• 60 prompts
  • Checked October 2026

Monkey Writing Prompts

A dare in the treetops, a habit the troop copies, a dawn roll call, a tail for a hand.

Monkey Writing Prompts

Show all 60
  1. Write a troop of monkeys deciding where to sleep tonight, when not one of them can say a word.Angle: how does a group choose without talking? Somebody moves first. Then what?
  2. A monkey that copies everyone meets a monkey that copies no one. Write their afternoon.First line: "Why are you doing that?" "Because you are." "I am not doing anything."
  3. A monkey with a gripping tail tells a monkey without one what it is like to have five hands. Write the talk.Fact: some New World monkeys have gripping tails; no Old World monkey has a tail that grips.

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All 60 prompts

Trouble in the trees 15

  • A baboon visits the tree monkeys for the first time. Write its opinion of life up there. Fact: many monkeys live in trees, but some kinds, such as baboons, live mainly on the ground.
  • A capuchin monkey sleeps in a different tree tonight than last night. Write how it chooses the spot. Fact: capuchin monkeys commonly switch sleeping sites from one night to the next.
  • A fig tree keeps a diary of the week the monkeys came to eat. Write three entries. Angle: the tree wants its seeds carried off. Is it annoyed, or was this the plan all along?
  • A howler monkey has to climb down to the ground for once. Write what the ground is like to a treetop animal. Fact: howlers hardly ever leave the treetops; a very dry spell is one of the few times they do.
  • A monkey discovers that one dry branch makes a wonderful crack when jumped on. Write the afternoon. Angle: the fun lasts as long as the troop's patience. Who makes it stop, and how?
  • A monkey finds a ripe fruit tree and tries to keep it secret from the troop. Write how long the secret lasts. Fact: fruit-eating spider monkeys must keep in mind where fruit grows and when.
  • A storm is coming and the youngest monkey will not come down from the highest branch. Write the coaxing. Angle: three monkeys try three ways. Which one works, and why that one?
  • After a misjudged jump, a monkey lands in a tree full of strangers. Write the first minute. First line: Forty eyes, and not one of them belonged to anyone I knew.
  • Blamed for trouble in the trees that it did not cause, a monkey has to answer to the troop. Write its defense. First line: "I was not even in that tree. Ask the parrot."
  • From its branch, a monkey drops one piece of fruit on a sleeping animal below. Write what happens next. Angle: the monkey meant nothing by it. Or did it? Let the reader decide by the last line.
  • It is the hottest hour of the day and nothing moves in the trees except one bored monkey. Write its hour. Angle: everyone else is asleep. What can it do that wakes nobody, and what goes wrong?
  • One monkey takes a nut from another, who takes it back. Write the chase in ten short lines, one each time the nut changes hands. Angle: no line longer than six words. End with who is holding the nut.
  • Two young monkeys dare each other to cross the widest gap in the trees. Write the dare and the jump. First line: "It is not that far," said the one who was not jumping.
  • Write an old monkey's rules for the trees, and then the day a young monkey breaks rule three. Angle: make rule three sound silly until the moment it is broken.
  • Write the apology a monkey gives after the branch it was bouncing on lands on the troop's nap. Angle: is it sorry, or only sorry the branch broke? Let the apology give it away.

Copycat 15

  • A little monkey copies the wrong grown-up and picks up a bad habit. Write how the troop finds out. Angle: keep the habit small and funny, like eating only the middles of things.
  • A monkey in a tree copies a person it is watching: a wave, a yawn, a scratch of the head. Write both sides. Angle: who notices first that the copying is going on, the person or the monkey?
  • A monkey that copies everyone meets a monkey that copies no one. Write their afternoon. First line: "Why are you doing that?" "Because you are." "I am not doing anything."
  • A parrot copies sounds and a monkey copies moves. Write the trick they play together on the rest of the forest. Angle: one sounds like trouble and one acts like it. Who falls for it, and who does not?
  • A young capuchin monkey watches an old one crack a nut with a stone. Write its first hundred tries. Fact: capuchins learn nut-cracking by watching others, and mastering it can take years.
  • From behind a rock, a young monkey watches an old one open a crab. Write the lesson nobody meant to give. Fact: capuchins that live near water eat crabs and shellfish by cracking the shells with stones.
  • In mosquito season one monkey rubs something odd into its fur, and the others watch. Write what they make of it. Fact: in mosquito season capuchins crush millipedes and rub them on their backs as insect repellent.
  • Monkey see, monkey do. Write a morning in which a young monkey copies everything its big sister does. Angle: the copying is funny until the sister does one thing she never meant to teach.
  • On a snowy morning one snow monkey makes the first snowball. Write who copies it, and what they do with theirs. Fact: Japanese macaques, also called snow monkeys, bathe in hot springs and roll snowballs for fun.
  • One monkey starts rinsing its food in the stream, and soon the whole troop does it. Write how the habit spreads. Fact: on Koshima Island in Japan one macaque washed her sweet potatoes, and others in her troop copied her.
  • Two monkeys copy each other until neither remembers who started. Write the argument. First line: "You scratched first." "I scratched because you scratched."
  • What does monkey see, monkey do mean? Write the saying out in your own words, with one example you have seen. Angle: take the example from a playground, a kitchen or a bus, not from a forest.
  • Write a game of follow the leader through the treetops in which the last monkey changes one move each time. Angle: by the end of the line the move is a different move. Show three steps of the change.
  • Write a poem in which every second line copies the line before with one word changed, the way a monkey copies. Angle: let the copied lines drift until the last one says something new.
  • You are the monkey that everyone copies. Write a day of being careful what you do. Angle: one sneeze and twenty monkeys sneeze. What do you stop yourself from doing?

The troop 15

  • A baby spider monkey travels through the trees on its mother. Write the trip from the baby's seat. Fact: a young spider monkey is carried on its mother's stomach, then rides on her back.
  • A monkey troop has to cross a shallow river to reach the fruit trees on the far bank. Write the crossing. Angle: who goes first, who waits, and who has to be fetched?
  • A new monkey asks to join the troop. Write the first day, when nobody is sure of her yet. Angle: who sits near her first? Make it the one the reader least expects.
  • A troop of spider monkeys breaks into small parties to find food and meets again at dusk. Write the reunion. Fact: spider monkeys live in a large community that splits into smaller groups for feeding.
  • Howler monkeys call at dawn and another troop calls back. Write what the two troops are telling each other. Fact: howlers call to say where their territory is, and after one group calls another answers.
  • It is a cold night and a troop of snow monkeys huddles together. Write the night as the monkey on the outside edge. Fact: in winter Japanese macaques huddle together for warmth where they sleep.
  • The leader of a howler monkey troop is growing old. Write the day the troop notices. Fact: the leader of a howler monkey family group is usually an old male, National Geographic Kids says.
  • The oldest monkey in the troop can no longer make the big jumps. Write how the others change the route for her. Angle: nobody says why they are going the long way around. She knows anyway.
  • One monkey spots danger and gives the alarm call. Write the next ten seconds for five monkeys of the troop. Angle: one runs, one freezes, one grabs a baby, one keeps eating. Who is the fifth?
  • The troop's two best climbers both want the same sleeping branch. Write how the monkeys settle it without a fight. First line: Nobody made a sound, but everyone turned to look at Grandmother.
  • Two monkeys groom each other on a branch. Write the conversation they would have if grooming were talking. Angle: nobody speaks. What is asked, what is forgiven, and who falls asleep first?
  • Write a day in the life of the lowest-ranking monkey in the troop, who sees everything because nobody watches her. Angle: she eats last and sits farthest out. What does she know that the leader does not?
  • Write a spider monkey's lesson for the troop's youngest on how to say hello properly. Fact: spider monkeys hug, and twine their tails round one another.
  • Write a troop of monkeys deciding where to sleep tonight, when not one of them can say a word. Angle: how does a group choose without talking? Somebody moves first. Then what?
  • Write the morning roll call of a monkey troop, as the oldest member counts everyone awake. Fact: a group of monkeys is commonly called a troop or a tribe, Wikipedia's monkey article says.

A tail for a hand 15

  • A howler monkey holds on with its tail while both hands are busy with leaves. Write lunch at the top of the forest. Fact: a howler uses its tail as a fifth limb, mostly to grip branches as it eats and moves.
  • A macaque with a stub of a tail envies the monkeys that swing by theirs. Write what it can do that they cannot. Fact: the Japanese macaque has a short tail and lives farther north than any primate but humans.
  • A monkey brags about its thumbs. Write the answer of a spider monkey, who has a tail instead. Fact: spider monkeys have long arms with hooklike hands and no opposable thumbs.
  • A monkey tells its young the story of how monkeys first got a tail that could hold on. Write the tale. Angle: a legend of your own, so make the reason a good one: a flood, a dare, a kindness.
  • A monkey wakes to find its tail still asleep around the branch, and it will not let go. Write the morning. First line: Everyone else was already at the fig tree, and I was still attached to the bed.
  • A monkey with a gripping tail tells a monkey without one what it is like to have five hands. Write the talk. Fact: some New World monkeys have gripping tails; no Old World monkey has a tail that grips.
  • A young monkey's tail gets it into a tangle it cannot see. Write the rescue, told by the tail. Angle: the tail has its own opinion of everything the monkey has done today.
  • Both hands are full, so a monkey reaches for the last fruit with its tail. Write the choice it has to make. Angle: let go of something or lose the fruit. What is in each hand?
  • Hanging by its tail, a monkey picks a fruit nobody else can reach. Write the stretch in slow motion. Angle: a finger's width short. What gives the last bit: the tail, the arm or the branch?
  • If you had a monkey's gripping tail, what would you do with it at breakfast, on the bus and in class? Write the day. Angle: one thing gets easier, one gets you in trouble, one nobody else notices.
  • Should people envy a monkey its gripping tail? Argue yes or no, with three reasons. Fact: gripping tails are found in the family of the howler, spider and woolly monkeys.
  • Two monkeys link tails to make a bridge for a third. Write the crossing from the middle of the bridge. Angle: the one in the middle can see both ends. What does it not say out loud?
  • Write a spider monkey's morning in which the tail does all the work for the first five minutes. Fact: a spider monkey's tail has a hairless tip with grooves like fingerprints and works as a fifth hand.
  • Write an advertisement for a gripping tail, as a monkey would sell one to an animal that has none. Angle: three uses, one warning, and a promise the monkey cannot quite keep.
  • Write the first person who ever saw a spider monkey hanging by its tail and had to give the animal a name. Fact: spider monkeys were named for how they look hanging by their tails, arms and legs dangling.

How it works

These monkey writing prompts are about an animal that is never alone: someone is always watching, copying or sitting too close. Twenty-three carry a checked fact, from stone nutcrackers to snowballs.

Read the full guide

Copycat prompts, from a real habit

Monkey see, monkey do has something behind it. On Koshima Island in Japan one macaque began washing her sweet potatoes in the river, and others in her troop began to copy her. Fifteen prompts start from one monkey doing something new while the others watch.

Which monkeys have a gripping tail

The tails that grip belong to one family, the howler, spider and woolly monkeys of Central and South America. A spider monkey's tail has a bare tip with grooves like fingerprints. No monkey of Africa or Asia has a tail that grips.

  • Before a troop prompt, decide who is watching. In a troop somebody always is, and that changes what your monkey dares to do.

Questions and answers

What is a good writing prompt for monkey stories?

One with an audience. After a misjudged jump, a monkey lands in a tree full of strangers: write the first minute. Whatever the monkey does next, forty eyes see it.

What is a group of monkeys called?

A troop, or sometimes a tribe, Wikipedia's monkey article says. Among howler monkeys the leader of a family group is usually an old male, National Geographic Kids says.

Why are they called spider monkeys?

National Geographic Kids says that hanging upside down by the tail, arms and legs dangling, they look like spiders. One prompt asks for the first person who saw that and had to name the animal.

Are these monkey writing prompts for kids?

Yes. The trouble is small: a dropped fruit, a cracking branch, a nut taken and taken back. No monkey is a pet, none is in a cage, and nobody comes to harm.

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