A girl's friend asks her to say they studied together, to explain two essays that are oddly alike.Say it: the lie is now hers too. Refuse: the friend faces the teacher alone.
A girl's best friend is running for class president against a candidate with far better ideas.Vote for the friend: against her own judgment. Vote for the ideas: and then be asked how she voted.
A club votes that members must come to every meeting, and then the founder's family moves across town.Apply it: the club loses the one who began it. Excuse her: the vote meant nothing.
A boy promised to spend the summer on his uncle's farm, and now his best friend's family invites him to the coast.Farm: his friend goes alone. Coast: his uncle hires a stranger and says nothing.
A boy's dog has frightened the new neighbors' toddler, and they ask that it be kept indoors.Agree: the dog loses its yard. Refuse: the toddler loses hers.
A boy's father coaches one team and his mother the other, and each asks which he will play for.Choose one: disappoint a parent. Play for neither: give up the game he loves.
A boy's older brother asks him to say they were home together on the night the neighbor's window broke.Say it: the neighbor pays for the glass. Refuse: his brother pays, and knows who told.
A boy's team votes to forfeit a match in protest, and his grandfather has traveled a day to watch him play.Play: break with the team. Forfeit: his grandfather watches an empty field.
A drummer is asked to join a better band the week before her own band's first show.Go: three friends have no drummer. Stay: the offer goes to someone else by Friday.
A girl is made captain of the debate team, and her first job is to cut one member: her cousin.Cut him: face Sunday dinner. Keep him: the best speaker in the school has no place.
A girl shares a desk with a boy the class teases, and her friends want her to ask for a new seat.Move: he will know why. Stay: her friends decide she has chosen.
A girl's best friend is running for class president against a candidate with far better ideas.Vote for the friend: against her own judgment. Vote for the ideas: and then be asked how she voted.
A girl's grandmother and her best friend have birthdays on the same Saturday, in towns two hours apart.Go to one: the other blows out candles without her. Split the day: she is late to both.
A girl's mother asks her not to tell her father about a job interview in another city.Keep it: her father asks why she is so quiet. Tell: the news was her mother's to give.
A goalkeeper learns that her team's captain plans to play the final on an ankle the coach thinks has healed.Tell the coach: the captain watches from the bench. Keep quiet: the team is counting on that ankle.
A new student shares his lunch with a boy all week, and the boy's old friends decide the newcomer cannot sit with them.Sit with the new one: lose the table. Stay: watch him eat alone.
A stagehand learns that the lead actor, her friend, has not learned the last act, two days before opening night.Tell the director: the understudy goes on. Keep quiet: the whole cast walks into it.
A swimmer's relay team asks her to skip her sister's recital for one more practice before the regional meet.Skip the recital: an empty seat in row one. Skip practice: the handoffs stay rough.
An apprentice baker is offered twice the wage and Saturdays off by the rival of the boss who taught her.Go: the bakery loses its best hands. Stay: her family could use the money.
The editor of the school paper is handed a true story about the cafeteria that would embarrass her favorite teacher.Print it: he reads it at his desk. Hold it: the staff learn what their editor protects.
Two best friends both ask a girl to be their partner for the science fair, and the teacher allows pairs only.Choose one: the other works alone. Refuse both: all three lose the project they planned.
Two feuding friends ask a girl to say, truthfully, which of them was right.Answer: lose one. Decline: both decide she thinks they were wrong.
Two grandparents who no longer speak each ask a boy to carry a message the other will not want to hear.Carry them: he is the one shouted at. Refuse: they have no one left to speak through.
A promise against the truth 20
A boy is asked to tell his visiting cousin that everyone loved his very long magic show.The lie: a second show tomorrow. The truth: a nine-year-old packs up his cards.
A boy is praised in assembly for a perfect attendance record that the register got wrong by three days.Speak up: the certificate goes to a girl who earned it. Keep it: it hangs in the hall under his name.
A boy overhears that the class rabbit is to be given away, and promises the teacher's aide he heard nothing.Tell the class: they say goodbye, and the aide is in trouble. Keep quiet: Monday's empty hutch.
A boy promised an elderly neighbor to water her plants and forgot for two weeks, and she comes home tomorrow.Confess: she sees whom she trusted. Replace the plants: she thanks him for his care.
A boy promised to keep his friend's birthday surprise secret, and the friend, sure everyone forgot, cancels his own plans.Tell: undo a month of planning. Keep it: watch him go home sad.
A boy promised to wait at the gate for a friend who is always late, and today the bus will not wait for either of them.Wait: both miss the museum. Go: his friend arrives at an empty gate.
A boy told his coach he ran every day of the holidays, and now he is named for the long race.Admit it: lose the place. Run: let the team find out at the second mile.
A boy told his parents the school trip costs less than it does, so they would not have to say no.Tell them now: they find the money somehow. Stay home: say he never wanted to go.
A boy's little sister asks whether her drawing is good enough to win the contest, and it is not.The truth: she may not enter. The kind lie: she enters and finds out in public.
A girl is asked by her friend's mother, kindly and directly, where her friend really was on Friday night.Answer: the friend is grounded and furious. Dodge: a worried mother stays worried.
A girl learns that her friend's winning science model was built mostly by an uncle who is an engineer.Report it: a friendship for a ribbon. Say nothing: the runner-up built hers alone.
A girl promised her friend never to say who drew the cartoon of the principal, and the class loses recess until someone does.Keep the promise: thirty people sit indoors. Break it: her friend tells her nothing ever again.
A girl promised her little brother a place on the bike ride, and her friends have picked a route he cannot manage.Keep her word: the ride is cut short for all. Break it: he watches them go from the gate.
A girl's father proudly serves a dish he worked on all day, and it is terrible, and guests arrive in an hour.Tell him: no dinner and a hurt cook. Praise it: eight guests find out together.
A girl's friend asks her to say they studied together, to explain two essays that are oddly alike.Say it: the lie is now hers too. Refuse: the friend faces the teacher alone.
A girl's friend asks what she thinks of a poem before reading it at assembly, and one line will make people laugh.Say so: the friend may not read. Stay quiet: three hundred people laugh.
A grandfather asks his granddaughter to promise she will not tell the family that he got lost on the way home.Promise: he keeps his walks. Tell: he loses them, and his trust in her.
A student is asked to write in support of her friend as the club's next president and thinks the friend would be bad at it.Honest letter: the friend may read it. Kind letter: the club believes it.
A student sees the answer key on the teacher's desk by accident, and the test is tomorrow.Tell the teacher: the class gets a new, harder test. Say nothing: her score is not quite hers.
One witness saw that the popular boy, not the quiet one, started the food fight.Speak: lunch gets lonelier. Stay silent: the quiet one scrubs the floor.
Something found 20
A boy digging in the garden finds a tin of old letters addressed to the family who lived there before.Read them: they are private. Send them on unread: he does not know what he is delivering.
A boy finds a raffle ticket on the gym floor an hour before the draw, and it wins.Hand it to the desk: nobody may ever claim it. Keep it: someone is checking their pockets.
A boy finds a ring on the beach, and two different people on the lost-and-found board describe it.Give it to one: the other may be the owner. Ask for proof: doubt two strangers to their faces.
A boy finds a sketchbook on a train, full of drawings better than any he has seen, with one page left blank.Hand it in: lose it to a shelf. Keep it safe: decide for the owner.
A boy finds a stray dog with no collar the week his family has said no to a pet.Put up posters: someone may claim it. Wait a week: nobody can, and it knows his voice.
A boy finds out by accident what his parents sold to pay for his birthday bike.Say he knows: spoil their gift. Say nothing: ride it past the empty shelf in the garage.
A boy finds that last year's owner of his used textbook wrote every answer in the margins.Use them: the work is not his. Rub them out: forty pages of someone's effort gone.
A boy finds, at the back of his own closet, the library book his whole class was fined for losing.Return it: explain the year. Hide it: the fines were paid long ago, and not by him.
A cashier's son notices that a customer who counts every coin has overpaid, in the shop's favor.Chase her down the street: his mother's boss hears of it. Leave it: she will be short at the next shop.
A girl finds a fledgling on the path, under a sign at the park gate that says not to touch the wildlife.Leave it: walk home listening. Move it: break a rule made by people who know more.
A girl finds a phone on a park bench, lit up with a message never meant for strangers.Read on: she might find the owner. Hand it in unread: it may sit in a drawer for good.
A girl finds a rare coin in the change from the bake sale she is running for the school.It is the school's: the roof fund gets one coin. It is hers: she swapped a fair dollar for it.
A girl finds a shortcut on the cross-country course that no rule mentions.Take it: win within the rules. Report it: the course is changed, and she is slow on hills.
A girl finds a wallet with forty dollars in it on the day her class trip money is due.Hand it in: she stays behind on Friday. Keep the cash: she rides the bus knowing.
A girl finds an umbrella on the bus in a downpour, three stops from home, with no name on it.Take it and bring it back tomorrow: if she remembers. Leave it: arrive soaked.
A girl finds her friend's missing bracelet in another friend's open bag.Say so: one friend accused. Say nothing: the other keeps searching the playground.
A girl finds her older sister's diary open on the stairs, at a page with her own name on it.Read one line: know what she cannot unknow. Close it: wonder at every meal.
A girl finds the missing class hamster in her backpack on Friday night, where her little brother put it.Tell the truth: her brother is six and in trouble. Take the blame: the class thinks she took it.
A paper boy finds an envelope of cash left out for him by a customer who has taken him for someone else.Keep it: it was handed over freely. Knock: make an old man feel foolish.
Two friends find a twenty-dollar bill at the same moment, outside a shop with a charity jar on the counter.Split it: nobody is the wiser. Give it away: one of them needed it more than the jar.
The rule against the person 20
A boy checking tickets at the sold-out school play sees a grandmother arrive without one.Turn her away: she came by two buses. Let her stand: the limit on the door is there for a reason.
A chess club rule says a touched piece must be moved, and a beginner brushes his queen with a sleeve.Hold him to it: he loses and may not come back. Let it go: his opponent is in a tournament.
A class agreed that whoever loses the ball buys the next one, and the boy who lost it has no pocket money.Hold him to it: no ball for a month. Pass the hat: the agreement is over.
A class treasurer knows that a boy cannot pay for the trip, and the rule says no payment, no seat.Enforce it: he stays behind. Cover for him: with whose money?
A club votes that members must come to every meeting, and then the founder's family moves across town.Apply it: the club loses the one who began it. Excuse her: the vote meant nothing.
A contest allows one entry each, and a shy girl asks the organizer to take a second under her brother's name.Refuse: her better piece stays home. Accept: someone's only entry loses to it.
A girl in charge of the costume cupboard may lend nothing overnight, and a boy has no coat for the walk home in snow.Lend the cloak: it is the play's, and the play is Friday. Refuse: it is snowing.
A girl near the front of a long line is asked by a tired woman with a baby to let her in ahead.Yes: the forty people behind did not agree. No: the baby is crying.
A hall monitor catches her best friend late for the third time, which means a letter home.Write her up: the friend misses the dance. Look away: the next latecomer is watching.
A judge at the pet show sees that the best-groomed dog belongs to a boy one week over the age limit.Disqualify him: over seven days. Allow it: the youngest entrant comes second.
A library helper is told to charge every fine, and a girl returns a late book with a note that says why.Charge it: she has no coins. Waive it: the next excuse is already in line.
A lifeguard in training must report anyone who breaks the no-diving rule, and the first one is his little sister.Report her: she is out for the summer. Warn her: he has already bent the job.
A referee in a school match sees a foul by a boy who has waited all season for his first goal.Blow the whistle: the goal is gone. Let it stand: the other team saw it too.
A scorekeeper notices that the winning team fielded one player too many for a single minute.Report it: the result is struck out. Say nothing: one minute decided nothing, probably.
A scout leader's own son is one knot short of the badge on the last night of camp.Pass him: every other parent can count. Fail him: the drive home is four hours.
A spelling bee judge hears a nervous girl start a word wrong, stop, and ask to begin again.Follow the rule: she is out on a word she knows. Allow it: the next speller asks for the same.
A student bus monitor must report eating on the bus, and a small boy climbs on holding his whole breakfast.Report it: he eats nothing until noon. Allow it: twenty children see the rule bend.
A teacher's helper marking quizzes finds his friend one point short of passing, on a smudged answer.Call it right: nobody could prove otherwise. Call it wrong: summer school over a smudge.
A team has a rule that anyone who misses practice sits out, and its star missed it to mind her brother.Bench her: lose the match. Play her: the rule now has a favorite.
An older pupil finds that the youngest ones have made a den in the store cupboard nobody may enter.Report it: the den is gone by lunch. Keep the secret: it is his to answer for.
What you want against what is fair 20
A boy can get the job walking the neighbor's dog if he says he is a year older than he is.Say thirteen: he would be good at it. Say twelve: the job goes to a boy who forgets things.
A boy can win the art prize with a painting his sister helped him finish.Enter it as his: the prize money is real. Name her: the rules say one artist.
A boy could sell his old bike for more by not mentioning the gear that slips.Mention it: ten dollars less. Keep quiet: the buyer is nine and saved all year.
A boy has saved for a year for a telescope, and on the day he can afford it his friend's bike is stolen.Buy it: look at the moon alone. Lend the money: wait another year.
A boy is offered a front-row seat by a friend who is holding it for someone slower.Sit: the show is about to start. Stand at the back: the seat may stay empty anyway.
A boy is picked for the team because the coach has mixed him up with his talented older brother.Stay quiet: learn fast. Speak: free the place for someone who earned it.
A boy is taken for the one who rescued the cat, and the whole school is cheering.Correct them: the cheering stops. Wait: the real rescuer has not said a word.
A boy is thanked for a kind anonymous gift he did not send, by the person he most wants to impress.Accept the thanks: a good week. Deny it: she goes looking for whoever did.
A boy wants the puppy that chose him, and the sister who shares his room is afraid of dogs.Insist: she sleeps badly for a month. Give in: the puppy goes to another house.
A boy's group project earns top marks, and he did the least of anyone.Take the grade: the others shrug. Tell the teacher: his mark drops, alone.
A girl can stay top of the class by not explaining a method to the friend who asked.Explain it: second place by Friday. Say she is busy: first place, and busy.
A girl could have the window bed at camp by arriving before her bunkmate, who is on the slow bus.Take it: first come, first served. Wait: toss a coin and maybe lose.
A girl gets the last place on the trip because a clerk lost the form of the boy ahead of her.Take the seat: she did nothing wrong. Point it out: wave from the school gate.
A girl is offered the solo, and she knows the director has not yet heard the new girl sing.Accept quickly: it is hers. Mention the new girl: it may not be.
A girl is the only one who knows the class vote was miscounted in favor of the trip she wanted.Ask for a recount: the zoo wins. Stay quiet: thirty people go to the lake by mistake.
A girl is undercharged at the bookshop by its owner, who is half asleep and behind on the rent.Say so: pay more than she was asked. Leave: the book costs him.
A girl learns the audition piece a week early because her aunt works in the office.Practice it: nobody would know. Prepare another: audition at a disadvantage she chose.
A girl's essay wins because the judges took a true family story for invention and praised her imagination.Explain: it is a different prize. Accept: her uncle's life is now her fiction.
A girl's rival for the scholarship asks to borrow her notes the night before the exam.Lend them: maybe lose by a point. Refuse: win, and know how.
A runner sees her only rival fall at the last bend.Run on: win by the rules. Stop: lose a race she trained a year for.
How it works
These 100 dilemma story ideas each put one person, usually at school, in front of a choice. Under each are the two ways to go and what each one costs.
Read the full guide
Moral dilemma story ideas, by what pulls each way
Two loyalties sets a friend against family or a team. A promise against the truth makes a kept secret hurt someone. Something found asks whose it is now. The rule against the person puts the chooser in charge of a rule. What you want against what is fair hands them a win they did not earn.
Sized for a short story
One person chooses, inside a week or so, and nobody is in danger. That leaves room for the part a short story needs: the hour after the choice, when the cost arrives.
Write the choice your character would not make, and see how far they get.
End after the cost lands, not on the decision.
Questions and answers
What is a moral dilemma in a story?
A choice between two or more conflicting moral requirements, none of which overrides the other. That is how philosophy defines it. Here: keep a friend's secret, or spare the whole class a punishment.
What are some dilemma ideas for a story set at school?
A hall monitor catches her best friend late for the third time, which means a letter home. A scout leader's own son is one knot short of the badge on the last night of camp.
How do you write a dilemma with no right answer?
Give both choices a cost the reader can see, and make each cost land on a person. On this list, handing in a found wallet means missing the class trip, and keeping the cash means riding the bus knowing.