52 Story Ideas

Photo credit: Valentina Locatelli @ Unsplash

by Creative Writing Now

https://www.creative-writing-now.com

© 2021. William Victor, S.L. - All rights reserved.

 52 Story Ideas

Ray Bradbury once suggested this plan for becoming a writer:

"Write a short story every week. It's not possible to write 52 bad short stories in
a row."
- Ray Bradbury

Are you up for the challenge? Here are 52 writing prompts – one for every
week in a year.

Photo credit: Alexander Isreb @ Unsplash

WEEK 1
Your character rents a furnished apartment. When s/he moves the furniture
around, s/he discovers that a heavy cabinet is hiding a door to a room that s/he
didn't know anything about. That door has been bolted shut. What's behind it?

© 2021. William Victor, S.L. - All rights reserved.

 52 Story Ideas

WEEK 2
On his/her way home from work, your character picks up a hitchhiker. The
hitchhiker tries to persuade your character to leave everything and drive him/her
across the country...

WEEK 3
Write a story that contains these three elements: A broken wristwatch,
peppermints, and a hug that goes too far.

WEEK 4
Your character starts having strange and vivid dreams, which all take place in a
large, palatial house that feels strangely familiar to your character. In these
dreams, s/he always goes up the stairs to a bedroom with green wallpaper and
taps three times on a certain brick in the fireplace. Your character becomes
certain that these dreams are trying to tell him/her something...

WEEK 5
Write a story with this beginning: “He wasn't at all what I was expecting...”

WEEK 6
Write a story that contains these three elements: a family secret, a string of
pearls, and the desire for revenge.

WEEK 7
Your character never used to believe in love at first sight, but the stranger in
his/her train car inspires a powerful emotion that your character is convinced
must be love. Your character doesn't know what to do or what to say, but when
the stranger gets off at an unfamiliar stop, your character feels compelled to
follow....

© 2021. William Victor, S.L. - All rights reserved.

 52 Story Ideas

WEEK 8
The bus drops off your young character and his friends at summer camp. They
walk up the drive to the cabins and find them deserted. The main lodge is empty
too. No one seems to be here at all...

WEEK 9
Write a story with this beginning: "Don't move," she whispered.

WEEK 10
Write a story that contains these three elements: a cemetery, a missing dog,
and a joke that goes too far.

WEEK 11
After a neighbor is murdered, the police talk to your character and his wife,
asking if they heard anything suspicious. Your character's wife answers the
police's questions as if she had been home the evening the crime occurred,
when your character knows she was out until very late that night...

WEEK 12
Your character gets a new roommate. This roommate is always complimenting
your character and seems to admire her a lot. But your character starts to get
the creeps when the roommate begins to dress exactly like her, gets her hair
cut like your character's, starts reading your character's books and quoting
things that your character has said. Your character has the strange feeling that
the roommate wants to BE her. And then the roommate starts making excuses
to spend time with your character's boyfriend...

WEEK 13
Write a story with this beginning: If it hadn't rained that night, everything would
have turned out differently.

© 2021. William Victor, S.L. - All rights reserved.

 52 Story Ideas

WEEK 14
Write a story that contains these three elements: an annoying boss, a bikini,
and a fake illness.

WEEK 15
Your character, a baker, is secretly in love with one of his/her customers. Too
shy to speak to him/her, your character finally decides to bake a message for
him/her into a cake. But when that cake ends up being bought by the wrong
customer, it leads to a major misunderstanding...

WEEK 16
Your character is a writer. But his new neighbors are so noisy that he can
neither work nor sleep. He decides to take action...

WEEK 17
Write a story with this beginning: I crouched behind the sofa...

WEEK 18
Your character's teenage child makes a rule that no one's allowed in his/her
bedroom. Your character respects this rule until one morning when s/he wants a
book that s/he thinks that the teenager has borrowed. S/he goes to look in the
teenager's room and can't believe what s/he finds there...

WEEK 19
Write a story that contains these three elements: a campfire, a scream, and a
small lie that gets bigger and bigger.

WEEK 20
Your character is caught shoplifting. The shop owner says that she won't call
the police in exchange for a personal favor...

© 2021. William Victor, S.L. - All rights reserved.

 52 Story Ideas

WEEK 21
A man elbows your character in a crowd. After he is gone, she discovers her
cell phone is too. She calls her own number, and the man answers. She
explains that the cell phone has personal information on it and asks the man to
send it back to her. He hangs up. Instead of going to the police, your character
decides to take matters into her own hands...

WEEK 22
Write a story with this beginning: How would we ever get rid of...

WEEK 22
Write a story that contains these three elements: a creepy house, a map, and a
music box.

WEEK 23
Write about a reader of romance novels who wants to live a love story of his/her
own, or a reader of mystery novels who wants to solve a crime.

WEEK 24
Write a story with this beginning: My fingernails scrabbled against smooth
stone.

WEEK 25
Your character develops the idea that she can hear the voices of the dead on a
certain radio channel. She decides to take advantage of this channel to find
answers to some questions that are bothering her about her dead parents...

WEEK 26
Write a story that contains these three elements: the first day of school, a love
note, and a recipe with a significant mistake.

© 2021. William Victor, S.L. - All rights reserved.

 52 Story Ideas

WEEK 27
Write a story about a character with no living grandparents, who wants to adopt
a grandmother.

WEEK 28
Your character loves the apartment s/he's renting. It's the first place in his/her
life where s/he's ever felt happy, at home. But the building is about to go for
sale, and all the tenants will be forced to leave. Unable to face the prospect of
moving out, your character makes up his/her mind to buy the building. S/he has
no idea how s/he's going to come up with that kind of money, but there has to
be a way...

WEEK 29
Write a story that contains these three elements: a Halloween costume, a
stapler, and a complaint between neighbors.

WEEK 30
Your character has recently married someone with two teenage children. The
children resent your character, who tries to avoid them altogether. Then your
character’s new spouse (the children’s parent) disappears suddenly, leaving
only a short good-bye note...

WEEK 31
Write a story with this beginning: The strange blue light shone through the
trees...

WEEK 32
Write a story that contains these three elements: a stuck elevator, a pickpocket,
and a promise.

WEEK 33
A babysitter is snooping around his/her employer's house and finds a disturbing
photograph...

© 2021. William Victor, S.L. - All rights reserved.

 52 Story Ideas

WEEK 34
Your character's new boyfriend has been giving her beautiful gifts, especially
clothing. At first, your character is pleased (although many of the clothes are
one size too small), but then she starts noticing signs that they have been worn
by someone else. In particular, there's a certain lilac perfume that seems to be
clinging to some of them...

WEEK 35
Write a story with this beginning: Unfortunately, the tombstone...

WEEK 36
Write a story that contains these three elements: an abandoned house, false
eyelashes, and a lump in the bed.

WEEK 37
Write a story that takes place entirely in the dark.

WEEK 38
Your character is in the middle of a messy divorce. His/her divorce lawyer has
advised him/her not to move out of the house because doing so could
negatively affect his/her divorce settlement. His/her spouse likewise refuses to
move out, so the two are still living together. When your character starts a new
romantic relationship, this complicated arrangement becomes even more
complicated...

WEEK 39
Your character has a phobia about spiders. After an argument with his
roommate, he keeps finding spiders around their apartment. He doesn't believe
it's a coincidence...

WEEK 40
Write a story with this beginning: I should never have come here...

© 2021. William Victor, S.L. - All rights reserved.

 52 Story Ideas

WEEK 41
Write a story that contains these three elements: identical twins, a party
invitation, and a locked closet.

WEEK 42
Your character is intrigued when he sees an ad online, offering a free bedroom
in a shared apartment. The apartment's owner explains that s/he is lonely and
just wants company. It sounds quite strange, but it could save your character a
fortune in rent...

WEEK 43
Your character has been kidnapped and locked in an attic. The attic has a small
window overlooking the garden of a neighbor's house, where your character
sometimes sees children playing. Your character doesn't dare shout out the
window because the kidnapper might hear. S/he needs to find a way to signal
for help without the kidnapper discovering what s/he's doing, and without
endangering the children...

WEEK 44
Write a story with this beginning: He threw the phone out the car window...

WEEK 45
Write a story that contains these three elements: an ice storm, a bicycle, and a
treasure map.

WEEK 46
One night, your character goes with his wife to his in-laws' house. When he's in
the bathroom, he overhears a conversation between his wife and her parents.
"Don't worry," his wife says. "As soon as I get rid of him, everything will be fine."
Could she be talking about your character? What's going on?

© 2021. William Victor, S.L. - All rights reserved.

 52 Story Ideas

WEEK 47
Write a story with this beginning: The first time was the hardest.

WEEK 48
Alone at home, your character takes a selfie to post online. Later, when your
character looks at the photo again, s/he discovers something unexpected -- a
stranger hidden in the shadows behind where your character was standing!
Who is it, and what was this person doing in your character's house? Could s/he
still be there?

WEEK 49
Write a story that contains these three elements: a lost key, a hair salon, and an
amazing rumor that turns out to be true.

WEEK 50
Your character is cleaning out a cabinet, when s/he discovers an opened from a
former lover who broke your character's heart years ago. Opening the letter,
your character discovers that the ending of that relationship was all based on a
misunderstanding. But since then your character has built a whole new life and
is married to someone else (though s/he has never been able to love anyone
else the way s/he loved the person who wrote that letter). What will your
character do?

WEEK 51
Write a story with this beginning: It was the opposite of love at first sight.

WEEK 52
Your character's best friend is very upset. She has just spent all her savings on
a new house, but after just one night, she says that she can't live there, that
there's something horribly creepy about the place. Your character tells the friend
that it's a lovely house and she's being irrational. To convince her, she offers to
stay there with her the following night...

© 2021. William Victor, S.L. - All rights reserved.

 52 Story Ideas

Photo credit: Jack Finnegan @ Unsplash

Happy writing!

Creative Writing Now

https://www.creative-writing-now.com

© 2021. William Victor, S.L. - All rights reserved.