• 60 prompts
  • Checked October 2026

Invention Writing Prompts

Name your invention, pitch it, watch one fail, lose the wheel, and write the manual.

Invention Writing Prompts

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  1. Write the instructions for an invention as a recipe: a list of what you need, then what to do, in order.Angle: serves one. Ready in ten minutes. Do not swap out the spring.
  2. A shoe-tying machine takes four minutes a shoe. Write the morning this invention makes everyone late.Angle: it ties a beautiful bow. Nobody has time for a beautiful bow.
  3. Which would be harder to live without, the wheel or string? Argue it as an inventor who has to give one back.Angle: list five things each one is hiding inside.

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All 60 prompts

My invention 15

  • An inventor your age lives a hundred years from now. Write about the invention she finds boring and you would call magic. Angle: she uses it without looking. Describe it the way she would, with a shrug.
  • Describe my invention to someone who cannot see it, without saying what it is for. Angle: size, weight, the sound it makes. Let them guess its job.
  • Keep the diary of my invention's first week out in the world. Angle: who used it, who laughed at it, and who asked where to get one.
  • My invention already exists, I find out. Write what I change so that mine is the better one. Angle: smaller, quieter, cheaper, or it comes in green.
  • My invention has one button. Write what happens the first time someone presses it twice. Angle: you never planned for twice.
  • My invention has three parts. Describe each part and what would go wrong without it. Angle: one part moves, one part holds, one part is only there to look nice.
  • My invention helps an animal, not a person. Write which animal, and how I found out what it needed. Angle: you cannot ask a hamster. Say what you watched for.
  • My invention is called... Name it, then say in one sentence what it does. Angle: a name tells half the story. Try three before you choose.
  • My invention is for someone I know. Write who, what bothers them and how the invention helps. Angle: a grandparent, a baby cousin, a neighbor with a heavy gate.
  • My invention solves a problem that only happens at my house. Write the problem first, then the fix. Angle: the sock drawer, the dog at the door, the last cookie.
  • My new invention is made only of things from the recycling bin. Write what I used and what each piece became. Angle: a cereal box, two lids, a rubber band. Say what holds it together.
  • Tell the story of the afternoon I got the idea for my invention. First line: It started because I was annoyed at a zipper.
  • Write a one-minute pitch for my new invention to a room of people who are checking their watches. First line: Raise your hand if you have ever lost a mitten. Just one mitten.
  • Write an interview with me, the inventor, ten years after my invention caught on. First line: People ask if I knew. I knew it worked. I did not know it would matter.
  • Write the label on the box of my invention: the name, three promises and one honest warning. Angle: the warning is small and true. May squeak.

An invention that failed 15

  • A shoe-tying machine takes four minutes a shoe. Write the morning this invention makes everyone late. Angle: it ties a beautiful bow. Nobody has time for a beautiful bow.
  • A team meets to decide whether to stop work on an invention that failed. One person is not ready. Write the meeting. Angle: nobody is the villain. Write the best argument on each side.
  • A very polite customer reviews an invention that failed on the first day. Write the review. Angle: three kind sentences, then the truth.
  • An invention fails at the school fair, and the inventor's little sister fixes it with a hair clip. Write who gets the ribbon. Angle: the judges saw everything. So did the sister.
  • An invention fails nine times and works on the tenth. Write only the ninth try. Angle: the inventor does not know yet that the next one works.
  • An invention that failed at its first job turns out to be good at a different one. Write how someone noticed. Angle: who used it wrong on purpose, and what happened.
  • An inventor keeps a shelf of her inventions that failed. Write what is on it, from left to right. Angle: five things. The last one is the reason for the one that worked.
  • An inventor's hat with a built-in fan fails on its first windy day. Write the walk home. First line: The fan worked. The wind worked harder, and the hat left with the wind.
  • The invention worked in the garage and failed in the rain. Write the inventor's list of places to test the next one. Angle: sand, snow, a bumpy road, the hands of a toddler.
  • List five names for an invention that failed, and say whether a better name would have saved it. Angle: some things fail because nobody could say what they were.
  • The self-pouring cereal bowl is an invention that fails at breakfast. Write the kitchen at five past seven. First line: It poured. Nobody had told it when to stop.
  • Tell the story of an invention that failed from the invention's side. First line: I did exactly what I was built to do. That was the trouble.
  • Write a museum label for an invention that failed, in a room full of them. Angle: what it was for, why nobody bought it and what the next inventor took from it.
  • Write about an invention that failed because it did its job too well. Angle: an alarm clock nobody can sleep through, glue that will not let go.
  • Write the inventor's apology letter to the neighbors after the test of the automatic dog walker. Angle: what went wrong, what has been fixed, and that the dog is fine and rather proud.

A world without the wheel 15

  • A traveler from our world rolls a suitcase into a town where the wheel was never invented. Write the first hour. First line: Nobody looked at me. Everybody looked at the bag.
  • A world without the wheel still has to move a piano. Write the day it goes up the hill. Angle: ropes, sleds, forty neighbors and one person giving directions.
  • Erase one small invention from your day, such as the button, the spoon or the doorknob, and write the first problem you meet. Angle: choose the one you used most recently.
  • In a world where paper was never invented, write how a kid passes a note in class. Angle: a leaf, a pebble with a mark, a whisper chain that changes the message.
  • In a world without the wheel, write the day someone lets a log roll down a hill and has an idea. First line: It kept going long after she let go, and she ran after it, thinking.
  • Nobody ever invented the pocket. Write what people do with their hands, their keys and their secrets. Angle: bags, sleeves, hats. Where does a found pebble go?
  • Nobody ever invented the wheel. Write Monday morning in your town. Angle: no bikes, no buses, no rolling suitcases. What do people carry, drag or ride?
  • Take the zipper out of the world: nobody invented it. Write getting dressed on a cold morning. Angle: buttons, hooks, laces, knots. The coat is the hard part.
  • The wheel is finally invented, a thousand years late. Write the news story from that day. Angle: the headline, one excited quote and one person who does not see the point.
  • Which would be harder to live without, the wheel or string? Argue it as an inventor who has to give one back. Angle: list five things each one is hiding inside.
  • Write a playground in a world without the wheel: what is missing, and what was invented instead. Angle: no skateboards, no wagons, no merry-go-round. Something took their place.
  • Write a race in a world without the wheel. Angle: what do they race on, in or with? Who is the favorite?
  • Write a world where the ladder was never invented and the best apples are still at the top. Angle: who gets them, and how?
  • Write about a potter in a world without the wheel, shaping a bowl by hand and wishing. Angle: what is she wishing for? She does not have the word for it.
  • Write an afternoon in a world where nobody invented the clock. Angle: when does school end? Who decides it is lunchtime?

The instructions 15

  • Add the care page to an invention's instructions: cleaning, storing and what to do when it gets old. Angle: once a week, once a year, and never.
  • An invention arrives with no instructions at all. Write how two friends work out what it does. Angle: one presses things. The other one watches and takes notes.
  • At the back of my invention's instructions come the questions and answers. Write five, with the one I hoped nobody would ask. Angle: the fifth question begins Is it supposed to.
  • Draft the warning label for an invention that is perfectly safe and very surprising. Angle: do not be alarmed if it hums. Do not sing along.
  • Fill the troubleshooting page of an invention's instructions: five problems and what to try for each. Angle: it will not start, it will not stop, it is making a new noise.
  • Fit the instructions for my new invention on a quick-start card: three steps, the size of a playing card. Angle: every word has to earn its place. No step may begin with carefully.
  • The instructions for an invention were translated four times before they reached you. Write what step three says now. First line: Insert the happy end into the patient door.
  • The inventor's grandmother tests the instructions for the invention and gets stuck on step two. Write their phone call. First line: It says press firmly. I am pressing firmly. Nothing is firm.
  • Nobody reads the last page of an invention's instructions. Write it for the one person who finally does. First line: If you are reading this, you are the first.
  • Somebody followed the instructions for an invention exactly, and it still went wrong. Find the unclear step and rewrite it. Angle: turn it until it stops. Which way? Whose stop?
  • Write the instructions for an everyday invention, a zipper or a stapler, as if nobody had ever used one. Angle: no skipping. Which hand, which end, how hard.
  • Write the instructions for an invention as a recipe: a list of what you need, then what to do, in order. Angle: serves one. Ready in ten minutes. Do not swap out the spring.
  • Write the instructions for an invention using only pictures, then describe each picture in one sentence. Angle: six boxes. An arrow in each. One face that looks worried.
  • Write the instructions for my invention in five numbered steps, short enough to read with one hand full. Angle: step one is never switch it on. Step one is take it out of the box.
  • Write the last line of the instructions for my invention: what the owner should do with it when they no longer need it. Angle: pass it on, take it apart, plant something in it.

How it works

These invention writing prompts are for the page, not the workbench. You name the thing, pitch it to a room of people checking their watches, and draft its warning label. Nothing has to be built.

Read the full guide

My invention writing prompt, start to finish

Most of the first fifteen prompts follow one invention of your own: the afternoon the idea came, the problem at your house it solves, its three parts, the label on the box. One asks what happens the first time someone presses the only button twice.

A world without the wheel

Take one invention away and write the day that follows. A town moves a piano uphill with ropes, sleds and forty neighbors. A traveler rolls a suitcase into a place that has never seen one. Other prompts remove the zipper, the clock, the pocket, the ladder and paper.

  • Instructions sound real when each step opens with a verb: lift, turn, press, wait.

Questions and answers

What is a My Invention writing prompt?

One that asks you to make up an invention and write about it: what it is called, what it does, who it is for. Eight here begin with the words My invention or My new invention.

How do you start a my new invention writing prompt?

With the problem, not the gadget. Say what goes wrong at your house, then what you made to fix it. One prompt limits you to the recycling bin: a cereal box, two lids and a rubber band.

Can I write about an invention that failed?

Fifteen prompts do. A hat with a built-in fan meets its first windy day. A self-pouring cereal bowl was never told when to stop. One wants a museum label, in a room full of such things.

Are these invention writing prompts for kids?

Yes. The inventions find mittens, walk dogs and tie shoes, and when one fails the cost is a lost hat or a late morning.

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