The seasons change at the town line, so one bus route crosses winter twice.Keep: passengers dress for their own stop. End on: a driver in mittens and sunglasses.
In one town it is polite to greet a person's left shoe first.Keep: shoes are never swapped. End on: a visitor in sandals, causing a silence.
A set of kitchen scales weighs how much a thing is missed, not how heavy it is.Keep: it is accurate to the gram. End on: an empty chair lifted on, and the needle going round twice.
A boy's classroom is at the bottom of a staircase that goes down past the sea.Keep: the bell can be heard at every depth. End on: fish at the window, doing sums.
A choir rehearses a song nobody has written, and everyone but you has the sheet music.Keep: your own page is a map. End on: the conductor nodding at you to come in.
A dinner party is held in a swimming pool, fully dressed, and the soup stays in the bowls.Keep: nobody gets wet. End on: a guest diving for a dropped fork.
A family moves house on foot, each of them carrying one room.Keep: the rooms stay furnished and lit. End on: the youngest setting the hallway down in a field.
A girl can fly, but only at the height of a kitchen table, and only when no one is impressed.Keep: praise brings her down. End on: a whole street of people carefully not looking.
A girl is given the lead in a play whose script is blank except for her cues, which are the names of her old pets.Keep: the audience knows every line. End on: applause before she speaks.
A man climbs the stairs of his apartment building and arrives, each time, one floor lower.Keep: every neighbor greets him as usual. End on: the lobby, which now has a skylight.
A man is being followed, slowly and courteously, by a piano.Keep: it never comes closer than one room away. End on: he sits down and plays it.
A man is certain he owns a second house and spends the night looking for its key in other people's coats.Keep: every coat is his size. End on: a key by the door, too large for any pocket.
A man keeps trying to dial a number, and the buttons rearrange themselves into the faces of his aunts.Keep: the aunts are encouraging. End on: the call connects to the room he is standing in.
A man must give the toast at a wedding where the bride and groom are two houses from his childhood.Keep: the guests cry at the right moments. End on: confetti drifting out of a chimney.
A man's teeth are fine; it is his name that is coming loose, a letter at a time.Keep: people still call him by whatever is left. End on: one vowel, kept in a matchbox.
A woman finds a room in her home she has never seen, full of people waiting politely for her to notice them.Keep: they have saved her a chair. End on: the door gone, and tea being poured.
A woman has to return a library book, and the library has become a forest with the shelves still in order.Keep: the trees are shelved by author. End on: a date stamp on a leaf.
A woman is packing for a trip, and every drawer she opens contains the sea, folded.Keep: the suitcase never fills. End on: she zips it shut, and it sounds like a wave going out.
A woman meets her grandfather as a boy of nine, and he asks her the way to a shop that closed before she was born.Keep: she knows the way. End on: the shop bell.
A woman runs for a bus whose number changes every time she reads it.Keep: the driver waits, patiently, the whole time. End on: she boards, and it is a boat.
A woman's mother is also, somehow, the conductor of the train, and nobody on board finds it worth a remark.Keep: the ticket is always in the other pocket. End on: her mother punching a ticket shaped like a leaf.
An elevator opens on a beach, then on a library, then on a Tuesday afternoon from years ago.Keep: one passenger gets off each time and is back inside first. End on: a button with no number.
Every phone in an office rings with the same call, and whoever answers has to go on with someone else's sentence.Keep: the sentence never ends. End on: you, picking up, already talking.
He has to deliver a wardrobe to an address that keeps being the house he is already in.Keep: the wardrobe is lighter each time. End on: he opens it and finds the street.
He is having his eyes tested, and the letters on the chart are slowly spelling out advice.Keep: the eye doctor reads it out as plain letters. End on: the bottom row, too small, and important.
Two friends walk through a museum where every painting shows the room they have just left.Keep: the paintings are always one room behind. End on: a blank canvas in the last room.
You are late for an exam in a subject that turns out to be your own childhood street.Keep: the clock on the wall is always five minutes ahead. End on: the first question, in your handwriting.
You hand in your coat at a cloakroom and are given a small numbered dog.Keep: every other ticket is an animal too. End on: closing time, and the right coat wagging.
An object behaves wrongly 25
A bathtub fills to exactly the same level, whatever is put in it.Keep: nothing ever spills. End on: a rowing boat, floated carefully, in the bathroom.
A book in a secondhand shop is one page shorter each time it is sold.Keep: the story still ends properly. End on: a single page, priced the same.
A bridge is three steps longer going east than coming west.Keep: both ends stay where they are. End on: a surveyor who has stopped measuring and started commuting.
A bunch of keys opens every lock except the one it was cut for.Keep: the owner is honest. End on: her knocking at her own door, in a street of open ones.
A chair in a waiting room faces whichever way the next person does not want to look.Keep: it cannot be turned. End on: a row of people reading the same wall.
A coat has one pocket deeper than the arm that reaches into it.Keep: what goes in comes out a season later. End on: a warm mitten in July.
A doorbell rings in the house next door, whichever house it is fitted to.Keep: the neighbors always answer. End on: an electrician fitting it to the last house in the row.
A doormat spells a different greeting for each visitor, and one visitor gets a question.Keep: it is always polite. End on: the visitor, on the step, answering the mat.
A grandfather clock in a hallway begins to tell the temperature instead of the time.Keep: it is always exactly right. End on: the family dressing by the chimes.
A kettle whistles the name of whoever is about to knock.Keep: it is never wrong. End on: a name nobody in the house knows.
A ladder leaned against a wall reaches one rung higher than the wall.Keep: the top rung is in sunlight, whatever the weather. End on: a painter eating lunch up there.
A lamp casts the light of a different hour from the one it is.Keep: the plants on the sill follow the lamp. End on: geraniums opening at midnight.
A man's hat insists on being worn by the person standing next to him.Keep: it fits everyone. End on: people at a bus stop passing it politely along.
A man's shadow has started arriving at work ten minutes before he does.Keep: it does a fair share of the job. End on: the shadow leaving early on a Friday.
A mirror in a barber's shop shows each customer the haircut they will ask for next time.Keep: the barber works from the glass. End on: a bald man studying it, pleased.
A pair of shoes walks its owner home by a different route each evening.Keep: they always arrive by six. End on: a street she lived on once.
A piano gives off smells in place of notes: bread for one key, rain for another.Keep: the tunes can still be told apart. End on: a lullaby that smells of one particular kitchen.
A refrigerator light comes on for one member of the family and for nobody else.Keep: the food is the same for all. End on: the family sending him for the milk.
A set of kitchen scales weighs how much a thing is missed, not how heavy it is.Keep: it is accurate to the gram. End on: an empty chair lifted on, and the needle going round twice.
A typewriter types only what its owner should have said yesterday.Keep: the spelling is perfect. End on: an apology, already addressed.
A violin can play only what its listener was humming on the way in.Keep: it plays it better. End on: a concert audience asked to arrive in silence.
A wall calendar has started turning its own pages at a walking pace.Keep: appointments happen when it says. End on: someone holding December shut with both hands.
A weathervane points at whoever in the village has news.Keep: it never says what kind. End on: the whole square turning to look at one front door.
A woman's umbrella will open only indoors.Keep: it is dry beneath it, wherever it opens. End on: neighbors lined up in her hall during a storm.
The town map redraws itself overnight and has begun to show streets that are not built.Keep: it is right about everything else. End on: surveyors staking out a road from it.
A town with one odd rule 25
A town council keeps one vote for its oldest tree and counts it by which way the leaves fall.Keep: the tree has never abstained. End on: a tied vote in a windless October.
A town elects its mayor by seeing whose hat the wind takes first.Keep: the wind has never chosen badly. End on: a still day and a nervous crowd.
A town forbids anyone to say the name of its river, so the river is addressed as sir.Keep: it rises when slighted. End on: a child's polite letter, dropped off the bridge.
A town has agreed that Wednesday happens indoors only.Keep: the streets are empty and well lit. End on: a dog, who was not told, in the square.
A town holds that stairs belong to whoever is going up, so nobody has walked down in years.Keep: there are slides, ropes and one balloon. End on: an old man at the top, deciding.
A town keeps a spare Tuesday in a cupboard at the town hall, for emergencies.Keep: it has never been used. End on: the clerk, key in hand, on a very bad Monday.
A town measures distance in songs, and its road signs give the number of verses.Keep: everyone sings at the same pace. End on: a shortcut one chorus long.
A town owns one umbrella, and the rule is that it goes to whoever got wettest last time.Keep: the list is kept honestly. End on: a dry summer, and the umbrella's keeper with nothing to do.
A town paints its shadows on the ground each morning in case the sun does not come.Keep: the sun always comes. End on: two shadows under every person at noon.
A town's law gives every doorknob to one hand: left on the odd side of the street, right on the even.Keep: nobody may switch hands. End on: a left-handed family house-hunting on the wrong side.
A town's rule is that on your birthday you must be carried everywhere.Keep: the carriers are whoever is nearest. End on: twins, and a street doing its best.
A village holds that names wear out, so every family trades surnames with a neighbor each spring.Keep: the mail still arrives. End on: a child who wants hers back.
A village keeps its only clock in a locked room, and one person a day is allowed to know the time.Keep: the knower may not tell. End on: the whole square watching her face at noon.
In a harbor town the tide has to be signed for.Keep: someone has always signed. End on: the clerk's pen running dry at low water.
In a valley town the echo is a public servant with office hours.Keep: it answers only between nine and five. End on: a shout at six, left hanging.
In a village every house must keep one window open for the fog, which is a registered resident.Keep: the fog pays its dues in dew. End on: a census taker counting it as four.
In one town all the mirrors are kept at the library and have to be borrowed.Keep: a reflection is due back in two weeks. End on: a late fee paid in combs.
In one town each family is issued an hour a day that is theirs alone, and may lend it.Keep: a lent hour must come back. End on: a neighbor returning one, slightly used.
In one town every conversation must end on the word it began with.Keep: people plan their openings. End on: a goodbye that starts with goodbye.
In one town every resident must carry a ladder, in case of sky.Keep: nobody has ever needed one. End on: a child, halfway up, checking.
In one town it is against the law to arrive: everyone must already have been there.Keep: the paperwork proves it. End on: a stranger shown his own school photograph.
In one town it is polite to greet a person's left shoe first.Keep: shoes are never swapped. End on: a visitor in sandals, causing a silence.
In one town it is the custom to walk backward on Thursdays, and the buses run in reverse to match.Keep: everybody sees where they have been. End on: Friday's first forward step.
In one town sleep is done in shifts, and the night shift dreams for everyone.Keep: dreams are handed over at dawn. End on: a baker handed one that is not his kind.
In one village whoever finds a lost thing must wear it until it is claimed.Keep: nothing may go in a pocket. End on: the mail carrier in three scarves and a wedding veil.
Ordinary people, strange weather 25
A breeze carries one sentence of every conversation it passes into the next street.Keep: it never takes a whole secret. End on: a street finishing its neighbors' news.
A cloud follows a wedding party at a respectful distance and will neither rain nor leave.Keep: it stays exactly one field away. End on: the cloud at the back of the photograph.
A fog comes in that has corridors, and the commuters learn its floor plan.Keep: the corridors are the same each morning. End on: someone holding a door of fog for a stranger.
A frost draws a different map on every window, and a taxi driver starts to trust them.Keep: the maps show tomorrow's traffic. End on: a fare who asks to go where the window says.
A gust of wind stops in the middle of a market and stays there, like a customer.Keep: the awnings near it stand out stiff. End on: a vendor trying to weigh it.
A heat wave settles in one room of a house at a time, and the family follows the cool.Keep: it moves on at every meal. End on: supper eaten on the stairs.
A mail carrier finishes her round in a rain of buttons.Keep: each button matches a coat on the street. End on: a tailor standing outside with a bucket.
A mist settles that makes every voice seem to come from slightly to the left.Keep: the shift is the same for everyone. End on: a choir standing one step right, in tune.
A patch of sunlight stays on a bakery floor all night and is gone by morning.Keep: it is warm enough to raise the dough. End on: the baker working by it at three.
A rainbow comes down low enough to be in the way of the traffic.Keep: it can be passed under, never through. End on: a bus driver ducking.
An autumn comes in which the leaves fall up into the trees.Keep: they go from brown to green on the way. End on: a gardener leaning on a rake with nothing to do.
Dawn is delayed, and the announcement comes over the station loudspeakers like a late train.Keep: it will now arrive from the west. End on: commuters turning round on the platform.
Hail falls in perfect cubes, and a waiter thinks at once of the drinks.Keep: every cube is the same size. End on: a town with full glasses and dented roofs.
In a long gray winter, sunshine arrives by mail, in envelopes, for one street.Keep: one envelope lights one room for an hour. End on: an old man saving his for March.
It rains lightly inside a dentist's waiting room, and the receptionist hands out the magazines as hats.Keep: the fish tank is the one dry place. End on: a name called through the drizzle.
Lightning strikes slowly, taking a whole evening to reach the ground.Keep: there is time to walk round it. End on: neighbors in lawn chairs, watching it land.
Night falls on one side of the street only.Keep: the line runs down the middle of the road. End on: a child stepping across to bedtime.
Rain falls in one straight line across the town, a yard wide, and a father has to get three children over it.Keep: the line does not move. End on: a row of boots left on the dry side.
The seasons change at the town line, so one bus route crosses winter twice.Keep: passengers dress for their own stop. End on: a driver in mittens and sunglasses.
Snow falls so that each flake lands where a person is about to step.Keep: the rest of the street stays clear. End on: white footprints ahead of a woman who has not decided.
The stars come out at noon over one playground, and a lunch supervisor has to decide about bedtime.Keep: it stays warm. End on: children lying on the blacktop, naming them.
The temperature is different at each height: a tall man shivers while his small daughter is too warm.Keep: the cold starts at the shoulder. End on: him lifting her up to cool off.
Thunder arrives a day before its storm, and a farmer plans by it.Keep: the gap is exactly one day. End on: thunder on a clear night, and him up mending the roof.
The tide comes in through the town one Tuesday, shallow and polite, and leaves by the same streets.Keep: it leaves no mud. End on: a crab in the library's returns slot.
The wind in one street blows only at ankle height.Keep: hats are safe and shoelaces are not. End on: a dog leaning into it, ears quite still.
How it works
These surreal writing prompts state one impossible thing as fact: a town where the echo keeps office hours, lightning that takes all evening to land. Each surreal writing prompt has a rule to keep and an image to end on.
Read the full guide
Surreal story ideas in four kinds
Dream logic moves the way a dream does: places swap, and a task stays urgent for no reason. An object behaves wrongly changes one thing in a normal house, such as a kettle that whistles a visitor's name. A town with one odd rule and Ordinary people, strange weather hand the strangeness to everybody at once.
Surrealism writing prompts, and how the Surrealists wrote
Surrealism grew up in Europe after the First World War. Its artists wanted the unconscious mind to speak, which is why the results look like dreams. One of their methods was automatic writing, done without conscious control. Try it from any prompt here: keep the pen moving for a page, then cut.
Nobody in the story should be amazed. A calm witness makes the strange thing stranger.
Break one law of nature only. Leave the bus schedule, the rent and the weather report exactly as they are.
Questions and answers
What makes a story surreal?
Surprise, unexpected pairings and events that do not follow from one another, told as if they did. In these prompts the tone does the work: a rainbow comes down into the traffic, and the bus driver ducks.
How do I write from a surreal prompt?
Keep the rule under the prompt and change nothing else. If hail falls in perfect cubes, every cube is the same size on every page. Then write toward the last image and stop when you reach it.
Can a group write a surreal story together?
Yes, with a game the Surrealists invented, called exquisite corpse. Each person adds to the story in turn, seeing only the end of what the last person wrote. Open with one prompt from this list and unfold the page at the end.
Are these prompts frightening?
No. Nothing here is a nightmare, and nobody is followed by anything worse than a courteous piano. The strangeness is calm, and most of the prompts are funny.