• I tiptoed down the stairs of the prison. I had to break her out of here before…
• It was really hot that day, so I went to my favorite lake. I was about to jump into the cool water when a big splash in the middle of the lake sent ripples over the water. Something was in there. Something…
• My sister and I entered the fairgrounds suspiciously. The note we’d found had said that the mystery person would be here at five, and it was half-past four. We weren’t taking any chances. We had to find him before…
• Ellen squeezed down the narrow aisle of the plane looking for row M. She stuffed her backpack under the seat in front of her with her feet and buckled up. As the plane lifted off the ground, the pilot welcome them aboard their flight to Iceland. Wait, what? This wasn’t the flight to…?
• I walked out of the interview, still holding my breath. This was my dream job and I was afraid that the smallest of breaths would cause me to wake up. I exited the building and a little girl approached me. “The job’s yours,” she said, somewhat prophetically. “All you have to do is…”
• Last night, I was taking a nap on the couch when the phone rang. When I answered it, the voice on the other end said, “Will you accept a collect call from Brazil?” I started to panic, was this the call John has warned me about? I answered it with trepidation…
• It was my seventeenth birthday, and I’d been planning the party for months. Everything was perfect: the decorations were over the top, the food catered by my favorite restaurant, and every cool kid in school was there. The only problem? I was stuck in…
• The shelves in the used bookstore climbed higher than I could see, I’d never seen so many books before in my life. I climbed the rolling ladder to get a better look. Just then, a woman approached and held out a thick, red leather-bound tome. “This is one you seek,” she called out to me. “Look no further. This one will…
• I was sitting at a bus stop when a little girl came up to me and gave me a small box. It started trembling in my hands but when I looked up to ask her what it was, she’d disappeared.
• I tiptoed into the haunted house, looking both ways to see what was in it. As my eyes adjusted to the light, I saw…
• I was about to enter my house when I saw a little dog running down the street toward the busy intersection. There was nobody with him. Without thinking, I took off after him and…
• A loud crash sent me thundering down the stairs to the kitchen. Wolf, my rottweiler was greedily licking lasagna off the tiled floor. Not unusual in and of itself, but what caught my eye was the shiny silver thing glinting underneath the tomato sauce. Was that what I thought it was?…
•  It was well past dark and I was the last person in the library. It was eerily quiet, except for a faint tapping sound coming from the next aisle. I moved cautiously toward the end of the row and peeked my head around the corner…
• I was running out of time. They’d said they’d give me until sundown, and that was only a few hours away. I had to…
• That’s odd , I thought to myself as I reached the next landing and glanced up at the next set of stairs. I don’t remember there being another set of stairs here before. Is this what the old man was talking about when he said…
• The computer beeped again. It was now pinging six times per minute. Whoever was sending these messages was getting impatient, and I wasn’t sure I wanted to find out why.
• I woke up yesterday in a tree, without even a sweater to keep me dry. The weird thing is…

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Writing Prompts that Ask “What If?”

• What if every character you wrote automatically came to life and a foreign government was after you to make spies for them?
• What if a family member you’d never met left you a parcel of land in Norway, but when you got there you realized it was an enchanted forest?
• What if your parents came home from work tonight and told you they were sending you to boarding school?
• What if you were eating breakfast alone at your kitchen table when a newscaster interrupted your favorite TV show to break the story of a missing person, and the missing person was you?
• What if you could live in Ikea for a month?
• What if a cruise ship full of celebrities got stuck at sea for two weeks?
• What if you were in a museum and discovered a stack of letters describing the location of a buried treasure in your hometown?
• What if you were cast as the lead in an opera but you’d faked your way into the role and didn’t actually know how to sing?
• What if a child saw her parents stealing, but chose to keep it a secret so that she wouldn’t be separated from them?
• What if someone offered you the gift of being the best painter in the world, but in return, you could never stop painting?
• What if your pet was elected mayor of your city?
• What if you were an Uber driver in a world where people travel by hot air balloon instead of by car?
• What if you found a time machine, traveled back in time to ancient Egypt, and discovered that their world was even more modernized than ours and included more advanced technology but that they’d destroyed all evidence of these advances in an effort to protect future generations from making the same devastating decisions that they had?
• What if a screenwriter approached you about making a movie about your life, but every time she interviewed you, she completely ignored every answer you gave and made up her own?
• What if you could type 1000 words per minute and could write a new novel every hour?
• What if you woke up tomorrow morning speaking five new languages that you’d never heard before, only to discover that you’d been recruited by international spies and they’d filled your brain with secrets and information while you were sleeping?
• What if you could never leave high school, but instead had to keep coming back year after year to try and get perfect grades before you were allowed to move on?
• What if your parents were taking you on a dream vacation to Europe, but they got kidnapped at an airport and you had to navigate new countries on your own while trying to save them?
• What if you invented a new tool that could clean your whole house in fifteen minutes and you became a millionaire overnight?
• What if you were reading a list of writing prompts, and you realized that every sentence that came out of your mouth was, in fact, a writing prompt and that you were compelled to write a story for each one?

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Story Starters that will Bend Readers’ Minds

• The answer is 49. I looked around the room. There was nobody else there except Quincey. Could it be?
• It’s all over the news. Random events are taking place. What if someone discovers that it’s my dreams coming true, literally? What will they do to me? I have to find…
• On Saturday morning I went out to the backyard in my slippers and robe to feed my pet rabbits. When I reached their hutch, I gasped. A large hole had been torn in the wire door and the hutch was empty. Fearing the worst, I scanned the yard for signs of their whereabouts, when suddenly I was tapped on the shoulder. I spun around to find a black bear standing in his hind legs. “If you ever want to see your bunnies again,” he said, …
• Never trust your dreams, they will get you in trouble every time. At least, if they’re anything like mine. Maybe trouble has a way of finding me, but still, you need to be safe. Just last week, I had a dream about…
• I’d been tracking him all day, and I almost had him, but I had to wait until he was under a tree before I could pounce. I stood up and scanned the clearing. That’s when I realized that I’d been duped. I wasn’t the stalker, after all. He was the bait, and I was the target.
• A baby sits alone in the plane’s first-class section, bright red headphones perched on his head. He stares at me a moment as I pass, then snaps his fingers at the flight attendant to get her attention. Was this another one of…
• You’re forty years old and are happily married to your spouse of 15 years. You’re offered an opportunity to go back to your childhood and correct a horrible mistake you made, and you accept it. You fix the mistake and continue moving through the stages of your life as you did before. Only, the day you were supposed to meet your spouse for the first time, they never showed up.
• You’re walking down a deserted street downtown when you pass a building with a mural painted on its wall. As you take it in, the faces on the mural suddenly start talking to you, warning you of crimes that are about to occur in the city. You’re unable to shut out their voices or ignore them.
• You’re in the car when the person on the radio starts talking about something you did yesterday. Only, you didn’t actually do it, you only thought about it. And it wasn’t yesterday, it was five minutes ago.
• You discover a book in your parent’s bedroom that describes everything you’ve ever said and done. But the book is a hundred years old, and you’re just twelve. Or so you thought.
• She stepped off the plane looking different from how I remembered her, which was strange as it had only been a few months. But she was taller somehow, her eyes were darker, her features sharper. What had they done to her at that retreat?
• Sometimes I wish I could just get into a waterproof bubble and float away, forever, away from all of this. Leave it all behind and start over. I never actually thought it would be possible, until…
•  The house started to shake, and at first, I thought it was an earthquake. We’d trained for those at school. I ran to the nearest door frame and pushed my hands and feet into it as hard as I could. But this wasn’t a normal earthquake. None of the other houses outside were shaking, for one thing. And it went on much too long. As the shaking got more and more intense, a hole opened in the middle of the house, and from it rose…
• I can talk to animals. It’s just something I’ve always been able to do. I didn’t even know it was weird until some kids at school saw me shooting the breeze with a murder of crows at recess one day. Now I have to keep it a secret. If anyone else finds out…
• You’re walking home with your friends from school one day when your best friend vanishes down a manhole. You jump in without thinking and discover that in the sewer lives an entire species of…
• Leonard sat down on the park bench to tie his shoelace. An old man walked up with his dog and asked Leonard if he’d watch the dog for five minutes. The man never returned, and Leonard…
• I walked through the market timidly, unsure of what I was looking for, but somehow feeling sure that I would find it here. A flash of light flickered almost imperceptibly to my right, and instinctively I turned toward the stall that I’d just passed, but it was gone. In its place…
• Yesterday, my mother was turned into a rock. Yes, a rock. The kind that’s small enough to put in my pocket and carry around. In fact, that’s where she is right now. I have one week to figure out who did this and find them if I ever want to see her face again.
•  I knew robotics were dangerous. I’ve been warning them for years. Even when I was seven, I could see the harm they were capable of causing. But nobody listened to me. Until now. Now that an evil robot is threatening to destroy the world, suddenly they come running back to me for help. Good thing I’m thirteen now. Maybe they’ll actually listen this time.
• It never occurred to me that it would actually work. Who would have thought that the teleporter at the Star Trek Museum was functional? You’d think they would have put up a sign warning kids about that, or something. Anyway, that’s how Jamie and I ended up in this barren land. Now we need to figure out how to get back.

Hopefully, these creative writing prompts for middle school have given you tons of new inspiration for your next class project. Whether you’re writing short stories, flash fiction, or novels, working from a sentence starter or writing prompt is a fun way to spark ideas.

Wednesday 15th of November 2023

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Tuesday 27th of June 2023

I love these! I've recently started a creative writing journal and have been struggling to find inspiration. I learned about story starters earlier this week and have been hunting down prompts ever since. This list is perfect, thank you!

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Home / Book Writing / Mystery Writing Prompts: 35+ Ideas to Get You Started

Mystery Writing Prompts: 35+ Ideas to Get You Started

From classic whodunits and cozy capers to hard-boiled crime novels and police procedurals, there's a lot of fun to be had in the mystery genre. Being able to give the reader the thrill of uncovering a mystery along with the protagonist is a special talent. And it all starts with the idea. So keep reading for special tips and a list of mystery writing prompts. 

• What makes a good mystery?
• Examples of great mysteries to read. 
• Mystery story ideas.

Table of contents

• The Crime is the Thing
• Plot-Driven but Character-Supported
• Only Tell the Reader What They Need to Know
• Red Herrings Abound
• Increase the Stakes
• Write What You'd Like to Read
• Great Mysteries to Read (Or Re-Read)
• Cozy Mystery Writing Prompts
• Crime Mystery Writing Ideas
• Mystery Thriller Writing Prompts
• Random Mystery Writing Prompts
• Getting Your Mystery Book in Front of the Right Readers

Ingredients for a Good Mystery

There are certain commonalities among mystery novels or short stories . And while you want to avoid doing a cookie-cutter version of another story, you will want to ensure certain tropes and story beats are present in your tale. Just make them your own!

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Whether you're a discovery writer or someone who likes to plot everything out, it's essential to have some idea about the crime. Every mystery needs a crime as a catalyst for the story . And to avoid a lot of false starts or dead ends, it's good to know the who (the culprit/antagonist), and the why. With these two factors in mind, you can fill in the other things as you go along. Or “discover” them, as some like to say. 

Mysteries are known as plot-driven stories, but that doesn't mean you can have static or flat characters . Your protagonist, whether a hard-edged detective or a golden-years grandma, needs to be likable, complex, and imperfect. You’ll notice that many protagonists in mystery fiction are a bit of a mess. But they still have redeeming qualities that are usually apparent early in the story . This helps the reader get invested in the story. 

Of course, we can’t forget about the bad guy (or gal). The antagonist should also be complex and possess a clear reason for committing the crime (even if that reason is unfathomable, as is the case with serial killers). 

Mystery readers like to put the pieces of the puzzle together as the story progresses. Even if there's no way for them to figure out who did it or why until the climax, they'll try anyway. So the last thing you want is to give the reader too much information too fast. If the clues are too obvious, the reader may be disappointed. And that's the last thing a mystery author should want!

A red herring, otherwise known as a false clue or a bit of misdirection, is an essential element of any mystery. Don't be afraid to point the finger at other characters in the story before the protagonist finds out who really did it. This is to be expected, and it's the bread and butter of many a mystery novel. 

Any well-written popular fiction book will consist of increasing and easing tension . And mystery stories are no different. As the protagonist gets closer and closer to solving the mystery, in fits and starts, the stakes should get continually higher. Much of the time, the stakes are life or death, but not always. As long as they increase to the point of ultimate danger at the climax, you should be good. 

And, perhaps the single best writing tip anyone can heed: write the story you'd like to read . As an avid mystery reader, you will instinctively have a feel for a good mystery. You can refine and perfect it when you edit. But if you write a story that excites you, chances are a lot of other readers will feel the same!

To write a first-rate mystery, you have to have read many mysteries, both good and bad. The good so you know what to do, the bad so you know what not to do. Fortunately, the good will most likely outnumber the bad. And the recommendations below are all good. 

• Anything by Agatha Christie
• Any Sherlock Holmes story
• Gone Girl , Gillian Flynn
• The Big Sleep , Raymond Chandler
• The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo , Stieg Larsson
• The Thin Man , Dashiell Hammett
• The Girl on the Train , Paula Hawkins

Mystery Writing Prompts

There are a lot of sub-genres under the mystery umbrella, so I've split the following creative writing prompts into sections. Use them as story starters or simply for inspiration. Make them your own or use them as-is. And remember: the more you write, the more inspiration will come to you. 

Cozy mysteries are lighthearted in both tone and description. Although usually having to deal with murder, these stories focus more on the quirky characters than the brutal crime. And usually, the murder victim is a bit of a stinker (so the audience doesn’t feel too bad about their death). 

1. A local baker is found murdered in her home just as the town baking contest approaches. All signs point to her arch-rival, old Mr. Dillard. But did he really do it? It falls to Mr. Dillard's understudy to find out.

2. The irate butcher in a small town winds up dead from a heart attack. But as life goes on and cuts of his meat sell, town citizens discover clues in their dinners. And it quickly becomes apparent that the butcher was murdered – and he left clues leading to the culprit. 

3. Sue and John's marriage is on the rocks. They just don't have the spark anymore. But when they're thrust into the middle of a murder mystery, they soon find that their love is stronger than ever. 

4. While taking a long ferry ride from the mainland to their hometown on an island, a small group discovers the body of a crotchety old man dead in the engine room. One of the people on the ferry did the deed, but which one?

5. A woman goes chasing after her dog one night, only to literally stumble across a stranger's dead body in a ditch. Afraid she'll be implicated in the crime, she must solve it before the bumbling local police get involved. Luckily, her dog is a bit of a sleuth. 

6. When a man comes home to his small town for a reunion, he has a bit too much to drink. He wakes up to find a gun on his person, but he has no idea where it came from. Turns out, it's a murder weapon, and the victim is none other than his old rival. 

7. When a snowstorm strands a group of strangers in a ski chalet, one of the guests ends up dead. Most everyone (but the main character) denies knowing the murder victim, but it quickly becomes clear that all the guests know each other in one way or another. 

8. A lowly zoo janitor must solve a murder with the help of the zoo animals when her terrible boss turns up dead in the gorilla cage. 

9. The quirky characters attending an office party suddenly become murder suspects when the company president turns up dead. 

10. When the town psychiatrist turns up dead, everyone is a suspect. The psychiatrist knew everyone's deepest secrets, and it turns out she was using them for nefarious purposes. 

Gritty crime novels don't skimp on the gory details. They often feature a deeply flawed detective who's just holding on by a thread. But they can also feature ordinary characters who find themselves in extraordinary situations. Use the following plot ideas to get your creative juices flowing. 

11. A detective nearing the end of his career starts receiving strange texts. He soon learns that the texts reference murders that are happening around the city. He must rally to catch the murderer. 

12. A young woman enlists the help of a brand new detective to solve her sister's disappearance. But they soon find that there's much more happening than one girl's abduction. 

13. A kid sneaking into an abandoned building to sleep for the night stumbles on a murder scene. He sees a man shoot the victim. The murderer sees his face and chases him, but the kid gets away. The only problem is, the kid saw a badge on the murderer's belt. He's a cop. 

14. A new crime lord is moving into the city. He's ruthless and not afraid to go after cops. But there's one cop who won't look the other way. 

15. When a serial killer starts targeting teachers at the local college, a campus police officer must move fast to find the killer. 

16. Everyone suspects the young man of killing his father at sea for the inheritance money, but no one can prove it. No one but your main character – the suspect's own brother. 

17. Part of the murder was caught on social media, but the murderer was wearing a mask. It's up to one new officer to solve the case. 

18. A teenage girl is kidnapped, but there's no ransom note. The girl herself calls and tells the police to leave her alone. But her parents are a mess and the detective promises he'll get the girl back. 

19. A newly married woman finds clues suggesting her husband isn't at all who he says he is. As she searches for the truth, she finds there's a massive criminal conspiracy at play. 

20. After finding a bunch of tapes at a garage sale, one young woman sees some startling images in one of the videos. She must track down where the tapes came from so justice can be done. 

Mystery/thriller stories have steadily been among the most popular out there. But this subgenre isn't always about unraveling the mystery. Much of the time, the reader already knows who the antagonist is. The suspense comes from wondering whether the main character will prevail in the end. If you enjoy thrillers, choose a creative writing prompt below and see where it takes you. 

21. A retired black-ops special operator finds that his friends keep turning up dead. And at each murder scene, there are clues that point to top-secret missions only a handful of people could possibly know about. 

22. While staying at an exclusive resort in the South Pacific, your main character stumbles upon a human trafficking operation. She tries to go to the police, but they're on the take. It's up to her to bring the bad guys down. 

23. Your protagonist starts seeing a half-familiar face around town. But every time he looks closer, the person is gone without a trace. The problem is, your protagonist has a murky past. And the face he keeps seeing belongs to someone he killed many years ago. 

24. A drifter catches a ride on a bus, headed nowhere in particular. But when he hears half of a phone conversation from the woman behind him, he can't help but try and help her out of her predicament. The thing is, she doesn't want his help. And the half of the conversation he heard is far from the whole story. 

25. People are spontaneously combusting in one detective's city. But a killer soon starts taking credit for the strange deaths. The detective and an arson investigator must team up to get to the bottom of the mystery. 

26. An ex-soldier comes home to find his sister in deep with a local drug dealer. When he tries to get the dealer off his sister's back, he accidentally kills the guy. Pretty soon, he's wanted by the police and the drug organization. And he has to find a way to make things right. 

27. An undercover narcotics officer finds himself in the middle of a conspiracy to kill a high-ranking state politician. The only problem is, they're holding his girlfriend hostage to make him do what they want. 

28. With his dying breath, an old man admits that he's not your main character's father. This sends the protagonist on a journey to find out where she really comes from. And the truth is stranger than she ever could've thought. 

29. The story opens with a SWAT team breaking through the windows and arresting your protagonist. They've found his DNA all over a murdered CEO's body. But your protagonist has never met the CEO in his life. He must break out of jail and uncover the truth. 

30. When involved in a minor fender-bender, your protagonist gets out of the car and finds that the other driver is dying. He says he's been poisoned and whispers the name of the person who did it just before he dies. 

Here's a mix of historical, science fiction, and even horror mystery writing prompts to use for your creative writing exercises. Whether you're writing a short story or drafting a novel, it all starts with an idea and a word on the page!

31. A serial killer is using the cover of the German invasion of France to kill people. It's up to one detective to find the murderer – while also being involved in the resistance movement. 

32. Using special deepfake technology, one killer beats the cameras in the futuristic society to commit his – or her – murders. 

33. A dark underground society preys on those in poverty-stricken areas, recruiting and tricking people to use as human sacrifices. When a found-again Christian learns about this, he knows he must stop it, but he's unsure of how far he should go to face such evil. 

34. Navigating the South during the Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s, one detective must bring to justice the Klansmen who are responsible for several deaths. But given the protection these men get from those in their close-knit community, it will be much harder than he ever expected. 

35. A woman survives a car accident that kills her partner. She blames herself until she starts having strange dreams that suggest something much more sinister is at play. 

There's no better way to increase your writing skill than by practicing with story prompts. But what about when you're ready to put your finished book out into the world? You'll need to bring several factors together to give your mystery novel the best chance of success. These factors include cover design, categories, keywords, and marketing. 

The problem is, getting these things right can be difficult and time-consuming. That's why we made Publisher Rocket . This self-publishing tool can help you bring all the factors mentioned above together to help your book succeed. It does this by pulling and aggregating information directly from Amazon. You can do it all manually, but it takes hours and hours. With Publisher Rocket, you can do it in minutes.  

• See the book covers of the top-selling books in various mystery categories. You can use the similarities to inform your designer about what you want. 
• Decide on the right categories with the category search function. It can help you find the sweet spot with categories that have high demand but low or medium competition. 
• You need to put 7 keywords in your book's metadata on Amazon. Publisher Rocket can help you decide which keywords are best. 
• Using the AMS Keyword search, you can get a list of appropriate keywords to use in your Amazon Ads campaigns, which help you get visibility and sales. 

Check out Publisher Rocket here to learn more!

Looking for more prompts? We've got more to choose from:

• Horror Writing Prompts
• Romance Writing Prompts
• Children’s Book Ideas

Better Keywords & Categories Fast

See why over 47,000+ authors and publishing companies use and love Rocket to help them sell more books.

Jason Hamilton

When I’m not sipping tea with princesses or lightsaber dueling with little Jedi, I’m a book marketing nut. Having consulted multiple publishing companies and NYT best-selling authors, I created Kindlepreneur to help authors sell more books. I’ve even been called “The Kindlepreneur” by Amazon publicly, and I’m here to help you with your author journey.

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Engaging Writing Prompts for Middle School Students

Nurturing creativity is essential to help middle school students explore their potential and prepare for future challenges. One effective method of promoting creativity in the classroom is through engaging writing prompts. These prompts not only spark imaginative thinking but also enhance skills, such as world-building, descriptive language, and point of view.

While writing prompts can be used with all grade levels, middle school is a prime opportunity to use them to bridge foundational skills and knowledge learned in elementary school with critical thinking and analysis that will be used in high school. Middle school students are at an age in their learning where they can explore creativity and writing in a setting that primes them for the higher level of thinking that will come in later years. The benefits of using writing prompts in middle school validates the argument that they should be regularly integrated into the curriculum throughout the school year. Here, we’ll explore the different benefits of writing prompts, engaging writing activities, and even specific writing prompts that can be used with young writers.  

The Role of Writing Prompts

Writing prompts are brief, thought-provoking statements or questions that inspire students to write clearly and creatively. They serve as the ignition for the creative fire within students, encouraging them to explore new horizons through writing. Writing prompts for middle school students also serve as invaluable tools for fostering literacy skills .

Writing prompts, such as creative writing prompts and personal journal prompts , offer a structured framework within which students can explore a wide range of writing ideas and literacy skills. For example, fun writing prompts can be used as hooks or bellringers to engage students in creative and critical thinking before reading a challenging text.

In addition to playing a role in general classroom instruction, writing prompts can also be used in reading and writing interventions. For example, teachers can provide students who may need extra guidance with sentence starters or story starters to help guide analysis or jumpstart creativity. 

Unlocking Creativity Through Engaging Writing Prompts

Writing prompts can also be used for informative and explanatory writing but as discussed already, they play a pivotal role in fostering creativity. In fact, engaging writing prompts are a powerful tool that can unlock the doors to imaginative thinking and self-expression. Let’s take a closer look at the creative benefits of using engaging writing prompts :

Encouraging Imagination and Originality : Writing prompts challenge students to think beyond the ordinary and come up with original ideas. By exploring diverse topics, they can tap into their unique perspectives and unleash their creativity. 

Inspiring Critical Thinking and Problem-Solving Skills : Some writing prompts present real-life situations or dilemmas, prompting students to analyze and devise solutions. This process nurtures critical thinking abilities, preparing students for future problem-solving challenges.

Promoting Emotional Expression and Empathy : Writing prompts that evoke emotions encourage students to express their feelings and develop empathy toward others. This emotional exploration contributes to their holistic growth as individuals.

Enhancing Communication and Language Abilities : As students respond to writing prompts, they refine their communication skills, learning how to articulate their thoughts effectively. Additionally, they expand their vocabulary and command of the language.

Reinforced Reading Skills : Effective writing prompts can be used to support reading instruction and intervention as well. According to Dr. Jason DeHart in Connecting to the Written Word: Intentional Writing with Older Readers , “Older readers are also keenly aware of their own need for additional support, which can result in avoidance behaviors. Teachers who invite students to comfortably engage in writing and composing can gain knowledge of and build relationships with students who would otherwise stay ‘under the radar.’” From techniques like dialogic reading with young readers to intentional writing with older readers, an integrative approach to reading and writing deepens skill levels and understanding.

Integrating Writing Prompts in the Middle School Curriculum

Integrating creativity and self-expression into the curriculum is a fundamental aspect of nurturing well-rounded and confident individuals. Therefore, the integration of writing prompts in the middle school curriculum is not just about fostering better writers; it’s about empowering students to become effective communicators, critical thinkers, and confident individuals.

Writing prompts can be designed to align with educational standards, ensuring they contribute to the overall learning objectives. Writing prompts can also be tailored to various subjects, making them a versatile tool across the curriculum. 

One of the main concepts that writing reinforces is reading. In The Writing Rope: A Framework for Evidence-Based Writing Instruction podcast episode, Joan Sedita, founder of Keys to Literacy and author of The Writing Rope , explores the notion that writing is a task as complex and multifaceted as reading—but it’s often taught as a single skill. Sedita states, “There is this relationship between reading and writing. And what I found in writing this ( The Writing Rope ) and in the professional development work that I do, is that many of the components that we need to teach to students, skills, strategies, are things that also usually support their reading comprehension.” This is just another reason why writing prompts need to be a foundational part of middle school curriculum. 

Writing Prompt Activities for Middle School Students

Here, we’ve included a list of different writing activities, as well as a specific prompt that can be used with each idea.

Diverse Genre Exploration

Writing prompt activities expose middle school students to various literary genres. This diversity broadens their understanding of the written word and empowers them to find their unique writing voice. 

Some genres students can explore include imaginative fiction, personal reflection, mystery and suspense, historical fiction, and poetry and verse. Through these, students can develop the ability to craft suspenseful plots, create vibrant characters, and build intricate worlds that captivate readers’ imaginations. Moreover, as they step into genres like poetry, they can embrace the rhythmic cadence of language, painting emotions and experiences with words in a way that resonates deeply.

PROMPT : Imagine you have the opportunity to blend two different genres together to create a brand-new story. Choose any two genres (e.g., fantasy, mystery, science fiction, historical fiction, romance, adventure, horror) and combine them in a creative and unexpected way. Write a short story that incorporates elements from both genres.

Imagination Ignited

Prompts that delve into fantastical scenarios, futuristic worlds, or magical realms stimulate students’ imaginations. This activity is especially important for exploring the five senses and having students practice the writing skill of showing, not telling. 

PROMPT : Close your eyes and imagine stepping into an enchanted forest. This forest is no ordinary place—it’s a realm of magic, mystery, and unexpected wonders. As you venture deeper into the forest, describe what you see, hear, and feel. What kind of magical creatures do you encounter? Are there hidden secrets waiting to be discovered? 

Real-Life Relevance

Some prompts present real-life situations or dilemmas relevant to middle school students. Writing about familiar experiences allows students to relate more deeply to the subject matter and encourages them to reflect on their daily lives, maybe even stirring up a favorite memory.

Writing prompt exercises for middle school students go well beyond the boundaries of the classroom, incorporating real-world applicability into the educational process. These activities work as vibrant platforms that help students develop their literary abilities while also forging significant connections with their surroundings. 

PROMPT : Imagine you are a young inventor with a mission to create innovative solutions for a more sustainable future. Choose one real-world environmental challenge, such as plastic pollution, energy conservation, water scarcity, or air quality. Write a persuasive essay explaining your inventive solution to address this challenge. Consider how your solution could make a positive impact on the environment and inspire positive change.

Visual Prompts

Visual prompts, such as pictures or videos, act as powerful catalysts for creativity. These stimuli spark inspiration and help students visualize their ideas, leading to descriptive and vivid writing. A few popular visual prompts for middle school students include: enchanted forest, desert island, abandoned amusement park, hidden doorway, and journey through a wormhole.

PROMPT : Examine the image of a person discovering an object in an unexpected place. It depicts a person stumbling upon an unexpected object in an unlikely place. Write a short story inspired by this limited imagery. Consider who the person is, what the object is, and how they react to this surprising discovery.

Character Building

Writing prompts that focus on character development allow students to create intricate and relatable personas. This activity fosters empathy and an understanding of human emotions and behaviors. Some activities include empathy exploration, personal heroes, character evolution, reflective essays, and acts of kindness narratives. Whether reflecting on real people, analyzing fictional characters, or creating characters of their own, students can think both creatively and critically about the people they experience in the world around them as well as their own character traits. 

PROMPT : Imagine a character who faces a situation that requires immense courage. This could be standing up to a bully, facing a fear, or defending a friend. Write a short story that follows this character’s journey as they navigate their fear and find the inner strength to overcome the challenge. Explore their thoughts, emotions, and the growth they experience along the way.

Time Travel Through History

Historical writing prompts transport students to different eras, enabling them to experience the past through the eyes of historical figures. Such activities blend storytelling with historical context, making history come alive. This offers middle school students a portal to the past and an opportunity to connect with the people and events that have shaped our world. Students can transport themselves to the courts of ancient civilizations, walk alongside figures of significance, and experience pivotal events that have left an indelible mark.

PROMPT : Imagine you have a time machine that can transport you to any ancient civilization in history. Choose a specific civilization (e.g., Ancient Egypt, Ancient Greece, the Mayan Civilization) and write a detailed account of a day in the life of a young person living during that time. Describe their surroundings, daily activities, challenges, and interactions with others. What do they eat? What do they wear? What adventures do they embark on? 

Writing in Different Tenses and Points of View

Writing prompt activities that require students to experiment with different tenses and points of view expand their narrative skills. From the immediacy of the present tense to the reflective nature of the past tense, and even the speculative intrigue of the future tense, each tense holds a unique charm that can transform a narrative’s tone and texture. This practice prepares them for tackling complex storytelling techniques.

The choice of point of view shapes the reader’s connection to characters and events. Middle school students can experiment with different perspectives, forging intimate bonds or granting omniscient insight that illuminate the narrative in distinct ways. As they use writing prompt activities, let students explore tenses and perspectives. For example, students may be asked to write from the perspective of a best friend, family member, famous person, or main character. By doing so, they not only refine their writing skills but also cultivate empathy for others, new facts or information, and an appreciation for the language.

PROMPT : Write a short story about an unforgettable adventure. Start by describing the adventure in the first person, using the present tense to immerse the reader in the moment. Then, switch to the third person and past tense to recount the same adventure from an outsider’s perspective. Compare the two versions, considering how the choice of tense and point of view impacts the reader’s experience.

Nature and Environmental Themes

Writing prompts inspired by nature and environmental themes promote ecological awareness and encourage students to contemplate their relationship with the natural world. Some nature and environmental themes to spark imaginative writing activities for middle school students include eco-friendly adventures, a letter to future generations, an imaginary ecosystem, an unexpected encounter, and a day without technology.

PROMPT : Step into the shoes of a young explorer who enters a mystical forest known as “The Whispering Woods.” This forest is said to hold ancient secrets and a strong connection to nature. Write a short story that captures your journey through the woods, describing the sights, sounds, and encounters you experience.

The power of writing prompts for middle school students goes beyond honing writing skills; it encourages them to explore their thoughts, express their creativity, and develop a strong voice in the world of words. By providing a diverse array of prompts that resonate with their interests, challenges, and curiosities, educators can inspire young minds to embark on literary journeys filled with self-discovery and growth.

Voyager Sopris Learning’s writing instruction programs include engaging writing prompts and provide an explicit, multisensory approach to writing instruction. For example, Step Up to Writing ® instructional strategies help students understand the importance of each step in the writing process for increased writing success in all content areas. Download free Step Up to Writing lesson samples to explore the program.

Research-Based Writing Instruction (Grades K–12)

• Classroom Activities/Strategies/Guides

Mystery Plot Generator

1 million plot combinations to inspire you..

Generate a random plot through this mystery plot generator. Simply click the button below to get started. Like a particular story combo? “Lock” and save it to nail it down.

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(Note that: )

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Looking to publish a bestselling mystery novel out of this mystery story generator?

An inexplicable set of footprints in the sand. A murder in a previously quiet, cozy town. The best mystery plots keep us on our toes, guessing and twisting. There's no shortage to the number of ways in which doom can befall a person or entire village, either — and we built this mystery plot generator to illuminate a few of them. All of the plots that you score are yours to use! But what exactly can you do with it now?  

If you’re wondering what’s the best way to construct a mystery story out of the plot that you’ve just generated,

We’ve got you covered. Head to the free resources below to discover the shadowy underbelly of story generators:

How to Write a Thriller . As the tin says: In this free 10-day course, romance editor and writer Kate Studer teaches you step-by-step how to write a romance novel that captures readers' minds and hearts. 

What is Suspense? Understanding the tropes in a given genre is a step every authors should take before writing in it — which is what this article on romance tropes is all about. 

• How to Structure a Novel Before You Write It . In this Reedsy Live video, NYT bestselling author Caroline Leavitt talks about plot structure — and a simple way to go about it.

If you’re still in the search for the perfect plot ,

There are plenty of other mystery plot generators and plot twist generators to provide more bursts of inspiration. Here are some of our favorite mystery story generators on the Internet:

Best Mystery Writing Prompts of 2019

Write Practice's Mystery Plot Generator

If you’ve got everything but your story title and character names in place ,

Why not give our  Book Title Generator  and  Character Name Generator  a whirl?

And if you now feel ready to start building your mystery story now? Great 👍 Happy writing. We’d be delighted if you dropped us the success story at [email protected]! 

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