What better thing to do on a dark, winter day than write a story that moves the imagination and takes us away from the dreary weather?
If you’re in the mood to create a story but struggling with an idea to get your teeth into, try one of mine below. I’ve listed a selection of general story prompts that are open to interpretation, or even altered to fit specific genres.
I love story prompts because they help me think of new approaches to writing that I wouldn’t have come up with otherwise. These all have a wintery theme, perfect for a grey weekend writing with lots of coffee and cake!
- A wallet found on the train on a grey, rainy day leads Jen to someone she would otherwise have never met.
- Jack hates the winter weather. After taking shelter from a snowstorm in a motel on his way home from a business trip he meets a woman who makes him see the cold differently.
- Rose finds strange ice crystals forming in her garden and sets out to discover how they are appearing.
- Allie receives a beautiful winter scarf in the post with no message attached. Slowly she discovers who the sender is and that he has less than honourable intentions.
- Lesley stays home every weekend and tells her friends she hates the cold. Everything changes when someone turns up at her door who knows a secret from her past.
- Two men stranded in an otherwise empty motel bar during a snowstorm discover their past makes them enemies.
- Angela adopts a rescue parrot to keep her company through the long winter nights, but she is surprised when the parrot starts giving her life advice in bite-sized phrases.
- Tell the story of three interconnected lives through a stormy morning, afternoon and evening.
- Leon is stranded in a strange town due to flooding. He meets a woman at the hotel who seems to know more about him than she lets on.
- Jen takes the same train every day. Heavy rain gives her the opportunity to strike up a conversation with a fellow passenger whom she has admired from afar for a long time.
- A man hires a remote cottage to work alone over the winter and discovers he isn’t the only occupant.
- Georgina vows not to leave her house all winter. She works from home and has her shopping delivered. When she emerges in the spring her friends cannot believe what has happened.
- Louisa suffers from depression through the winter. A daily walk through her local park connects her with a magical part of nature that brings her back to a happier life.
- Len and his wife are stuck on the motorway for hours in bad weather. Len receives a text message that his wife sees on his screen and she finds out something she never knew about her husband.
- Two people have to cross a snowy field that contains a bull.
- Every time Sasha gets soaked in the rain, something amazing happens in her life.
- A young man visits the pier where his mother disappeared into the sea on a cold January morning.
- Once the shortest day has passed people notice that the days are still getting shorter. How does one person in particular adapt to the increasing darkness?
- Nelly goes for a winter hike and misjudges how much daylight is left. She has to find her way down the mountain in darkness.
- A child builds a snowman that tells her something terrible about her angry, alcoholic father.
- An old woman finds fairy footprints in the snow in her back garden
- Ryan’s moods are driven by the weather. On a stormy night he commits the ultimate crime.
- Lightning strikes Emily’s remote house and shorts her power. She has to ask her only creepy neighbour for help and he turns out to be less creepy than she thought.
- Every winter Donna lights a candle for her missing husband. This year he comes back.
- The wind is so strong Molly thinks the banging and rattling noises are due to the storm. But it turns out they aren’t.
