• 60 prompts
  • Checked October 2026

Fun Writing Prompts for When You Are Bored

Nothing to do and a pen in reach: quick ones, a list to finish, something silly.

Fun Writing Prompts for When You Are Bored

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  1. List six things you could teach someone in under a minute.Angle: pick one and write the lesson, step by step.
  2. Make a list of the questions you would ask a cat if it could answer for one day a year.Angle: stop at nine. Then write the cat's answer to the best one.
  3. Write a note to yourself, to be found the next time you are bored.First line: Hello again. Same chair? Thought so. Try this.

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All 60 prompts

Quick ones 15

  • Describe your boredom as if it were weather. Angle: a flat gray afternoon, no wind, a chance of yawns toward four.
  • Give directions from the door to the exact spot where you are sitting, for someone who has never seen the room. Angle: three steps in, left at the chair, follow the sound of the fan.
  • I am so bored that... Complete the sentence five ways, each wilder than the last. First line: I am so bored that I have given every ceiling tile a name.
  • Pick up the nearest object and write a for-sale ad that makes it sound magnificent. Angle: one careful owner, hardly chewed, comes with its own lid.
  • Rewrite the last message you sent as if a king had sent it. Angle: add a title, a trumpet and a royal command. Keep the message itself the same.
  • Tell today so far in exactly ten words, then in exactly five. Angle: the cutting is the game. Say which five words survived.
  • Write a complaint letter to the clock about how slowly it is going. First line: Dear Clock, I have checked you four times and you have moved once.
  • Write a note to yourself, to be found the next time you are bored. First line: Hello again. Same chair? Thought so. Try this.
  • Write a two-sentence story about a person who was never bored again. Angle: sentence one, how it happened. Sentence two, why that was a problem.
  • Write an award speech for the most useful thing within reach of your chair. First line: This pencil would like to thank the sharpener, who made it what it is today.
  • Write down one small skill you have that nobody would pay to watch. Angle: guessing the time, peeling an orange in one go. Then write the poster for the show anyway.
  • Write the last line of a story about the most boring day ever. Then the line before it. Angle: keep going backward, one line at a time, until you are bored of that too.
  • Write the opening sentence of a story that starts exactly where you are sitting, bored. Angle: use what is true, the chair, the time, the light. Then change one thing.
  • Write the titles, and only the titles, of five books about your afternoon. Angle: a thriller, a cookbook, a very long history, a picture book, a poem.
  • Write what you would be doing right now if you were the nearest pet, yours or a neighbor's. Angle: the window, the bowl, the long wait for a door to open.

Look around first 15

  • Close your eyes and point. Open them, and write a page for whatever your finger landed on. Angle: its job, its age, where it would rather be.
  • Count the things in the room that are the same color as your shirt. Then write a story with all of them in it. Angle: no stopping to explain how the cushion met the mug.
  • Find a photograph, a picture or a postcard in the room. Then write what happened one minute after it. Angle: who moved first, what was said, what is just outside the frame.
  • Find something in the room that is chipped, cracked or held together with tape. Then write its side of the story. First line: I was a perfectly good handle until the Tuesday of the heavy bag.
  • Find the oldest thing in the room you are bored in. Then write the day it arrived. Angle: who carried it in, where it was put first, what it replaced.
  • Listen for one minute without moving. Then write a story that explains the strangest sound in the building. Angle: the knock in the pipes, the thump upstairs. Give it a cause nobody would guess.
  • Look out of the nearest window for one minute. Then write where the first person or animal you saw is going. Angle: where they came from, what is in the bag, why they are in no hurry.
  • Open a drawer of your own and look. Then write what a stranger would work out about you from it. Angle: three batteries, one glove, a key to nothing. Be a detective about yourself.
  • Open the fridge or a cupboard and take nothing. Then write the argument the foods are having. First line: The mustard has been here longest and thinks that makes it the boss.
  • Sit somewhere in the room you never sit: the floor, a corner, the far end of the couch. Then describe the room as if it were new. Angle: what you can see from here and never see: the underside of a table, a cobweb.
  • Study your own hand for a full minute. Then write its life story. Angle: the scars, the ink, what it learned first, what it still cannot do.
  • Take a slow breath of the room's air. Then write what somebody walking in would know about your day from the smell. Angle: toast, soap, an orange peel, a window shut too long.
  • Take the nearest book, open it anywhere and put a finger down. Then start a story with that word. Angle: if the word is the or and, lucky you. Move one word to the right.
  • Walk through every room you are allowed in and count the clocks. Then write about the one that is wrong. Angle: who trusts it anyway, and what it has made them late for.
  • Watch one shadow in the room for a few minutes. Then write where it is trying to go. Angle: mark where it started. Say what it will reach by evening and what it wants there.

A list to finish 15

  • Finish this list: foods I would invent if the kitchen had no rules. Angle: name five, then write the menu card for the strangest.
  • Finish this list: places I have waited. Angle: for each, one thing you looked at while you waited. The longest wait gets a paragraph.
  • Finish this list: ten things I could do right now that I have never done in this room. Angle: the first three will be sensible. Keep going until one makes you laugh.
  • Finish this list: ten things I would rather be bored than do. Angle: sort them from slightly worse to much, much worse.
  • Finish this list: things I have mislaid, and where I think they are now. Angle: one glove, a library card, a blue pen. Follow one of them to its new life.
  • Finish this list: things that are better when you are bored. Angle: long baths, staring contests with a cat, the back of a cereal box.
  • Gadgets that would fix one tiny problem in my day: write the list. Angle: the sock finder, the toast alarm. Then write the instructions for one.
  • List everything in this room that makes a noise. Angle: put them in order from loudest to quietest. Listen before you decide.
  • List six things you could teach someone in under a minute. Angle: pick one and write the lesson, step by step.
  • Make a list of eight words you like the sound of. Then put four of them in one sentence. Angle: gravel, lull, pocket. Sense is optional the first time through.
  • Make a list of the questions you would ask a cat if it could answer for one day a year. Angle: stop at nine. Then write the cat's answer to the best one.
  • Make a list of twelve uses for a paper clip, a spoon or a shoelace. Angle: the first five are obvious. The good ones start at six.
  • The rules of a club with only one member: write the list. Angle: the password, the meeting place, what happens if the member is late.
  • Seven jobs I would be terrible at, and why: write the list. Angle: a lighthouse keeper who talks too much, a taster who hates surprises.
  • What everyone else in the building is doing right now, judging by the sounds: write the list. Angle: a guess for each, and how sure you are.

Something silly 15

  • A pigeon and a squirrel are watching you through the window. Write what they are saying. First line: It has not moved in an hour, said the pigeon. Is it broken?
  • A vegetable is running for mayor of the kitchen. Write its speech. Angle: its promises, its rival in the fruit bowl, its position on being boiled.
  • Boredom is your new coach. Write its pep talk for doing nothing well. First line: Today we sit. Tomorrow, if all goes well, we sit a little longer.
  • Explain a sandwich to a visitor from a planet with no bread. Angle: they have questions. Why two slices? Why not eat the inside alone? Who decided this?
  • The furniture in the room holds a meeting. Write what the couch has to say about everyone. Angle: the couch complains, the lamp takes notes, the rug has heard it all before.
  • One of your socks has gone missing again. Write the postcard it sends from wherever socks go. First line: Weather lovely. Do not look for me. Tell the other one I am sorry.
  • Write a dramatic scene in which two people disagree about how to fold a towel. Angle: play it like the last act of a tragedy. Nobody may raise their voice.
  • Write a news report on the most boring thing that happened in your home today. First line: At 2:15 this afternoon a chair was moved slightly to the left. Witnesses were stunned.
  • Write a very serious review of a glass of water. Angle: appearance, aroma, finish. Would you drink it again?
  • Write an apology from the couch for being so hard to get up from. First line: I never meant to keep you. You sat down, and things got out of hand.
  • Write an instruction manual for something that needs none: a chair, a door, a cup. Angle: warnings, numbered steps, a troubleshooting page. Step 1: locate the chair.
  • Write the legend of the lost remote control, as it will be told a thousand years from now. First line: In the time of the old couch there was a remote, and then there was not.
  • Write the terms and conditions for sitting in your favorite chair. Angle: clause 1, the sitter gives up all plans. Clause 4, crumbs become the property of the chair.
  • Write the worst opening line a story ever had, then a second sentence that rescues it. Angle: start with the weather and a sigh. The rescue is the real job.
  • Your shadow quits. Write its letter of resignation. First line: As of sunset, I will no longer be following you around.

How it works

These are writing prompts for when you are bored and not going anywhere: each needs only the room you are in and whatever is within reach. Most are short enough to finish before the boredom comes back.

Read the full guide

Writing prompts when bored and stuck for a start

The group Look around first asks for something small before any writing: a minute at the window, a count of the clocks, a finger pointed with eyes shut. By the time the pen moves there is already a subject, which is the hard part of being bored.

Lists, when a story is too much to ask

Fifteen prompts are the top of a list: seven jobs I would be terrible at, twelve uses for a paper clip, places I have waited. A list asks for no plot and no ending. Somewhere past the obvious entries, one of them usually turns into a story.

  • Take the first prompt dealt, even if it looks dull. Choosing is how boredom wins.
  • Read the silly ones aloud to somebody. Half the fun is the straight face.

Questions and answers

What are good writing prompts when you are bored?

Short ones with a joke in them. Write a very serious review of a glass of water. Write a complaint letter to the clock about how slowly it is going. Or complete I am so bored that... five ways, each wilder than the last.

What can I write when I am bored and have no ideas?

Begin with a list, which needs no idea. Everything in this room that makes a noise, from loudest to quietest. Things you have mislaid and where you think they are now. Then follow whichever entry interests you.

Are these writing prompts for kids or adults?

Both. Nothing in them needs a particular age, and every one is clean enough for a classroom with a spare ten minutes. An adult will write a different complaint to the clock than a nine-year-old would.

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