Prompts for StoryADay May can be anything from a word to a picture or a list of unrelated phrases. Or it could be a scenario that you’d like to see people play with.

Ideally it’s something people can use to write a complete story, not a writing/revision exercise.

There’s no expectation that you’ll participate further after providing a prompt.

However, I will tell you which day your prompt goes live and provide a link you can share beforehand an on the day

It’s fun if you stop by and join the discussion in the blog comments, too.

Absolutely!

Here are the prompts from 2025. 

Here are some links to previous guest prompts: 

Joanne Harris, Hallie Ephron, Seanan McGuire, Jonathan Maberry, Joe R. Lansdale, Heidi Durrow, Therese Walsh, Mary Robinette Kowal, MRK again, Jerry B. Jenkins, Gregory Frost, Jacob Tomsky Charlotte Rains Dixon, James Scott Bell, Gretchen Rubin.

Why, thank you!

You can send people to this page to find out all about the challenge: storyaday.org/about-the-challenge

You can add yourself to the list of participants here, and I’ll make sure you receive all the writing prompts during the challenge. (No spam, though!)

StoryADay is a free event that I’ve run since 2010 alone, and with the support of fabulous working writers like yourself. 

You are granting a non-exclusive license for me to make this prompt freely available at StoryADay.org, accompanied by any promotional materials and links you supplied. You retain ownership and copyright. I reserve the right to remove your submission for any reason.

I may refer to this prompt and create explanatory/reader guide-type material that refers to it, inside paid programs, but linking to the publicly-available version.

If you have any questions, please contact support@storyaday.org

Great! Send them a link to this page.

I’m particularly interested in contributions from writers from traditionally under-represented groups, who write short fiction.

Thanks!