421. After living in captivity as a slave for over a decade, a twenty-two-year-old at tempts to integrate back into family and society.
422. Four siblings live in fear of their abusive parent until they start planning for the time when they will be old enough and strong enough to seek revenge.
423. Imagine a time in the future when robots don’t look like humans but can do almost anything humans can do, even though their personalities are a little dry. Their most popular use is in children’s hospitals, retirement homes, orphanages, and other assisted living facilities. Write about one human’s relationship with a companion robot in such a facility.
424. Superheroes are fun and exciting. The superpowers! The super villains! The costumes! The gadgets! Write a superhero story.
425. What happens when the makers of a horror-genre video game find themselves trapped inside the world they’ve created?
426. Write a story about two friends. Each one thinks the other is heterosexual and struggles to keep romantic feelings at bay.
427. Ancient Egypt was rich with culture: hieroglyphs, pyramids, and pharaohs. Write a story that includes ancient Egypt—either use characters who are interested in it or set the story in ancient Egypt itself.
428. A day of laughs and hi-jinks kicks off when a group of housemates wakes up to discover that the water, electricity, and cable have been turned off.
429. Children love stories about inanimate objects that come to life: computers, stuffed animals, and toy trains. Write a story starring an inanimate object.
430. A teenage protagonist has to cope with public and political life because his or her parent is president or prime minister.
431. Write a story about people who live in the same neighborhood or apartment building. Explore their similarities, relationships, differences, and conflicts.
432. A family’s world is turned upside down when a corpse is discovered in their backyard and the parents become the top suspects in a murder case.
433. Ordinary civilians find an alien device that is a portal to another world, solar system, galaxy, or universe.
434. The protagonist is the last in a long bloodline that dates back millennia. What happens when he or she returns to the motherland and discovers there is magic in his or her blood?
435. Start with a monster that consumes humans—make up your own monster or use a vampire or a werewolf that subsists on human flesh. What happens when circumstances require the monster to work closely with a human because they share a common objective or enemy?
436. A journalist conducts a series of interviews with a prison inmate and becomes convinced of the inmate’s guilt—but develops a romantic interest in the inmate anyway.
437. During the fourteenth century, the plague (Black Death) devastated Europe and other parts of the world. Write a story about characters who lived through the plague.
438. Slapstick comedy is silly and ridiculous: people falling down, getting hit in the face with pies, and goofing off. Try your hand at writing slapstick.
439. If you plant an acorn today, it won’t grow into a mature oak tree for about sixty years. Write a children’s story about doing something today that will pay off in the future—maybe even after we’re long gone.
440. A group of teenagers gets locked inside an amusement park overnight.