Looking for inspiration for a story? This random writing prompt generator offers thousands of original story ideas.
What Are Writing Prompts?
Writing prompt is a starting point for a story or some other kind of text. Most writing prompts consist of 1-3 sentences that inspire imagination and set rules to the narrative. In other words, a writing prompt answers the question of “what should I write?”.
Writing prompts can be used for both simple writing exercises and longer projects. Even some published novels have started from a writing prompt.
Writing Prompt Generator
This writing prompt generator picks a random prompt from a pool of original story ideas.
I have created all the story prompts by myself, though there are some exceptions. In some cases, I have used other sources as a starting point for a story idea. Those writing suggestions include a link to the original inspiration.
You can read more about the prompt randomizer and its contents at the end of this page, but that is not necessary. Push the button below to get a random thing to write!
Write a story…
The Writing Prompts of the Generator
The randomizer includes four kinds of things to write: original writing prompts, ideas that use another randomizer, prompts inspired by other sources, and AI-assisted ideas.
1) Original Ideas for the Random Writing Prompt Generator
Over half of the writing prompts are my original ideas. As inspiration brews slowly, I wrote my ideas down over the course of a few weeks.
Still, I’m not claiming that all those ideas are completely unique. After all, most of them recycle classic story conventions. It would be weird if no one had ever come up with similar ideas.
2) Ideas with Added Randomness
A few dozen of the prompts include a link to another randomizer. I have made most of these randomizers by myself (see the page Random Generators), but there are a few exceptions.
These randomizers blur the amount of ideas in the generator. In total, this suggestion tool features 400+ unique writing prompts. Counting all the possibilities of my own random generators, there are over 10,000 possible variations to the prompts.
And still, that’s not all. If you include all the possible combinations with Wordcounter’s Random Word Generator, the amount of possible outcomes reaches astronomical numbers.
3) Random Writing Prompts Inspired by Others
Some of the writing ideas are inspired by others. In those cases, I have credited the original source. I have done this to expand the ideas beyond my personal biases and limitations. None of these prompts are direct copies.
My main sources for inspiration were Reddit’s r/WritingPrompts subreddit, Reedsy’s list of creative writing prompts and random tropes from TV Tropes. Like clichés, tropes are common plot devices found in different forms of media. However, no trope or cliche is objectively bad – when used well, they can elevate a story.
4) AI-assisted Story Ideas
To add more randomness to the mix, I asked OpenAI’s Chatbot for original writing prompts. I used my favorite suggestions as a foundation for my own ideas. However, Chatbot’s ideas seemed rather unoriginal, so I took a lot of liberties with them.
Ps. This story prompt generator wasn’t the only place where I used OpenAI to help. I made the “painting” at above with OpenAI’s DALL-E 2 image creator. The art prompt I used was “a medieval painting of an author thinking of ideas”.
This website, Arimo Travels, is originally a sustainable travel blog that I started for my mostly flightless 2-year trip around the world. Though it’s not directly related to traveling, a random writing prompt hits close to my personal interests.
During my trip around the world, I took multiple breaks to work on a novel manuscript. I finished the novel after the end of my adventure, though I didn’t find a publisher for it. I have summarized the plot of the novel in the commentary track of this blog post.