• 60 prompts
  • Checked October 2026

Snake Story Ideas

A skin left in one piece, a body with no legs, a reputation never earned, a guest in the garden.

Snake Story Ideas

Show all 60
  1. A snake leaves a track in the dust of a farm road. Write what a careful reader of tracks can tell from it.Angle: which way, how fast, where it stopped. What made it turn?
  2. Write the story of a snake invited to a party where every game needs hands.Angle: pass the parcel, tag, the egg and spoon. Which game does it win anyway?
  3. A grandparent tells the story of the snake that lived in the garden when they were small. Write it as they tell it.First line: "It was this long, and I am not making that up, though I was only six."

Next step Write about the garden's plantsPaint the snake you wrote about

All 60 prompts

A new skin 15

  • A child spots a shed snakeskin by the path and works out what the snake was like. Write her guesses. Fact: a snake can in theory be identified from its cast skin if the skin is reasonably whole.
  • A rattlesnake adds a piece to its rattle. Write the story of one rattle, segment by segment. Fact: new segments grow on a rattlesnake's rattle when the snake sheds its skin.
  • A snake believes that a new skin will make it a new snake. Write what is still the same after. Angle: the same hunger, the same favorite rock. Is it disappointed or relieved?
  • A snake counts its year in sheds, not months. Write its calendar. Fact: snakes can shed four or five times yearly; weather, food and age decide.
  • A snake leaves its old skin behind in one piece. Write the story the empty skin would tell. Fact: a snake sheds its whole outer layer in one piece, like a sock turned inside out.
  • A snake rubs along a rough stone wall to start its shed. Write the wall's part in the story. Fact: a snake rubs against rough things to help the old skin come off.
  • A snake's eyes are always covered and always open. Write a staring contest between a snake and a confident cat. Fact: a snake's eyelids are transparent scales that stay permanently closed over its eyes.
  • A young snake sheds for the first time and has no idea what is happening. Write the story of that week. Fact: just before a snake sheds, its skin turns gray and its eyes turn silvery.
  • End a snake story on this line: And it left the old skin on the fence for them to find. Write what comes before. Angle: who are they, and what did the snake want them to know?
  • For a few days before a shed, a snake sees the world through cloudy eyes. Write those days. Fact: after a few days the snake's eyes clear, the old skin splits, and it crawls out.
  • The snake on a doctor's sign has a story behind it. Write a legend of your own for why a snake means healing. Fact: the snake on the Rod of Asclepius, a sign of medicine, goes back to the shedding of skin.
  • Two snakes compare their new skins like kids comparing new shoes. Write the scene. First line: "Yours is very green." "Thank you. It is the same green as last time."
  • Write a story in which a snake wakes in a new skin and nobody in the woodpile recognizes it. Angle: brighter, shinier, a little bigger. Who is the first to work out who it is?
  • Write a story where a snake's old skin, left in a barn, starts a rumor far bigger than the snake. Angle: who found it, who measured it, and who finally meets the small snake it belonged to?
  • Write about something you have outgrown, and tell it as a snake leaving a skin behind. Angle: a coat, a bike, a nickname. Did it come off in one piece?

No legs, no problem 15

  • A lizard feels sorry for a snake that has no legs. Write the snake's answer. First line: "Sorry for me? Watch this."
  • A snake enters a race against animals with legs. Write the race and who is surprised. Fact: snakes are limbless reptiles; most travel on special belly scales that grip the ground.
  • A snake feels footsteps through the ground long before it sees anyone. Write what the ground tells it. Fact: rattlesnakes feel the ground shake when something moves, National Geographic Kids says.
  • A snake has to get up a narrow drainpipe. Write the climb, inch by inch. Fact: in a tunnel a snake braces its back end, stretches the front forward and pulls up behind.
  • A snake leaves a track in the dust of a farm road. Write what a careful reader of tracks can tell from it. Angle: which way, how fast, where it stopped. What made it turn?
  • A snake smells with its tongue. Write a trip through a garden as the snake's tongue reads it. Fact: a snake's forked tongue collects particles from the air and passes them to an organ in its mouth.
  • A snake warms up on a rock before it can get going. Write its slow morning. Fact: a snake's body temperature depends on its surroundings; it warms or cools by moving.
  • A snake's backbone has hundreds of bones in it. Write what a snake can do that you cannot. Fact: a snake's backbone has 200 to 400 vertebrae, and now and then more.
  • A tree snake lets go of a branch and glides to the next tree. Write the leap. Fact: some tree snakes can glide short distances by flaring their ribs to flatten the body.
  • People call snakes slimy. Write a snake's complaint about the word. Fact: a snake's skin has a smooth, dry texture and is not slimy, Wikipedia's snake article says.
  • Winter comes and a snake cannot fly south or grow a thicker coat. Write its plan. Fact: in cold winters snakes brumate; unlike hibernating mammals they are awake but inactive.
  • Write a how-to guide by a snake: swimming without arms or legs. Fact: when a snake swims, the waves grow larger as they move down its body.
  • Write a story where a snake is the only animal that can fit through the gap and fetch what was lost. Angle: a key under a porch, a ring down a pipe. Who has to ask it for help?
  • Write the story of a snake crossing hot, loose sand without sinking in. Fact: on a sand dune or slick mud some snakes sidewind, lifting parts of the body in a rolling motion.
  • Write the story of a snake invited to a party where every game needs hands. Angle: pass the parcel, tag, the egg and spoon. Which game does it win anyway?

The misunderstood snake 15

  • A harmless snake is tired of everyone screaming. Write its day. Fact: most kinds of snake have no venom, Wikipedia's snake article says.
  • A king cobra spreads its hood to look bigger. Write a snake story about looking braver than you feel. Fact: its hood makes a king cobra look bigger than it really is, National Geographic Kids says.
  • A mother king cobra builds a nest for her eggs. Write the story of the nest. Fact: the king cobra builds a nest for its eggs, which few snakes do.
  • A python mother shivers to keep her eggs warm. Write a story that begins with a snake as a careful parent. Fact: most pythons coil around their eggs until they hatch, and a female will shiver to warm them.
  • A rattlesnake rattles because it wants to be left alone. Write the warning in the snake's own words. Fact: a rattlesnake uses its rattle to warn those who come too close to back off.
  • A snake and a rabbit are stuck under the same porch in a storm. Write how the hour goes. Angle: the rabbit is terrified and the snake is not hungry. Who speaks first?
  • A snake keeps a farmer's barn clear of mice and gets no thanks. Write the story from the barn floor. Fact: all snakes are carnivores; they eat small animals such as frogs, birds, fish and small mammals.
  • A snake opens its mouth wide and everyone runs. It was only yawning. Write the misunderstanding. Fact: the two halves of a snake's lower jaw are not rigidly attached, so its mouth opens very wide.
  • In a school play every part is taken except the snake. Write the story of the kid who gets it. Angle: nobody wanted it. What does she do with the part that changes that?
  • Is it fair that snakes are so often the villains? Write what you think, with one example of your own. Angle: invent the example. What would a fair snake story look like?
  • The other animals hold a meeting about the new snake in the meadow. Write the meeting, then the snake's reply. Angle: each animal has heard something. How much of it is true?
  • Why do people fear snakes? Write three reasons, then the snake's answer to each. Angle: be fair to both sides. Which reason does the snake admit is a good one?
  • Write a fable in which the snake is the honest one. Angle: old stories often make the snake a trickster. Turn it around and keep the moral short.
  • Write a letter from a snake to the person who writes the scary snake stories. First line: I read your last one. I have some notes.
  • Write the story of an island with no snakes at all, and the day a rumor of one arrives. Fact: snakes are absent from many islands, among them Ireland, Iceland and New Zealand.

Found in the garden 15

  • A child sees a snake cross the lawn and nobody believes her. Write how she proves it without going near it. Angle: a photo from the window, a track in the dust, a shed skin by the fence.
  • A family finds a snake asleep in the compost heap. Write the story of how each of them reacts. Angle: one screams, one takes a photo, one names it. Nobody goes any closer.
  • A garden gnome has stood beside a snake's favorite stone all summer. Write their friendship. Angle: one cannot move and one cannot stay still. What do they have in common?
  • A gardener and a small snake share a vegetable patch for one summer. Write the truce. First line: I stay out of its row of beans, and it stays out of my way.
  • A grandparent tells the story of the snake that lived in the garden when they were small. Write it as they tell it. First line: "It was this long, and I am not making that up, though I was only six."
  • A snake basks on the same warm paving stone every morning at ten. Write the week it does not come. Angle: the stone is still warm. Give three guesses, and make the last one the happy one.
  • A toad and a snake live at opposite ends of the same garden. Write the day they meet in the middle. Angle: the toad has a plan and the snake has an appetite. Let the toad win.
  • A wildlife officer is called about a snake in a garden shed. Write her visit as the youngest child sees it. Angle: she is calm and the family is not. What question does the youngest ask?
  • The class comes in from recess with news of a snake by the school garden. Write the story the principal tells that afternoon. Angle: what was seen, who was called, and how the snake went on its way unharmed.
  • The snake in the garden goes missing in October. Write where the family imagines it has gone. Fact: where winters are cold, snakes may brumate inside fallen trees, under rock piles or in burrows.
  • The snake under the rhubarb has watched one family for a whole summer. Write what it knows about them. Angle: who waters, who forgets, who talks to the tomatoes. They have never seen it once.
  • Write a garden snake's review of four gardens on one street. Angle: best stone wall, most frogs, loudest dog. Which garden does it move into?
  • Write a poem that begins in the grass and ends under the garden wall, following a snake you only half see. Angle: a line for each glimpse. Never show the whole snake at once.
  • Write a snake story that starts: The stick by the tap moved. Angle: stay calm in the telling. What does the narrator do in the first three seconds?
  • Write the story of a garden hose that everyone takes for a snake, and a snake that everyone takes for a hose. Angle: tell it in two halves. Which mistake is the funnier one?

How it works

These snake story ideas start from what a snake really does: shed its skin whole, cross sand sideways, taste the air with its tongue. Nobody in them is bitten and nobody picks a snake up.

Read the full guide

Writing prompts about snakes, with the fact underneath

Twenty-nine ideas carry a fact from Wikipedia's snake article or from National Geographic Kids. Just before a shed the skin turns gray and the eyes go silvery; a rattlesnake's rattle gains a segment at each shed. A story can start from either.

Stories for the misunderstood snake

Fifteen ideas take the snake's side: a fable where the snake is the honest one, a letter to the author of the scary stories, a yawn that empties a room. Most kinds of snake have no venom, the same article says.

  • Tell a garden story from far enough away that nobody could reach the snake. The distance keeps the tension.

Questions and answers

What is a good snake story idea?

A garden hose that everyone takes for a snake, and a snake that everyone takes for a hose. Tell it in two halves and decide which mistake is the funnier one.

Are these writing prompts about snakes scary?

No. The garden stories keep everyone at a distance, and the snake goes on its way unharmed. The list is for writing and is not advice about a snake you meet.

Why do snakes shed their skin?

Molting replaces old, worn skin, Wikipedia's snake article says. A snake can shed four or five times yearly, and the outer layer comes off in one piece, like a sock turned inside out.

How do snakes move without legs?

Most flex the body left and right in waves and grip with their belly scales. On loose sand some sidewind, and in a tunnel a snake braces its back end and stretches the front forward, Wikipedia's snake article says.

More tools

Show 7 more

Browse Writing Prompts