• 65 prompts
  • Checked October 2026

Stranded on a Deserted Island Writing Prompts

The castaway prompt taken apart: the first hour, three things, a day's work, a bottle, a ship.

Stranded on a Deserted Island Writing Prompts

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  1. A dog swam ashore with you onto a deserted island. Write the first day from the dog's point of view.First line: Best beach ever, and nobody telling me to get out of the water.
  2. By the end of your time on the deserted island, the three things you brought are worn out. Write what became of each.Angle: the pot is a drum now. The book is a calendar.
  3. Write the first meal you manage to cook over your fire on a deserted island.Angle: what it was meant to be, what it was, and whether you ate it.

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All 65 prompts

Washed ashore 13

  • A crate has washed ashore on the deserted island beside you. Write the opening of it. Angle: you hoped for food. It is four hundred of one thing.
  • A dog swam ashore with you onto a deserted island. Write the first day from the dog's point of view. First line: Best beach ever, and nobody telling me to get out of the water.
  • Describe the deserted island you have washed up on as if you had to draw its map from memory. Angle: the beach, the rocks, the trees, and the one place you have not dared to go.
  • Stranded on a deserted island, you catch yourself talking out loud. Write what you say on the first day. First line: Right, I said, to nobody. Right.
  • Stranded on a deserted island, you walk the whole beach looking for another footprint. Write the walk. First line: I went all the way around and came back to my own.
  • Write the first morning stranded on a deserted island as a list of good news and bad news. Angle: pair them. It is warm; there is no roof. Keep going to five.
  • Write the inventory of everything that washed ashore with you on a deserted island, in the order you found it. Angle: six things. One is useless, and one is not yours.
  • Write the moment, stranded on a deserted island, when you stop waiting for today's rescue and start on tomorrow. Angle: what small job do you give yourself first?
  • Write your first night stranded on a deserted island, when every sound is new. Angle: the surf, something in the trees, your own stomach.
  • You are stranded on a deserted island and do not yet know it is an island. Write the climb that tells you. First line: From the top I could see water in every direction I had hoped not to.
  • You wake up on the sand of a deserted island with one shoe. Write the first hour. Angle: what you check first, what you call out, and what answers.
  • You washed ashore on a deserted island with your school bag. Write what is in it and what use it is now. Angle: a pencil case, a reading book, half a sandwich, homework.
  • Your little brother washed ashore on the deserted island with you. Write who takes charge. Angle: the older one for an hour, then the one who can whistle.

Three things I would bring 13

  • After a month stranded on a deserted island, write which of your three things you would trade, and for what. Angle: what did you think you needed, and what do you need?
  • Bring three things to a deserted island: one you can hold, one you can remember and one you can do. Write all three. Angle: an object, a story you know by heart, a skill.
  • By the end of your time on the deserted island, the three things you brought are worn out. Write what became of each. Angle: the pot is a drum now. The book is a calendar.
  • If you were stranded on a deserted island, what three things would you bring? Write a paragraph for each, and one for the thing you nearly chose. Angle: one to stay alive, one to stay busy, one to stay yourself.
  • Three friends are stranded on a deserted island, and each brought one thing. Write how the three things work together. Angle: a pot, a whistle, a ball of string.
  • Write a speech defending the silliest of the three things you would bring to a deserted island. Angle: a kite, a trumpet, a jar of sprinkles. Make the case.
  • Write about the fourth thing: the one you left out when you chose three for the deserted island. First line: Every time it rains, I think about the umbrella.
  • Write the argument among the three things you brought to a deserted island about which of them is the most useful. Angle: the rope brags, the blanket sulks, the book says nothing.
  • Write the three things you would bring to a deserted island as a packing list with a reason beside each, then cross one out. Angle: the crossing-out is the interesting part. Say what took its place.
  • You can bring three things to a deserted island, and each must fit in a coat pocket. Write what you choose. Angle: small things that do big jobs.
  • You may bring three things to a deserted island, but your sister picks them for you. Write what she chooses and what you say. First line: A cookbook? There is no kitchen.
  • You packed three things for a deserted island, and the sea took one. Write which you wish it had taken instead. First line: Of course it was the one that floats.
  • Your grandfather once answered the deserted island question: which three things? Write his list and why it is nothing like yours. Angle: what is on his list that nobody would think of now?

Shelter, water, fire 13

  • On a deserted island, the shelter is up, the water is fetched and the fire is lit by noon. Write the afternoon. Angle: a game, a carving, a swim, a nap. Being bored is allowed.
  • Stranded on a deserted island, you build your first shelter and it falls down. Write the second one. Angle: what the first taught you, and what you used that was there all along.
  • Stranded on a deserted island, you find fresh water. Write how you knew to look there. Angle: birds at sunrise, a green streak down brown rock, a sound.
  • Stranded on a deserted island, you spend a whole day on one job. Write the day, and whether it worked. Angle: a roof, a fish trap, a path to the spring.
  • The tide on your deserted island comes higher than you planned for. Write the night you moved your shelter. Angle: what you carried first, and what you went back for.
  • Two castaways on a deserted island disagree about where to build the shelter. Write both camps, and who visits whom. Angle: one wants the view, one wants the shade.
  • Write a storm on a deserted island from inside a shelter you built yourself. Angle: the part you trusted, the part you watched, the part that surprised you.
  • Write a tour of your shelter on a deserted island for a visitor who will never come. First line: Mind the step. That is the kitchen, and that is also the bedroom.
  • Write about keeping a fire going on a deserted island as if it were a pet. Angle: what it eats, when it sulks, what you named it.
  • Write the first meal you manage to cook over your fire on a deserted island. Angle: what it was meant to be, what it was, and whether you ate it.
  • Write the first rain on a deserted island, when you have nothing to catch water in but what you are wearing. Angle: a shoe, a shell, a hat, a leaf. Count what you saved.
  • Write the night the signal fire went out on a deserted island, and whose turn it was to watch it. First line: It was my turn, and I had only shut my eyes to think.
  • Write the rules of your camp on a deserted island: the three you made on day one, and the one you added after the crab. First line: Rule four: check your shoes.

A message in a bottle 13

  • A castaway on a deserted island writes a message in a bottle that does not ask for rescue. Write it. Angle: a recipe, a joke, a description of this morning's sky.
  • A message in a bottle reaches your deserted island so washed out that six words can be read. Write the six, and what you make of them. Angle: choose words that could mean two things.
  • A message in a bottle washes up on your deserted island, and it is from someone else who is stranded. Write theirs and your reply. Angle: where are they? What do they have that you lack?
  • On a deserted island you have ten bottles. Write the ten messages, each shorter than the last. Angle: the tenth is one word.
  • Someone finds your message in a bottle from the deserted island twenty years on. Write the letter they send to the address inside. First line: I hope you got off the island. I am writing in case you did.
  • Stranded on a deserted island, you have one bottle and one page. Write the message. Angle: who you are, where you think you are, and one thing that is not about rescue.
  • Two castaways on a deserted island cannot agree on what the message in the bottle should say. Write both drafts. Angle: one is all facts, one is all feelings. Which goes in?
  • Write a message in a bottle from a deserted island to whoever now sits at your desk at school. First line: To whoever has my chair: the left drawer sticks.
  • Write the instructions for whoever finds your message in a bottle from the deserted island: what to do first, second and third. First line: First, do not laugh at the handwriting. I wrote this on my knee.
  • Write the journey of a message in a bottle from a deserted island, told by the bottle. Angle: three currents, one curious seal, a long time on a beach.
  • Write the message in a bottle from a deserted island as a drawing with labels, for a finder who may not read your language. Angle: an island, a stick figure, an arrow, the sun.
  • Write the second message in a bottle from a deserted island, sent a month after the first by someone less worried. First line: Ignore the last one. Things have improved.
  • Write what you would leave out of a message in a bottle from a deserted island, and why. Angle: the thing you miss most. The thing you are afraid of.

The day a ship appears 13

  • A ship appears off the deserted island where you have been stranded. Write the minute you see it. First line: At first I took it for a cloud that had made up its mind.
  • A ship appears, and its captain thinks you are on the deserted island for a vacation. Write your proof that you are stranded. Angle: the shelter, the state of your hair, your one shoe.
  • A ship comes at last, and you are not sure you want to leave the deserted island. Write the argument with yourself. Angle: list what is waiting at home, and what you would be leaving here.
  • From the deck of the ship, write the deserted island getting smaller, and the last part of it you can still pick out. First line: The tree I slept under was the last thing to go.
  • Home again after being stranded on a deserted island until a ship came, write the first thing that feels strange. Angle: a tap, a door that locks, a room with corners.
  • The ship leaves the deserted island in an hour. Write what you pack from a place where you owned nothing. Angle: a shell, your calendar stick, the cup you made.
  • The ship that appears off your deserted island is no rescue: its crew is lost too. Write what you can teach them. Angle: you know where the water is. They know which way is home.
  • Write the day a ship appears off your deserted island and sails on without stopping. Angle: what you did with the rest of the day.
  • Write the day the ship appears from the ship's side: what the lookout sees on the deserted island first. Angle: smoke, a shirt on a pole, a very small person jumping.
  • Write the first conversation between a castaway on a deserted island and the sailor who rows ashore. First line: How long have you been here? What day is it?
  • Write the first night aboard the ship after being stranded on a deserted island: the bunk, the blanket, the engine. Angle: why can you not sleep in a real bed?
  • Write the story you tell at school about the day the ship appeared off the deserted island, and the part you leave out. Angle: the part where you cried, or the part where you hid.
  • Write your last walk around the deserted island before the ship takes you home. Angle: stop at three places and say what happened at each.

How it works

The stranded on a deserted island writing prompt is usually one question: what three things would you bring? Here it is sixty-five prompts, in the order a castaway meets them, from the first hour on the sand to the ship.

Read the full guide

A deserted island writing prompt for each part of the story

Washed ashore covers the first day: the one shoe, the walk round the beach, the climb that shows water on every side. Shelter, water, fire is the work that follows, written as a story and never as instructions: a shelter that falls down, a fire kept like a pet, an afternoon with nothing left to do.

Three things, asked thirteen ways

The famous question gets harder when your sister packs for you, when each thing must fit in a coat pocket, or when the sea takes one. One prompt asks for a speech defending the silliest choice: a kite, a trumpet, a jar of sprinkles.

  • Decide how long you have been there before you start. Day one and day one hundred sound nothing alike.
  • Give the island one thing you did not expect. A story needs a surprise more than a palm tree.

Questions and answers

What is a good stranded on an island writing prompt?

One that begins after the question everyone asks. You are stranded and do not yet know it is an island: write the climb that tells you. Or write the first morning as a list of good news and bad news.

If you were stranded on a deserted island, what three things would you bring?

Try one to stay alive, one to stay busy and one to stay yourself. Then write a paragraph for each, and a fourth for the thing you nearly chose.

How do you write a message in a bottle?

Say who you are, where you think you are, and one thing that has nothing to do with rescue. One prompt gives you ten bottles and asks for ten messages, each shorter than the last.

How should a deserted island story end?

Not always with a rescue. In these prompts a ship sails on without stopping, a crew turns out to be lost too, and one castaway is not sure about leaving. One is the story as told back at school, with a part left out.

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