by Bryn Donovan
A rocket launch site.
100 Historical Setting Prompts
A blacksmith’s shop in a medieval village.
An alehouse in a medieval city.
The front seat in a covered wagon.
A general store on the U.S. frontier.
An Iroquois longhouse.
An Oglala Lakota tipi.
A Pueblo cliff dwelling.
The Shanghai Race Club in the 1930s.
A fishmonger’s stall in Victorian London.
A home turned into a hospital during the U.S. Civil War.
A Mayan temple.
The servant’s quarters in an English country house in the early 20th century.
Backstage at the Globe Theater in Elizabethan times.
On the set of a motion picture in 1940s Hollywood.
A five-and-dime store in the U.S. in the 1950s.
A women’s dormitory at a university in the 1960s.
A grand hacienda on a vast sheep ranch in Mexico in the 1700s.
An olive orchard in Biblical times.
The cave of a family of Neanderthals.
A coffee house in colonial Boston prior to the Revolutionary War.
A dressmaker’s shop in Belle Époque Paris.
The slums of Dublin in 1914.
A speakeasy in the U.S. during Prohibition.
The city of Mecca, filled with pilgrims, in the late 1100s.
A log cabin in the U.S. in the 1800s.
A one-room schoolhouse on the American prairie.
A trolley car in San Francisco in the early 1900s.
The watchtower of a medieval castle.
A surgical operating theater in the 1800s.
The scullery in a Victorian house.
A sleigh ride on a snowy day.
The Winter Palace in Russia in the time of Peter the Great.
A secret Soviet bunker during the Cold War.
A street filled with horses and carriages.
A steamboat on the Mississippi River.
The Apollo Theater in Harlem in the 1930s.
A seaside picnic in Regency England.
A scriptorium, where medieval monks copy and illuminate manuscripts.
A public execution (this could be in many different eras and places).
A church on Easter Sunday in the 1950s.
Cruising on Main Street in the U.S. on a Saturday night in the 1950s.
Under the boardwalk on Coney Island in the 1950s.
A croquet game on an English lawn in the 1860s.
A newspaper office in the 1940s.
Stonehenge, soon after it was erected.
The Taj Mahal, soon after it was built.
The Alamo Mission in the weeks before the Texas Revolution.
A trading post in Hudson’s Bay, Canada in the late 1700s, where wool blankets are exchanged for beaver pelts.
A Viking ship headed to Britain for a summertime raid.
The RMS Celtic, an ocean liner built by the White Star Line, on its maiden voyage from Liverpool to New York City in 1901 (for those of you who like The Titanic, except for the sinking part).
A fishing boat in the Mediterranean in Biblical times.
A glitzy discotheque in the 1970s.
A shop in the Haight-Ashbury district of San Francisco in the 1970s.
A roller-skating rink in the 1970s.
An underground punk show in the 1980s.
A VHS video rental store in the 1980s.
Prince Charles and Lady Diana’s wedding procession route on July 29, 1981.
The slave quarters on an antebellum plantation in the U.S. South.
A Fourth of July celebration on the U.S. bicentennial, 1976.
The Library of Alexandria before the fire.
The Pentagon during the Cuban Missile Crisis of the 1960s.
Paris in the 1920s—when Langston Hughes, Josephine Baker, Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Gertrude Stein, Djuna Barnes, and other creative American expatriates were there.
The shop of a master craftsperson in Elizabethan England.
The construction site of the Pyramids.
Ellis Island on opening day.
Greenwich Village in the 1950s.
The Stonewall Riots in Greenwich Village, New York City: June 28, 1969.
The Berlin Wall when it came down: November 9, 1989.
A nightclub in Storyville, New Orleans’s red-light district, in the early 1900s.
Vienna in the time of Mozart.
Hyde Park, London, in the 1820s.
London on V-E Day, May 8, 1945.
The spa town of Mariánské Lázně in the Golden Era of the late 1800s.
Australia in 1900, the year before independence.
Sobrino de Botin in Madrid, Spain—the world’s oldest continuously operating restaurant—in 1725, right after it first opened.
A boarding house in the Texas panhandle during the Dust Bowl.
A fallout shelter in the 1950s.
A Negro Leagues baseball game in the 1930s in Kansas City, St. Louis, Baltimore, Birmingham, Chicago, Brooklyn, Indianapolis, Memphis, Pittsburgh, or Philadelphia.
A cathedral in a medieval city.
An imperial palace in China.
The construction site of Rockefeller Center during the Great Depression.
The Parthenon in Athens, Greece, dedicated to the goddess Athena, in 400 BC.
The Parthenon in the early 1460s after the Ottoman conquest, when it was being used as a mosque.
A village well in Israel in the time of Jesus Christ.
The Hanging Gardens of Babylon, created around 525 BC by King Nebuchadnezzar II for his queen, Amytis. (Note: this is only one theory about the gardens, which may or may not have actually existed.)
A French chateau in the 1600s.
Hautvillers Abbey in the 1670s and 1680s, when the cellarer Dom Pérignon was inventing Champagne.
A tannery in Marrakesh in the 1100s.
A crinoline shop in 1880.
A tobacconist and sweet shop in 1880.
A barbershop in the 1950s.
A public bathhouse in ancient Rome.
Mexico in the 1820s, when the newly independent nation is in chaos and Spanish general Augustin de Iturbide becomes a dictator.
A farmstead in the Cotswolds, England, in the early 1900s.
The servants’ dining hall in the basement of an English country house in the early 1900s.
The offices of Enron, the Houston energy company, in 2001, when their fraudulent accounting practices were coming to light.
A meeting of the White Rose, a German anti-Nazi group, near the University of Munich in the autumn of 1942.
Moton Field in Tuskegee, Alabama, where black military pilots (Tuskegee Airmen) trained, in the summer of 1941.
The flight school for WASPs, Women Airforce Service Pilots, in Houston, Texas in 1942.
A Pan Am airplane in the 1960s.
50 Prompts on Cars, Planes, Trains, Boats, and More
A packed passenger plane sitting on a runway on a hot summer day.
Behind the wheel of a monster truck at a monster truck rally.
Behind the wheel of a truck loaded with nitroglycerin, the active ingredient in dynamite.
A refrigerated car on a freight train.
A subway car on the Paris Metro.
The first-class car on the bullet train travelling between Tokyo and Kyoto.
The backseat of an old car in a grocery store parking lot at night.
The back of a hearse.
A tiny, messy bathroom on a commercial airplane.
A helicopter above a metropolis.
A helicopter above a war zone.
A blimp above a stadium.
A school bus filled with children.
A school bus with passengers who aren’t children, that isn’t heading to or from a school.
The front seat of a U-Haul van on the highway.
A used car lot at midnight.
An airport terminal at two a.m.
An SUV off the road in the desert.
The deck of a yacht.
A canoe in a swamp.
The back seat of a ride-hailing vehicle (such as Lyft or Uber.).
The driver’s seat of a stretch limousine.
A Greyhound bus.
A rowboat on a pond.
A private jet with every luxurious amenity.
An RV in Manhattan.
A luxury sports car on the streets of a small town.
The dining car in a train.
The lounge on a cruise ship.
The driver’s seat of an ambulance.
The driver’s seat of an armored car carrying cash.
The back of a prisoner transport vehicle.
The driver’s seat of a garbage truck.
The observation car on a train.
The back of a police car.
The front seat in a fire engine.
A motorcycle in an alley.
A Vespa in a small town.
A snowmobile in the mountains.
A sports car in an ice storm.
The driver’s seat of an Army tank.
A sailboat on a sunny bay.
A gondola on a canal in Venice.
A houseboat.
A hang glider over a canyon.
A Model T Ford.
A spacecraft circling Jupiter.
The driver’s seat of a tractor in a cornfield.
A small plane, crashed and in flames.
A ski lift.
DIALOGUE PROMPTS
Many fiction writers enjoy writing dialogue more than any other part of the story and feel confident about their ability to write it. When you’re writing a story, dialogue can be a great place to begin.
As you’re writing, keep in mind that different characters should express themselves differently. One might be inclined to cursing, while another might never use coarse language. One might say everything that’s on her mind, while another might speak in shorter sentences—and say less in general. Giving each character his or her distinctive voice is another way to make the characters real to the readers.
200 General Dialogue Prompts
Most of the prompts on this list are open-ended so they can lend themselves to many different kinds of stories. Start with one of them, write a conversation around it, and see where it takes you!
“Ma’am, is this your dog?”
“No, it’s really not that complicated. He’s a bad person.”
“Hey...what’s wrong with your face?”
“The king is missing.”
“Ah yes, come in. Close the door behind you.”
“Dude. It’s three in the morning.”
“Um, sorry. That one’s not for sale.”
“You’ve got thirty seconds to explain to me what you’re doing here.”
“Didn’t anyone ever tell you who your real daddy is?”
“I know this may be hard to believe, but I’m on your side.”
“Never heard of that being used as a murder weapon before.”
“Just sit around and cry, then. I don’t have that luxury.”
“I’m sorry. I thought you were someone else.”
“That’s the nice thing about telling the truth. You don’t have nearly as much to keep track of.”
“Of course we’re best friends. No one else would put up with our shenanigans.”
“That’s the least of your worries.”
“You look different from your profile picture.”
“Do you trust me?”
“You found it on the beach? You know, when most people take a walk on the beach, they pick up seashells.”
“Sir. This is for children only.”
“I haven’t tried this on a human yet, but it should work.”
“What? I meant it as a compliment.”
“Who put this in my coat pocket?”
“I can’t do this anymore.”
“You think you’re so good-looking, but deep down, you’re the kind of ugly that Photoshop can’t fix.”
“I know you did your best, but it wasn’t enough.”
“Even if I could stop it, I wouldn’t.”
“You have got to see this.”
“Guess who made the evening news?”
“I don’t really think of myself as a thief...”
“Are you just going to keep walking by my house or are you going to come in?”
“We do things a little differently in this century.”
“Please return to your assigned seat.”
“Are you banned from all Taco Bells, or just that Taco Bell?”
“I can’t believe I used to think he was attractive.”
“You are speaking to the manager.”
“Where are your clothes?”
“Well, this contest isn’t going to rig itself.”
“Hi, I’m calling about your ad?”
“I can’t believe I’m telling you this.”
“I should have told you this a long time ago.”
“I am only telling the truth when I say that you have not behaved completely as a gentleman in this matter.”
“I thought we were friends!”
“That’s not a good look.”
“It’s a genetic trait, but it’s exceptionally rare.”
“I love you, but I don’t even think I know who you really are.”
“She’s evil, but she does have a point there.”
“I didn’t know you could talk.”
“Sweetie, what were you thinking?”
“What makes you think it was an accident?”
“Sorry. You’re the first person I’ve spoken to in ten years.”
“I don’t suppose you’ve got a blowtorch around here?”
“I know you’re here. You may as well show yourself.”
“Get a job!”
“Actually…I do know of a reason why these two shouldn’t get married.”
“According to this, you owe them eighty thousand dollars.”
“We thought at first that it was part of the performance.”
“It’s been a while since I’ve seen y’all in church.”
“I would break his thumbs right now if I could.”
“Why are you helping me?”
“That’s the worst reason I’ve ever heard to have a baby.”
“I didn’t even recognize you!”
“Is it worth breaking your vows over?”
“I told you not to read that.”
“Put the turkey down.”
“I didn’t ask to be abducted.”
“That’s the most disgusting thing I’ve ever heard.”
“Where did you learn how to do that?”
“How could you do this to me?”
“I thought you had him!”
“Humility is not one of my many virtues.”
“How can you stand living here?”
“She’s young, fertile, and from a good family. What more do you need to know?”
“Sometimes being a total geek pays off.”
“You don’t have the correct paperwork.”
“Careful not to break the—oh.”
“I’d love to help, but I want to keep all my money in case I want to spend it on other things.”
“Well aren’t you the cutest little thing?”
“Why is that your password?”
“Please don’t use sarcasm. It confuses me.”
“After we lost you, things just weren’t the same.”
“If you were logical you would’ve killed me already.”
“Well, that could’ve gone better.”
“Sometimes I feel like she’s still at my side.”
“We’ve been waiting two hours.”
“Your services are no longer required.”
“I feel like we’ve met before...”
“Does he hit you?”
“Yes, it’s a questionable line of work, but I’m good at it.”
“She’s in the building.”
“Wow! It’s an honor to meet you.”
“You were in a crash. Can you tell me your name?”
“This used to be a great country, but people like you are destroying it.”
“I’m cured. I swear.”
“My chances of living to a ripe old age are unfortunately excellent.”
“Let’s face it: you don’t exactly blend in.”
“Forgive me if I’m misreading things, but do you want to make out?”
“The next time you shoot a guy, don’t do it on national television.”
“We’ll need to take a blood sample to be sure.”
“Maybe you don’t believe in them, but they definitely believe in you.”
“Just get out there and smile and act like everything’s fine.”
“Keep your head down!”
“I still miss being with you.”
“She is a heretic and a danger to us all.”
“Well change it back!”
“Those were his last wishes?”
“Yeah, we’re still legally married, but it doesn’t mean anything.”
“I’m not mad at you for lying. I’m mad at you for being so bad at it.”
“Ugh, I still have glitter all over me.”
“I know it’s going to hurt to leave—like cutting off your leg to get out of a trap—but you have to do it.”
“If it’s beluga caviar, yes, but if it’s cheap caviar, no.”
“I’ve been patient for five minutes!”
“I’m not the best, but I have the best timing.”