• 60 prompts
  • Checked October 2026

Writing Prompts About Identity

A name, a place, the guesses people make, and the person still being built.

Writing Prompts About Identity

Show all 60
  1. A robot built to copy its maker starts to like different music. Write the short story of their first disagreement.First line: I have played your favorite song four hundred times, and I would like to stop.
  2. Write about the first time you disagreed out loud with someone you look up to.Angle: what you said, how your voice sounded, and who you were when you walked home.
  3. List every name you are called and by whom, and write who you are with each one.Angle: the name on the form, the one at home, the one that only one person uses.

Next step Choose who tells the storyDraw it as a self-portrait

All 60 prompts

My name 12

  • A nickname found you that you did not choose. Write how it started and whether it stayed. Angle: who said it first, who picked it up, and what you answer to now.
  • Describe the way you write your name by hand, and what a stranger might guess about you from it. Angle: the size, the slant, the letter you always rush, the one you take care over.
  • Has anyone ever said or spelled your name wrong? Write the time you remember best and what you did about it. First line: I have answered to four wrong versions of my name, and one of them I like.
  • If you could choose your own name, would you keep the one you have? Write your answer and your reasons. Angle: try two other names on for a paragraph each before you decide.
  • Introduce yourself to a new class without using your name, so that they would still remember who you are. Angle: three true things, none of them your age, your height or your favorite color.
  • List every name you are called and by whom, and write who you are with each one. Angle: the name on the form, the one at home, the one that only one person uses.
  • Think of your name as a coat: how it fits, who gave it to you, whether you have grown into it. Write the description. First line: It was too big for me at first, and it had someone else's pockets.
  • Write a poem down the letters of your name in which every line is true of you, one of them a surprise. Angle: skip the easy words. For each letter, a thing you do and not a thing you are.
  • Write about a name you would give yourself for a single day, and who you would be while you had it. Angle: what would that person order, wear and say that you would not?
  • Write the story of your name: who chose it, and what you were nearly called instead. Angle: ask someone at home first, or write the version you have always been told.
  • You meet someone who has the same name as you. Write the meeting. Angle: what else did you expect to have in common, and did you?
  • Your name is called out in a room full of strangers. Write the second before you answer. Angle: what you think it is about, how you stand up, and who turns to look.

Where I am from 12

  • Describe the people who raised you as if they were a place: its weather, its rules, its borders. Angle: what grows there easily, and which rule nobody has to say out loud?
  • Describe the room, the yard or the corner that is most yours, and what it says about where you are from. Angle: what is in reach, what you can hear, and who knows to find you there.
  • Name the five places that made you who you are: a room, a field, a store, a seat, a doorway. Angle: one sentence for each place and what you took away from it.
  • The people who raised you have a saying. Write when it is used and what it tells you about them and about you. Angle: when it is said, in what voice, and whether you have caught yourself saying it.
  • Someone asks where you are from and guesses wrong three times. Write the conversation and the right answer. Angle: what each guess was built on, and how you feel about being hard to place.
  • Where are you from? Write the short answer you give strangers, then the long answer you give friends. Angle: what gets left out of the short one, and why?
  • Which sound tells you where you are from? Write about it: a train, a call, a voice through a wall. Angle: when you last heard it, and what you did without thinking.
  • Which word do you say differently from the people around you? Write about where you got it. Angle: who says it your way, and what happens when you say it in a new room.
  • Write a letter to someone who has never been where you are from, saying what they would notice first. Angle: not the sights. The pace, the greetings, what people do with their hands.
  • Write a poem in which every line begins I am from, and no line names a town or a country. First line: I am from the squeak of the third stair and the smell of rain on a screen door.
  • Write about a place you have left behind and one habit from there that you still keep. First line: I still take my shoes off at the door, though nobody here asks me to.
  • Your family always did one thing that you assumed every family did. Write the day you learned otherwise. Angle: who told you, what their family does instead, and whether you have kept your way.

What people get wrong 12

  • A label was given to you at school: the shy one, the sporty one, the funny one, the new one. Write how well it fits who you are. Angle: who gave it to you, and which part of you it leaves out.
  • List five things people assume about who you are, then five that nobody would guess. Angle: put the truest one last and write one more paragraph about it.
  • Oldest, youngest, middle or only child: each comes with a story people tell about you. Write what that story gets wrong. First line: Everyone knows the youngest gets away with everything. Everyone is wrong.
  • People think you are quiet, or loud, or serious, or always joking. Pick the one you hear most and write the other side of you. First line: Ask my cousins if I am quiet. They will laugh until they have to sit down.
  • Recall a time you were taken for a different kind of person than you are. Angle: what the mistake was built on, and how long you let it stand.
  • Tell about a time you got someone else wrong, and what showed you who they really were. Angle: the guess you made, the moment it broke, and what you said next.
  • What do people get wrong about something you love to do? Set them straight in one page about who you are when you do it. Angle: start with what they imagine, then show ten minutes of the real thing.
  • Which word do people use for you that you would swap for another? Write both words and the distance between them. First line: They say stubborn. I would say I finish things.
  • Write about something people guess about you at first sight that is not true. Angle: where do they get it from, and do you correct them or let it go?
  • Write about who you are at home and who you are at school, for a reader who knows only one of the two. Angle: the same joke, told in both places. Where does it land?
  • Write the moment someone who thought they knew you was surprised by who you are. Angle: what you did or said, the look on their face, and what changed afterward.
  • Write two descriptions of yourself: one by a person who met you once, one by a person who has known you for years. Angle: keep both of them fair. Where do the two agree?

Who I am becoming 12

  • Describe a thing you can do now that the person you were at half your age would not believe. Angle: let the younger you watch, and write what they say.
  • Describe yourself as a house still being built: which rooms are finished, which are only a frame. Angle: walk a visitor through it and tell them where to watch their step.
  • Tell about a moment you surprised yourself, and what it told you about who you are becoming. First line: I heard myself say I'll do it, and looked around to see who had spoken.
  • Think of a person you once wanted to be exactly like. Write what you would now keep and what you would leave. Angle: one thing borrowed, one thing put back, one thing that was yours all along.
  • What are you practicing being? Write about one quality you are working at and one moment it showed. Angle: patient, brave, fair, funny. Choose one and give the moment in full.
  • What did you believe about yourself a year ago that is no longer true? Write the change. First line: I used to say I was not a person who could stand up and speak.
  • Which part of you has stayed the same since you were small? Write about it as the thread through everything else. Angle: three ages, three scenes, the same thread showing in each.
  • Who do people say you take after? Write where they are right and where you are going your own way. First line: I have her laugh and his temper, and the rest I am making up as I go.
  • Write about a choice you made that nobody expected, and what it showed about the person you are turning into. Angle: who was most surprised, and were you one of them?
  • Write about the first time you disagreed out loud with someone you look up to. Angle: what you said, how your voice sounded, and who you were when you walked home.
  • Write the same morning twice: as the person you were three years ago, and as the person you are now. Angle: same kitchen, same clock. Let the small differences do the work.
  • You have outgrown a habit, a hobby or a game. Write its story without being unkind to who you were. Angle: what it gave you while it lasted, and where it is kept now.

Identity story ideas 12

  • A boy has gone by a nickname for so long that when a substitute reads out his real name, nobody answers. Write the roll call. First line: The name hung in the air like a coat nobody would claim.
  • A character comes back to a town after ten years and is greeted as the person they used to be. Write the short story of that afternoon. Angle: three people, three old versions of the character, and none of them current.
  • A character starts at a school where everyone remembers an older sibling. Write the first time a teacher uses the right name. First line: For three weeks I had been Danny's sister. On the fourth Monday I was Ruth.
  • A robot built to copy its maker starts to like different music. Write the short story of their first disagreement. First line: I have played your favorite song four hundred times, and I would like to stop.
  • Identity short story idea: a box holds one object from each year of a character's life. Write them opening it. Angle: the object they expected, the one they had forgotten, the one that is missing.
  • Identity story idea: twins trade places for a day, and by evening one of them does not want to trade back. Angle: what was easier as the other twin, and who had noticed all along?
  • Story idea about identity: a girl moves to a town where another girl already has her exact name. Write their first week. Angle: the teacher's way of telling them apart, and what each girl thinks of it.
  • Story idea: a new student lets a class believe one small untrue thing about who they are, and it grows. Angle: it starts as a shrug. Write the day the truth would be easier, and what they do.
  • Write a short story about a character who loses their voice for a week and learns what people think they would have said. Angle: the friends who guess right, and the one who has never guessed right at all.
  • Write a short story in which a character finds an old school photo and does not know the child everyone says is them. Angle: what the child in the photo is holding, and who remembers why.
  • Write a story about a character who is one person with the team and another with the band, on the night both are in one room. Angle: which friends are surprised, and which voice comes out when both call at once?
  • Write a story in which a character inherits a grandparent's coat and, for one day, the grandparent's way of walking. Angle: who recognizes the walk, and what the character finds in the pocket.

How it works

These identity writing prompts start from things a writer can point to: a name and who chose it, a saying from home, a label from school that only half fits. The writer decides how much to tell.

Read the full guide

All about me writing prompts, past the favorite color

The name group works as all about me journal writing prompts for a new class: the story of your name, every name you are called and by whom, an introduction made of three true things, none of them your age, your height or your favorite color.

Identity story ideas

Each of these identity short story ideas has an invented character: a girl in a town where another girl already has her exact name, twins who trade places for a day, a robot built to copy its maker that starts to like different music.

  • Write one scene and not a summary. A single time your name was said wrong tells more than a list of traits.
  • A piece about who you are is allowed to end on a question.

Questions and answers

What are good writing prompts on identity?

Ones with something to push against. Where are you from? Write the short answer you give strangers, then the long answer you give friends. Or list five things people assume about who you are, then five that nobody would guess.

Can I use these as journal writing prompts about identity?

Yes. The prompts on who you are becoming are addressed to the writer: which part of you has stayed the same since you were small, and what you are practicing being.

How do you write about your identity?

Pick one small thing and stay with it: the way you write your name by hand, a word you say differently from the people around you, the first time you disagreed out loud with someone you look up to.

More tools

Show 8 more

Browse Writing Prompts