Horror Writing Prompts
More will be added as we move through this Monster & Horror Salt Lake Teens Write season!
- Tell the story of the puppet in the image to the right. Are they putting on the happy mask or taking it off?
- There is a scratching sound on your house's window and you get out of bed to check it out. You look
toward the window and don't see anything, but then all of the sudden the glass breaks and something
jumps in! What is it and what do you do next? - You are a high schooler in between classes. You open up your locker to find a severed head! The head has
a note on it that says, “You're next!" What do you do and how do you avoid being next? - The zombie apocalypse has begun! Several people you know have already become zombies and now it's
a game of survival. What do you do to make sure that you are one of the people left in the end? - You are on vacation with your friends in a strange place. One night, one of your friends disappears and you have a strange suspicion that he's been captured by something. What do you think happened and how do you get out of this situation alive?
- If you had your choice of becoming any kind of vampire, which one would it be? A Twilight vampire, Buffy vampire, True Blood vampire, etc.? Pick one and tell your story of how you were turned and what resulted from that situation.
- A friend of yours has had an ancient curse levied upon him. What do you do to help and what happens to him throughout the curse?
- There are several evil spirits that have taken over your house and part of your neighborhood's block. How do you appease the spirits or get rid of them?
- You hear your mom calling you into the kitchen. As you are heading down the stairs, you hear a whisper from the closet saying, “Don’t go down there honey… I heard it too.”
- I began tucking him into bed and he tells me, “Daddy, check for monsters under my bed.” I look underneath for his amusement and see him, another him, under the bed. He is staring back at me, quivering and whispering, “Daddy, there’s somebody on my bed!”
- Working the night shift alone tonight. There is a face in the cellar staring at the security camera.
- Write a story about a ghost or other spooky presence haunting your childhood or current home. You decide what home means here; it can mean a house, your home town, your bedroom, anywhere you consider home. You can take inspiration from fears you had as a child (anyone else terrified of walking up basement stairs alone at night?) or you can leverage things you find scary now.
Visual Prompts
Write the story behind, or a story inspired by, one of these images!