• 65 prompts
  • Checked October 2026

Desert Writing Prompts

A dawn walk, the search for water, a night of stars, the animals that wait for dark, lost and found.

Desert Writing Prompts

Show all 65
  1. Write a letter home from a night in the desert, by flashlight, about the size of the sky.First line: There is more sky here than ground, and nobody warned me.
  2. You sleep out in the desert with no town in any direction. Write the sky.Fact: Death Valley has some of the darkest night skies in the United States.
  3. Write a dawn walk in the desert on the morning after rain, when the ground is not the ground you knew.Fact: some desert plants sprout, bloom and die within a few weeks after rainfall.

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All 65 prompts

A walk at dawn 13

  • A walk in the Sahara at dawn: write the color of the dunes before and after the sun reaches them. Fact: many of the Sahara's sand dunes rise over 590 feet.
  • On a dawn walk in the desert you cross ripples in the sand. Write what the wind was doing while you slept. Fact: small ripples form on a sheet of sand when the wind blows faster than 15 miles an hour.
  • On a walk in the desert at dawn you find a shiny brown coat on the rocks. Write your guess at what painted them. Fact: bacteria on desert stones build up a shiny brown film of minerals and clay, called desert varnish.
  • Take a walk in the desert at dawn and write the first ten minutes, before the sun clears the ridge. Fact: in a hot desert the temperature can plunge below freezing on a winter night.
  • Take a walk in the desert at dawn with someone who has lived there always. Write what they point at that you missed. Angle: a burrow, a seed pod, the one cloud worth watching.
  • Walk up the gentle side of a desert dune at dawn and write what you see from the crest. Fact: a dune's upwind slope rises at 10 to 20 degrees, and its far side drops at around 32.
  • Write a dawn walk in the desert in which you notice how little of it is sand and how much is stone. Fact: around 20% of the world's desert is sand; a large part is flat, stone-covered plain.
  • Write a dawn walk in the desert on the morning after rain, when the ground is not the ground you knew. Fact: some desert plants sprout, bloom and die within a few weeks after rainfall.
  • Write a dawn walk in the desert through a stand of saguaro cactus, as the tallest one would describe you passing. Fact: a saguaro can stand 50 feet tall, and its average life span is probably 150 to 175 years.
  • Write a walk at dawn across a desert floor of smooth stones that fit together like a mosaic. Fact: where wind has carried the fine grains away, closely packed stones are left as desert pavement.
  • Write the last five minutes of a dawn walk in the desert, when the sun is up and you turn for home. First line: My shadow was as long as a bus and already shrinking.
  • You set out at dawn to walk to a desert rock that looks close. Write the walk, and when you knew it was not. Angle: nothing stands in between to measure by. Count your steps and say when you gave up counting.
  • You walk into the desert at dawn and find last night's tracks in the sand. Write who made each one. Fact: many desert animals are nocturnal and spend the day's heat in the shade or underground.

Finding water 13

  • A caravan in the Sahara plans its whole route by where the water is. Write the leader's list of stops. Fact: caravans must travel by way of oases, so that supplies of water and food can be taken on.
  • A lake appears in the desert after a storm and is gone before long. Write its short life. Fact: temporary lakes may form in a desert, and salt pans may be left when the water evaporates.
  • A river from far-off mountains crosses a desert that gives it no rain. Write the river's account of the crossing. Fact: the Nile and the Colorado cross deserts and lose much of their water to evaporation on the way.
  • An addax, a white antelope of the Sahara desert, has not had a drink since last year. Write what it tells a thirsty traveler. Fact: the addax, a large white antelope, can go nearly a year in the desert without drinking.
  • Describe an oasis garden in the Sahara from the top of a date palm down to the vegetables in its shade. Fact: date palms form an oasis's upper layer and shade fruit trees; vegetables grow at the bottom.
  • Rain falls on the desert for the first time in over a year. Write what a small child who has never seen rain does first. Fact: the driest deserts go through twelve-month periods with no rainfall at all.
  • Write a creative piece about a rock carving of a crocodile in the Sahara desert, found where there is only sand. Fact: over 30,000 rock carvings of river animals such as crocodiles survive in the Sahara.
  • Write about a beetle in a desert beside the sea that drinks the morning fog. Fact: a darkling beetle in Namibia raises its back to catch the mist and funnels the water to its mouth.
  • Write about a camel arriving at a desert well, from the camel's side of the trough. Fact: a dromedary can drink up to 114 liters of water in a single sitting.
  • Write about a family that digs for water in a dry desert riverbed, and how they know where to start. Fact: water is sometimes found below the surface of a wadi, a bed that flows only after heavy rain.
  • Write about a saguaro cactus in the desert during a storm, swelling as it drinks. Fact: a saguaro's pleats expand like an accordion as its roots take in rain, the Park Service says.
  • Write about reaching an oasis in the desert after a long day, starting with the first green thing you see. Fact: an oasis is made where a spring, an underground river or a well brings fresh water to the surface.
  • You see water shining across the desert ahead, and it moves away as you walk. Write the walk. Fact: a mirage is a real image, one a camera can catch, made when light bends on its way to the eye.

A night under the stars 13

  • A dune in the desert begins to hum in the night. Write who hears it and what they take it for. Fact: singing dunes are known in about 35 desert places, and the sound can last several minutes.
  • The desert sky is usually clear. Write about the one night under it when the stars are covered. Fact: the sky above the Sahara is usually clear.
  • Lie on a flat rock in the desert just after sunset and write what happens to its warmth. Fact: after sundown about 90 percent of a desert day's heat radiates back toward the sky.
  • On a night in the desert, make up your own constellations and write the story behind one of them. Angle: join five stars, name the shape, say how it got up there.
  • Two people lie awake in the desert at night, one who knows the stars and one who does not. Write what they say. Angle: one of them names things. The other asks what is in the gaps.
  • Write a letter home from a night in the desert, by flashlight, about the size of the sky. First line: There is more sky here than ground, and nobody warned me.
  • Write a night in the Sahara desert when the cold surprises a traveler who packed only for heat. Fact: on average, nights in the Sahara are 23 to 36 °F cooler than the days.
  • Write about a campfire in the desert going out at night, and the stars taking over. First line: When the last flame went, the sky came down to about arm's length.
  • Write about a night in the desert when the moon is so bright that you have a shadow. Angle: what color is the sand by moonlight? What could you read by it?
  • Write about seeing the Milky Way for the first time, on a night in the desert. Fact: most people cannot see the Milky Way from where they live, the National Park Service says.
  • Write about waking in the desert before dawn, with the stars still out and frost on your water bottle. Fact: winter nights in the Sahara can drop to the freezing point and below.
  • Write the sounds of a desert at night under the stars, starting with the quietest. Angle: sand settling, one wing, the zipper of your own sleeping bag.
  • You sleep out in the desert with no town in any direction. Write the sky. Fact: Death Valley has some of the darkest night skies in the United States.

An animal that waits for dark 13

  • A desert tortoise has spent the hot day in its burrow. Write what brings it out. Fact: a desert tortoise spends at least 95% of its life in burrows.
  • A saguaro flower in the desert waits for dark to open. Write the night's one visit. Fact: a saguaro flower opens at night and closes the next afternoon; bats are among its pollinators.
  • A scorpion sets out across the desert once the sun is gone. Write its night, with the stars for a map. Fact: a scorpion's eyes are so sensitive to dim light that it can find its way by starlight.
  • A small frog lives in a desert beside the sea and waits for dark. Write its walk across the cool sand. Fact: the desert rain frog of Namibia is nocturnal and survives on the damp fog off the Atlantic.
  • A snake crosses a desert dune sideways in the cool after sunset. Write the trail it leaves, and who reads it. Fact: the sidewinder and the horned viper move sidewards, which lets them cross high dunes.
  • A toad has slept under the desert for most of a year. Write the night the rain wakes it. Fact: Couch's spadefoot toad lies dormant in its burrow for most of the year, until heavy rain.
  • An elf owl looks out of a hole in a saguaro as the desert goes dark. Write what it is waiting to see. Fact: woodpeckers dig nest holes in saguaros, and elf owls may move in when they leave.
  • Most desert animals wait for dark. Write about the Saharan silver ant, which goes out at noon instead. Fact: Saharan silver ants are active outside their nest for only about ten minutes a day.
  • Something moves outside a kangaroo rat's desert burrow after dark. Write the jump that follows. Fact: kangaroo rats often leap 7 feet, and they can change direction between jumps.
  • Two desert animals share one burrow through the hot afternoon and do not get along. Write the wait for dark. Fact: below about 20 inches, a desert burrow stays at 86 to 90 °F whatever the surface does.
  • Write a lizard's evening in the desert, when the ground gives back the heat it took all day. Fact: desert reptiles shelter through the heat of the day and come out early in the night to hunt.
  • Write about a jerboa opening its burrow door at dusk in the desert. Fact: in summer a jerboa plugs the entrance of its burrow to keep out the hot air.
  • Write the evening of a fennec fox in the Sahara, from the first yawn in its burrow to the first step outside. Fact: fennec foxes are mostly nocturnal, and one family's burrow may adjoin the burrows of others.

Lost, then found 13

  • A child wanders from a desert camp at dusk, gets lost, and is found by following a song. Write who was singing. Angle: a grandmother, a radio, a dune.
  • A dust storm hides the trail, and a family is lost in the desert until it clears. Write the wait. Fact: in a dense dust storm the sunlight can be blotted out until it is as dark as night.
  • A hiker is stranded in the desert for one afternoon and found by a dog. Write it from the dog's side. Angle: what the dog smelled first, and why it would not stop barking.
  • A year after being lost in the desert and found, someone goes back to the same spot. Write what they look for. Angle: the rock they sat against, and whether it is as far out as they remember.
  • Long ago a caravan in the Sahara loses its way between two wells, and the youngest rider finds it again. Write how. Fact: guides who knew the region led Saharan caravans between the oases and the wells.
  • Lost in the Sahara desert, a traveler sees palm trees and does not trust them. Write the walk toward them anyway. Angle: a trick of the light, or shade and a well? Decide at the last step.
  • Write a story about being lost in the desert in which a line of your own footprints saves the day. First line: The only thing out here that knew where I had been was the sand.
  • Write a stranded-in-the-desert story as told by the map that was left on the kitchen table. First line: I told them. I was right there by the fruit bowl, and I told them.
  • Write about being found: the first sound of an engine after a night stranded in the desert. First line: I heard it long before I believed it.
  • Write the moment a search plane passes over someone stranded in the desert without seeing them, and what they try next. Angle: a mirror, a bright jacket, big letters scraped in the sand.
  • Write the thank-you letter from someone who was stranded in the desert to the stranger who stopped. First line: You will not remember me, but I remember your truck.
  • You are stranded in the desert when the truck breaks down on an empty road. Write the first hour, before anyone decides anything. Angle: who is with you, what is in the truck, and who speaks first.
  • You are stranded in the desert with three other people, and everyone has a different idea. Write the argument. Angle: stay with the car or walk. One person has not spoken yet.

How it works

These desert writing prompts keep to one biome for a whole day, from the cold before sunrise to the cold after dark. Under each is a line to start from: a checked fact about deserts, an angle or a first sentence.

Read the full guide

A walk in the desert writing prompt, taken at dawn

Thirteen prompts are walks, and the facts under them correct the picture most people carry. Only about a fifth of the world's desert is sand. A dune climbs gently on the side the wind hits and drops at around 32 degrees on the other, and bare stones wear a shiny brown coat called desert varnish.

After dark, when the desert wakes up

A fennec fox, a jerboa and a desert tortoise all sit out the heat in burrows. The prompts follow them out at dusk and then look up: the sky over the Sahara is usually clear, and its nights run 23 to 36 °F cooler than its days.

  • Pick the hour first. A desert at noon and the same desert at midnight are two different settings.
  • Give the heat or the cold a job in the story. A number alone does nothing.

Questions and answers

What is a good desert writing prompt?

One that uses what a desert really does. You see water shining ahead, and it moves away as you walk: write the walk. Or lie on a flat rock just after sunset and write what happens to its warmth.

What is a good stranded in the desert writing prompt?

Start small. The truck breaks down on an empty road: write the first hour, before anyone decides anything. Thirteen prompts begin with someone lost or stranded, and being found is where each story is headed.

Is there a creative writing prompt for the Sahara desert?

Several. Describe an oasis garden from the top of a date palm down to the vegetables in its shade, or write about a rock carving of a crocodile found where there is only sand. Over 30,000 such carvings of river animals survive.

Is a desert always hot?

No. Deserts generally get less than 10 inches of rain or snow a year, and that dryness is what makes them deserts. A hot one can still fall below freezing on a winter night, which several prompts use.

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