121. A woman is walking alone on a beach in the summer twilight (or at dawn) when something happens that completely changes her life.
122. The protagonist is blamed for a murder but doesn’t remember committing it— even though every shred of evidence along with a hazy memory suggests other- wise.
123. A young girl starts having recurring dreams about a dragon. In one of the dreams, the dragon says, “You made me.” The girl becomes obsessed with dragons and decides her life purpose is to become a genetic biologist so she can, in- deed, make a real dragon.
124. A man who sees ghosts checks himself into a mental institution, oblivious to the fact that the facility has been closed for almost thirty years.
125. The protagonist wakes one morning gagged and tied to the bed, and there’s a maniac sitting in the bedside chair.
126. Love saves the day when the protagonist is helped out of dire circumstances by falling in love with someone wealthy and powerful. But when the relationship falls apart, the protagonist realizes that it’s better to rescue oneself and build a relationship on companionship instead of dependency.
127. Write a story about an interracial relationship set in a time and place where such relationships were scandalous or even illegal. The relationship could be a romance, friendship, or a business partnership.
128. Fed up with being bullied by coworkers, the protagonist plans a series of pranks to embarrass his or her colleagues.
129. After learning his or her parents are struggling to make ends meet, a child prodigy decides to fix the family’s finances.
130. They were a normal, happy family until one of the parents was injured in a terrible accident and became severely disabled. Write the story from the perspective of one of the children.
131. It’s the season of snowmen and sleigh rides. Children are out gallivanting on snowy slopes and making snow angels in their backyards. One child longs to join them but cannot, so he or she watches from a lonely upstairs window. Why can’t the protagonist go outside?
132. A group of young adults gets together to rent a cabin for a weekend. They drink and party, and the next morning one of them is found murdered. In the months that follow, the friends suspect each other and question themselves. Who did it? Will they figure it out before the police do?
133. In a thousand years, Earth is controlled by nanobots that live in the blood of world leaders. Write the story from the nanobots’ perspective.
134. You probably have beliefs about what happens to human consciousness after death. Write a story about a protagonist who dies, showing what happens after death.
135. A physicist who’s ridiculed by scientific colleagues discovers a parallel universe, a universe where the beasts and creatures of human mythologies and folklore actually exist. Horror ensues when the physicist opens the portal between the two worlds.
136. Romance stories are usually about someone looking for love or avoiding it and falling into it anyway. Write a love story that takes place after the search for love is over.
137. Nowadays people go to college or trade schools to prepare for a career. But there was a time when most careers required apprenticeship. Go back in time and write a story about a mentor and his or her apprentice.
138. Survival stories are often gritty and tragic. Write a survival story that is funny. Start your story by bringing the characters into a situation they must survive: a natural disaster, for example.
139. During a field trip to a museum, a group of kids (who are not friends with each other) gets lost and goes on a grand adventure through time and space.
140. There are lots of stories about parents who pressure kids into law, medicine, and sports. Write from the perspective of a kid whose parents are pressuring him or her in a less conventional direction (music, art, etc.).