Writing prompts for short stories.
Twenty-one of them, sorted by category. They are starting points, not rules: take one, change it, ignore half of it. Just write the first sentence that comes to you after reading one. Tellyah is a writing app for short stories, and a story written here is called a telly.
On this pageCrime writing prompts
Investigations, disappearances, a question left unanswered. Crime runs on what the reader has not been told yet, so the useful decision is not who did it: it is who knows, and how long they can hold on to it. Give somebody a reason to lie that has nothing to do with guilt, and most of the rest follows. And what is already published in crime is there if you want to see where somebody else took it.
Everyone your character asks tells the same story, word for word, in the same order. Write the moment that stops being reassuring.
A phone left on a kitchen table shows twelve missed calls from one number, all from last night. Nobody in the house admits it is theirs.
The flat opposite has been dark for eleven days. On the twelfth, the light comes back on. Write the moment your character decides to knock.
Drama writing prompts
Families, silences, and what was never said out loud. Drama is the category where nothing has to happen: two people who already know each other, one thing neither will say first, and an ordinary afternoon to say it in. When you are stuck, write the conversation they are avoiding, then delete it and write the one they have instead. You can read the drama already on Tellyah before you start, or after, it matters less than you think.
Two siblings divide a house, object by object. They agree on everything except one thing.
Somebody has kept a message for six years without ever playing it to anyone. Write the day they play it.
Two people remember the same evening completely differently. Write it once, then write the other one.
Romance writing prompts
Beginnings, reunions, and the thing nobody dares say first. Romance is mostly a question of timing: what changes is rarely how they feel, it is when one of them finally acts on it. Decide which of the two knows first, and how long they sit on it, before you decide whether it ends well. You can read the romance already on Tellyah to see the tone other people use.
Two people with nothing to say to each other are stuck in the same doorway until it stops.
A message meant for somebody else lands on your character's phone. They answer anyway.
Write the message you actually sent. Then write the one you never sent, still sitting in your drafts.
Fantasy writing prompts
Worlds that run on rules that are not ours. The trap is inventing the world and forgetting the cost: a rule that never hurts anybody is decoration. Write your one rule, then write who pays for it, and start the story at the moment they do. Somebody has already built a world here: go and look at it.
Every night a map adds a place that does not exist yet. Write about the first character who decides to go and look.
Magic works here, reliably, and it always takes something. Decide what it takes before you write a line.
Invent one rule everybody obeys without thinking. Then write the person who does not.
Story Time writing prompts
First person, and something worth telling. This is where most people start, because it asks for no invented world and no plot, only for something you actually remember. The smaller the thing, the better it tends to read: not the worst day of your life, the one you still think about for no obvious reason. Other people have told theirs, and they are here.
Write about the small thing you still think about, not the worst thing that ever happened to you.
Write about the day you did not go where you said you were going.
Start at the moment you stood up. Everything before it can come later.
Feel Good writing prompts
Stories that end better than they start. Feel Good is harder than it sounds, because the ending is known from the first line and the interest has to come from somewhere else. Put the change early, and use the rest of the story to show what the character has to give up for it, rather than saving the good news for the last paragraph. There is Feel Good on Tellyah already, and it is worth reading.
Somebody knocks to borrow something and stays two hours. Write what they were actually there for.
Somebody has just ended something that was not working. Write only the Saturday, not the decision.
Someone misses their train on purpose. Write what they were avoiding, and what they got instead.
Psycho writing prompts
What people do, and why they say they did it. Psycho cares less about the event than about the gap between what a character does and the reason they give for it. Write the reason they say out loud, then write the one they would never say, and let the reader measure the distance. What is published in Psycho is a good example of that distance.
Write a character apologising while explaining why they were right.
Somebody does the same small thing every day. Reveal what it is protecting them from, without naming it.
Two friends describe each other to a stranger. Only one description is kind.
Turn any of these into a choice.
Every prompt above has a moment where the character could go two ways. Write both. That is the difference between a short story and interactive fiction, and it costs you one extra scene rather than a whole second draft. On Tellyah you write bubble by bubble, open a choice wherever you want, and publish when it is ready.
Your story starts here.
Your readers tell you what they felt. Not a counter, an emotion.
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