• 60 prompts
  • Checked October 2026

Deep Writing Prompts

Hard questions, beliefs that turned over, choices between two good things, and a few what ifs.

Deep Writing Prompts

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  1. Write about a rule you thought was unfair until you saw what it was for.First line: I thought the rule was there to spoil things, until the day it was not there.
  2. Do animals know things that people do not? Write what a dog, a crow or a whale might understand that you cannot.Angle: stay with what the animal can sense and do. No talking animals.
  3. Loyalty or fairness: your friend and a stranger both claim the last seat, and you saw who got there first. Write what you say.Angle: tell it from inside your head, in the three seconds before you speak.

Next step Deal a moral dilemmaWrite about who you are

All 60 prompts

A question with no right answer 15

  • Can anyone own a view, a tune they hum or a shortcut through the park? Write about where owning stops. Angle: start with something you call mine that nobody ever gave you or sold you.
  • Do animals know things that people do not? Write what a dog, a crow or a whale might understand that you cannot. Angle: stay with what the animal can sense and do. No talking animals.
  • Does a thing have to last to be worth making? Answer with a sandcastle, a meal or a chalk drawing. First line: By four o'clock the tide had taken all of it, and nobody was sad.
  • How much of who you are did you choose? Write about one part you picked and one part you were handed. Angle: your name and your first language were handed to you. Start there.
  • If nobody ever sees a kind act, is it worth as much as one that everybody sees? Write what you think and why. Angle: test your answer on one small act, such as picking up litter on an empty street.
  • Is a promise still a promise if the person you made it to has forgotten it? Write both answers, and say which you would live by. First line: She never mentioned it again, and that made it harder.
  • Is it better to be the best player on a losing team or the worst player on a winning one? Give your answer and one doubt about it. Angle: think about what you would learn on each team, not only how it would feel.
  • Is it better to know a hard truth or to stay happy without it? Write what you would choose, and for whom. First line: I asked her to tell me, and then I wished I had asked later.
  • Is it ever right to break a rule? Write about a rule you think is good and the one time it should be broken. Angle: keep the rule small and real: no running in the hall, no phones at dinner.
  • Is it possible to be brave without being afraid? Write what you think bravery is made of. Angle: compare two people doing the same hard thing, one of them scared and one not.
  • Is leaving something out the same as telling a lie? Write the case for and the case against. Angle: a surprise party is the easy case. Find a harder one and stay with it.
  • What makes a place home: the building, the people in it, or the time spent there? Answer through one room. Angle: picture the room with all the furniture gone. Is it still the same place?
  • When does a child become a grown-up: at an age, at an event, or at something harder to name? Write your answer. Angle: describe one moment when someone you know seemed to cross the line.
  • Which matters more in a friend: that they tell you the truth, or that they are on your side? Write about a time the two pulled apart. Angle: change the names if you like. Say what was said and what you wished had been said.
  • Would you rather be remembered by many people for a short time or by a few for a long time? Explain your choice. Angle: say who the few would be, and what you would want them to remember.

A belief I changed 15

  • Describe a game, a school subject or a kind of music you used to dislike and now defend. First line: For years I said I hated it, and for years I had never really tried it.
  • Describe a place you were certain you would hate, and did not. Angle: list what you expected on the way there, then what you found.
  • Describe a time you changed your mind in the middle of a sentence. Angle: write the sentence, the pause, and what you said next.
  • Name one thing you believe today that you suspect you will not believe in ten years. Write why you hold it anyway. Angle: nobody can check this one. Guess honestly.
  • Pick an opinion you hold now that your younger self would fight. Let the two of you argue it out. Angle: write it as a dialogue, and give your younger self the better jokes.
  • Tell about a person you got wrong at first. What did you believe about them, and what showed you otherwise? Angle: keep the person kind in the telling. The mistake in this story is yours.
  • Tell about a story you understood differently the second time you read or watched it. Angle: say what you noticed the second time, and what had changed in you in between.
  • Tell about something you believed only because everyone around you did. Angle: say when you first noticed that you had never checked it.
  • What did you once believe about being a grown-up that turned out not to be true? Angle: grown-ups know everything, never get lost, like their jobs. Pick one and test it.
  • What did you used to think was the most important thing about a friend, and what do you think now? First line: At eight, a best friend was whoever lived closest.
  • Write a letter to someone who changed your mind without knowing they had. Angle: say exactly what they did or said. The letter never has to be sent.
  • Write about a rule you thought was unfair until you saw what it was for. First line: I thought the rule was there to spoil things, until the day it was not there.
  • Write about a time you won an argument and later decided that the other person had been right. Angle: tell the argument fairly, then the moment, days or years later, when it turned over.
  • Write about something you were certain you could not do, starting on the day you found that you could. First line: I let go of the wall, and nothing bad happened.
  • Write about something you were sure of when you were small and no longer believe. Angle: say who or what changed your mind, and how long you held out.

A choice between two goods 15

  • A family can move to a bigger home far away or stay in a small one near everyone they know. Write the dinner where they decide. Angle: give each person at the table one good reason, and let no reason be silly.
  • A judge at a baking contest can reward the cake that tastes best or the baker who tried something new. Write the judge's note. Angle: the note pinned to the winner is read by both bakers. Make every sentence fair to each.
  • A path you know leads home, and one you do not know might lead somewhere better. Write the fork in the road. First line: The left path I could have walked asleep. The right one bent out of sight.
  • A relay team can pick its fastest runner or the one who never missed a practice. Write the captain's choice. Angle: both runners have earned it. Write what the captain says to the one left out.
  • A school has one empty room and two good uses for it: a music room or a workshop. Write the speech for the one you would choose. Angle: say what is lost with the other choice, and who will miss it most.
  • Honesty or kindness: your grandfather asks whether you liked the long story he has just told for the third time. Write your answer. Angle: write three answers: the honest one, the kind one, and one that is both.
  • Is it better to give a little help to many people or a lot of help to one? Write about someone who has to decide. Angle: make it concrete: one afternoon, twelve neighbors, one fence that needs a full day.
  • Keep a promise to be somewhere, or stay where you are suddenly needed. Write the message you send. Angle: both people matter. The message has to be short and cannot be an excuse.
  • Loyalty or fairness: your friend and a stranger both claim the last seat, and you saw who got there first. Write what you say. Angle: tell it from inside your head, in the three seconds before you speak.
  • Tradition or change: a family always spends a holiday one way, and someone suggests another. Write both sides well. Angle: the one who wants the change loves the family too. Let that show.
  • Would you rather be very good at one thing or fairly good at ten? Write a day in each life. Angle: follow both selves to the same evening and see who is happier at supper.
  • Would you rather have more time or more choices? Write about a week with one and not the other. Angle: a long empty Sunday with one book, or a short hour in a store that sells everything.
  • You can find out about a surprise that is planned for you, or keep the surprise. Write which you choose. Angle: say what knowing would give you and what it would cost.
  • You can spend a free Saturday with your oldest friend or your newest one, and not both. Write how you choose. Angle: nobody is wronged either way. Say what each day would have held.
  • You may keep a photograph of a day or your memory of it, and not both. Write which you would give up. Angle: pick a real day. Say what the photo holds that memory lost, and the reverse.

A what if 15

  • What if every person were born with a fixed number of questions to ask in a lifetime? Write about someone down to the last three. Angle: decide who the three are saved for, and which one gets asked by accident.
  • What if everyone could hear one of your thoughts each day, and you could not choose which? Write a Monday. Angle: decide how people cope. Do they forgive more, or listen less?
  • What if everyone could speak with anyone, in any language, starting tomorrow? Write the first conversation you would have. Angle: say who you would look for, and what you have never been able to ask them.
  • What if everyone had to trade lives with a stranger for one week every year? Write your week, and who got yours. Angle: name the one thing in your life you would put away before handing over the keys.
  • What if machines did every job? Write about one person deciding what to do on Monday morning. Angle: the question is what work was for. Let them try three answers before lunch.
  • What if money disappeared overnight and people had to trade? Write the first morning at a market. Angle: what does a dentist offer a farmer? Who turns out to be rich?
  • What if no one knew how old they were? Write how a school, a job or a birthday would work. Angle: without ages, what would people use to decide who is ready for what?
  • What if nobody could tell a lie for one day? Write the day at a school, a store or a dinner table. Angle: skip the big confessions. The small polite lies are the ones people will miss.
  • What if people stopped aging at whatever age they liked best? Write a street where everyone has chosen. Angle: who picks seven, who picks forty, and who cannot decide?
  • What if sleep were optional? Write what people do with the extra hours, and what they lose. Angle: follow one person who goes on sleeping anyway, and say why.
  • What if the world ran out of new things to invent? Write the day the last invention is announced. Angle: is the crowd cheering or quiet? Let two people in it disagree.
  • What if you could know the last time you would do an ordinary thing? Write that last time. Angle: the last time you are carried, or play a certain game. Nobody announces it.
  • What if you could see how every choice you did not make would have turned out? Write one evening of looking. Angle: pick a small choice, such as which seat you took on the first day.
  • What if you met yourself at twice your age? Write the one question each of you is allowed. Angle: the older one may refuse to answer. Decide whether that is a kindness.
  • What if you woke up as the only person who remembered yesterday? Write what you would tell people first. Angle: nobody believes you at first. Decide what yesterday held that is worth the trouble.

How it works

These are writing prompts that are deep without being gloomy: fairness, memory, courage, what a person owes a friend. None comes with an answer. The writer supplies it.

Read the full guide

Writing prompts deep enough to argue over

The first group asks questions with no right answer. Is a promise still a promise if the person you made it to has forgotten it? Does a thing have to last to be worth making? A third group sets two good things against each other: a relay team's fastest runner or the one who never missed a practice, honesty or kindness, a photograph of a day or the memory of it.

Prompts that start from a changed mind

Fifteen prompts start in the writer's own head: something you were sure of when you were small, a person you got wrong at first, an argument you won and later decided you had lost. They read as memoir, and the turn is already in them.

  • Answer the question in your first sentence. The writing is everything that comes after.
  • Give the side you disagree with its best argument, not its worst.

Questions and answers

What makes a writing prompt deep?

A question with more than one defensible answer, where either answer costs something. You can spend a free Saturday with your oldest friend or your newest one, and not both: nobody is wronged, and the choice still says something about you.

Are these thought provoking writing prompts for kids?

Yes. The questions are hard and the subjects are everyday: teams, promises, friends, a rule about running in the hall. Nothing here is frightening, and a writer can answer every one without telling a secret.

Are there deep story ideas here?

Yes, in the group A what if. Nobody can tell a lie for one day. People stop aging at whatever age they liked best. Someone is down to the last three questions of a lifetime. The line under each points at the hard part.

Which deep writing prompt works for a class discussion?

One with two sides a room can take. Is leaving something out the same as telling a lie? Write the case for and the case against. Half the class can write each case and then trade papers.

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