A locksmith is called to open a door that has no handle on the inside.
18 Short Story Prompts Prompts
These prompts create a starting constraint, question, or situation. Use one as written, combine two, or change the audience, setting, objective, or limitation to make a new exercise.
A commuter finds the same handwritten note on a different train seat every morning.
A town replaces all street names overnight, but one resident remembers the old map.
A child receives a library fine for a book their family never borrowed.
Two strangers arrive to collect the same inheritance from a person neither has met.
A night guard notices one museum painting changes weather with the real sky outside.
A baker discovers every customer has ordered the same unusual cake for tomorrow.
A journalist receives corrections to an article that has not been published yet.
A gardener is paid to maintain a yard belonging to a house scheduled for demolition.
A translator finds one sentence in a contract written in a language nobody admits recognizing.
A teacher receives a perfect assignment from a student who has been absent for months.
A motel guest checks into a room containing luggage with their own initials.
A courier must deliver a package to an address that disappears from maps at sunset.
A musician hears applause through the wall of an abandoned theater.
A city inspector finds a fully furnished apartment behind a wall marked solid on every plan.
Two siblings discover their childhood time capsule was opened and resealed by someone else.
A ferry arrives with one passenger whose ticket was issued twenty years earlier.
A photographer notices one person appears in the background of every photo taken that day.