• 60 prompts
  • Checked October 2026

What If Writing Prompts

Questions that begin What if, each with its first consequence already worked out.

What If Writing Prompts

Show all 60
  1. What if the mail brought one letter to every house on your street, all in the same handwriting?First consequence: the neighbors stand on their steps holding them, and nobody wants to open theirs first.
  2. What if the first schools had been held at night?First consequence: the first lesson is the stars, and the school bell is a lantern in a window.
  3. What if trees could walk, but only one step a year?First consequence: a forest has reached the edge of town, and the town has watched it come for sixty years.

Next step Deal an alternate historyDeal a surreal story

All 60 prompts

What if one rule of nature changed 15

  • What if an echo took a full day to come back? First consequence: canyons are full of yesterday's hellos, and people leave messages there on purpose.
  • What if colors drained out of anything nobody had looked at for a week? First consequence: every house has one gray shelf, and it tells on its owner.
  • What if every river ran uphill? First consequence: towns are built on mountaintops, because that is where the water ends up.
  • What if gravity let go for one minute every day at noon? First consequence: every town rings a bell at five to twelve, and whatever is loose gets tied down.
  • What if ice were warm to the touch? First consequence: the skating rink is the coziest place in town, and nobody wants to go home.
  • What if plants grew toward music instead of light? First consequence: farmers hire bands, and a whole field leans toward the best one.
  • What if shadows stayed where they fell for an hour after their owners walked away? First consequence: nobody can sneak anywhere, and sidewalks at lunchtime are crowded with leftover people.
  • What if sound traveled so slowly that a shout arrived a minute late? First consequence: people learn to answer a question before they have heard it.
  • What if the clouds came down to rest on the ground every evening? First consequence: everyone walks home through one, and children are told not to bring pieces indoors.
  • What if the moon rose only when someone asked it to? First consequence: asking is a job with a uniform, and tonight the asker has overslept.
  • What if the stars made a sound? First consequence: clear nights are loud, and people in the country sleep with the windows shut.
  • What if the sun set at a different hour for each person? First consequence: at one dinner table, half the family is saying good morning.
  • What if the wind blew in one direction only, everywhere, all the time? First consequence: every flag points the same way, and walking the other way has its own word.
  • What if trees could walk, but only one step a year? First consequence: a forest has reached the edge of town, and the town has watched it come for sixty years.
  • What if winter came to each street on a different day? First consequence: children carry sleds across the road to visit a friend who still has summer.

What if history went another way 15

  • What if books had never been given pages, and every story came on one long roll? First consequence: finding your place takes two hands and a long table, and no one owns a bookmark.
  • What if music had been written down as colors instead of notes? First consequence: an orchestra reads from a striped ribbon, and a wrong note is called a smudge.
  • What if nobody had ever invented the umbrella? First consequence: rain is a reason to stay where you are, and every doorway has a bench for waiting.
  • What if nobody had ever thought of giving streets names? First consequence: directions are stories. Turn where the dog barks, stop at the house that smells of bread.
  • What if nobody had ever worked out how to make a mirror? First consequence: people know a friend's face better than their own, and sitting for a portrait is a big day.
  • What if nobody had invented the button, and every coat still tied shut? First consequence: getting dressed takes practice, and a good knot is something to show off.
  • What if people had tamed foxes instead of dogs? First consequence: nobody plays fetch. The fox hides the ball, and the game is finding it.
  • What if pockets had never been thought of? First consequence: everyone carries a small bag, and a lost bag is the start of half the stories told.
  • What if the alphabet had stopped at ten letters? First consequence: every word is long, a name takes a full breath, and spelling tests are short to study for.
  • What if the chair had never been invented? First consequence: floors are soft, tables are low, and a guest is offered the best cushion.
  • What if the first clocks had counted down instead of up? First consequence: everyone knows how much day is left, and nobody asks what time it is.
  • What if the first game anyone invented had no winner? First consequence: nobody ever built a scoreboard, and the crowd cheers loudest for the longest rally.
  • What if the first mapmaker had put her own village in the middle, and every map since had copied hers? First consequence: one small village is on every wall in the world and has never been told why.
  • What if the first schools had been held at night? First consequence: the first lesson is the stars, and the school bell is a lantern in a window.
  • What if the weekend had been put in the middle of the week? First consequence: Tuesday feels like Friday, and nobody can agree on what Thursday feels like.

What if an ordinary day broke 15

  • What if every door in town opened the other way this morning? First consequence: everyone pushes where they should pull, and the bakery has a crowd stuck outside it.
  • What if every phone in town rang at the same moment, once? First consequence: nobody picks up in time, and by lunch there are forty guesses about who it was.
  • What if every sign in your town had changed its words overnight? First consequence: the stop sign says Wait for It, and the cars do.
  • What if nobody in your town could remember the word for one ordinary thing today? First consequence: people point at spoons and say the stirring one, and by noon it has become a game.
  • What if the grocery store sold only one thing today, and a different thing tomorrow? First consequence: today is onions, and the line still goes around the block.
  • What if the last page of every book in the library were blank this morning? First consequence: the librarian is handing out pencils at the door.
  • What if the lunch you packed was not the lunch you unpacked? First consequence: this one is better, and somewhere a stranger is staring at your sandwich.
  • What if the mail brought one letter to every house on your street, all in the same handwriting? First consequence: the neighbors stand on their steps holding them, and nobody wants to open theirs first.
  • What if the playground had been rearranged overnight, so that the slide now ended where the swings begin? First consequence: recess opens with a meeting.
  • What if the stairs at home had one more step tonight than they had this morning? First consequence: you find it with your foot, and it creaks a note the other steps do not.
  • What if the sun came up as usual and then stopped, halfway? First consequence: it is seven in the morning all day, and nobody knows when to eat lunch.
  • What if the weather forecast began to be exactly right, down to the minute? First consequence: people time picnics to the second, and the forecaster has stopped smiling.
  • What if your dog came home from a walk it had taken by itself, carrying the leash? First consequence: it hangs the leash on the hook, and it is muddy to the knees.
  • What if your street were one house longer than it was yesterday? First consequence: the mail carrier already has a letter for it.
  • What if your teacher called the roll, read out a name nobody knew, and someone answered? First consequence: a kid at the back says Here, from a desk that was not there on Friday.

What if you could, once 15

  • What if you could ask one object in your home a single question, and it would answer? First consequence: you choose the couch, and the couch turns out to know a great deal.
  • What if you could be in two places at once, for one afternoon? First consequence: both of you come home tired, and only one remembered the milk.
  • What if you could breathe underwater for the length of one tide? First consequence: you go in at low tide to have longer, and something down there has been waiting to show you.
  • What if you could find any one lost thing, once? First consequence: you think of your own lost things first, and then you think of someone else's.
  • What if you could fly, but only once and only as far as you can see from your own window? First consequence: you spend a week at the window, deciding which rooftop is worth it.
  • What if you could give one person a perfect day, and they would never know it was you? First consequence: choosing the person is harder than planning the day.
  • What if you could grow one living thing to its full size overnight? First consequence: by breakfast the oak in the yard is taller than the house, and the neighbors want one.
  • What if you could hear, once, what one animal thinks of you? First consequence: you choose the cat. That may have been a mistake.
  • What if you could know the answer to one question nobody has ever answered? First consequence: now you know, and you must decide whether anyone would believe you.
  • What if you could make it snow once, anywhere, on any day you chose? First consequence: you choose the middle of July, and the town has no idea what to do with it.
  • What if you could make one of your drawings come to life? First consequence: you go through every drawing you ever made, and the best one is not the safest one.
  • What if you could open any one lock in the world, once? First consequence: every locked thing you pass starts to look like a question.
  • What if you could send one thing you own to any place in the world, once? First consequence: you look at everything you have and wonder who needs it more than you do.
  • What if you could step into one photograph and stay until someone called you back? First consequence: you pick one taken before you were born, and nobody in it is surprised to see you.
  • What if you could trade voices with a friend for one day? First consequence: your own name sounds strange when your friend says it in your voice.

How it works

Each of these what if writing prompts is a question that changes one thing: a rule of nature, a turn of history, an ordinary morning, a single chance. The writing starts at the second consequence.

Read the full guide

What if fiction writing prompts

A what if becomes fiction when someone has to live in it. Take the trees that walk one step a year: the forest has reached the edge of town. Now choose a person on the last street, and give her a reason to want it to stop or to hurry.

What if questions for story ideas

Ask and then what three times; the third answer is usually the story. Streets with no names mean directions told as stories. Then a stranger is told the wrong story. Then he knocks at the house that smells of bread.

  • Keep everything else about the world ordinary. One change is enough to carry a story.
  • Write one person who likes the change and one who cannot stand it.

Questions and answers

What is a what if writing prompt?

A question that changes one fact about the world and asks what follows. What if the stars made a sound? The answer is a chain of consequences, and a story is one person somewhere along that chain.

What are good what if ideas for stories?

Ones small enough to picture. What if the lunch you packed was not the lunch you unpacked? Somewhere a stranger is staring at your sandwich, and the story already has two people in it.

Is there a what if writing prompt about history?

Fifteen, and they keep to everyday turns: coats with no buttons, a weekend in the middle of the week, school held at night. For premises tied to dated events, see the alternate history story ideas.

More tools

Show 7 more

Browse Writing Prompts