50+ Flash Fiction Prompts To Inspire You

Flash fiction, sometimes known as napkin fiction or micro-stories is a type of story-writing where stories are around 1,000 words. Because all types of flash fiction are short, the focus is on progressing or moving the story along, rather than character descriptions or complicated plot twists. For this reason, your base plot or story idea needs to be brilliant from start to finish, otherwise, it’ll just fall flat. Here are over 50 flash fiction prompts to inspire you to write the best flash fiction ever! 

While the average length of flash fiction is around 1,000 words, today flash fiction evolved to become even shorter. Take for example six-word stories, which tell a whole story in just six words or Twitterature, which are stories under 280 characters long specially told on Twitter. You might also be familiar with one-shot stories which are short stories over 100 words. With so few words to work with, it is always best to start with action – There’s definitely no time for lengthy character backstories or scenery descriptions! 

The best classic examples of flash fiction include Aesop’s fables and even traditional fairy tales. So, when you’re writing your own flash fiction take note of these classics before you begin. For further inspiration, take a look at this list of 300 writing prompts for kids to help you write your next children’s story.

Over 50 Flash Fiction Prompts

Here are over 50 ideas for flash fiction stories that you could write about right now:

1. You stumble upon a mysterious skull-shaped key in your basement. It seems to fit into every door in town. But when you actually open a door using the skull-shaped key, some strange happens. (Check out this list of mystery writing prompts for more ideas.)
2. Your main character is involved in a car accident. They accidentally drive their car off a bridge into the river below and are rescued by a weird swamp creature. 
3. A girl at your school has been hiding her true identity for years. Until one day it’s revealed that she is an alien from outer space with mysterious powers.
4. There’s an old legend that every 10 years tree’s come alive and walk the Earth. During a camping trip, you hear a noise and decide to follow it. You then bump into a tree that can talk to you. 
5. A selfish magpie that keeps stealing from the same people’s home, day in and day out. Until one day the magpie gets caught in one of their traps. 
6. A top-shot city lawyer embarks on his dream to become a comedian. But experiences many set-backs and humiliations on his journey. 
7. During a field trip at the caveman exhibition, you buy a souvenir caveman skull and take it home. The next morning you find an actual caveman hiding in your room. 
8. A young witch turns her three older sisters into dolls and plays with them every day. How will the three older witches become real again? If you need some cool names for your witches, take a look at this spooky witch name generator. 
9. A criminal called the Game Master kidnaps you and your two best friends. He traps you and your friends in his home and forces you all to play board games with him. The only way to leave is by beating him at every game. 
10. One day, you notice that cats keep following you home from school. You eventually find out that you’re slowly turning into a cat yourself. How will you stop this from happening?
11. A superhero loses their powers and needs to find a way to get them back before the bad guy destroys the city. 
12. After 20 years of being trapped in a basement, you finally manage to escape. But where do you go?
13. A monkey at the zoo wants to run away from the zoo to join a circus. 
14. Looking through a telescope one night you notice something strange in the sky. It looks like a castle in the sky, just floating about. You plan to find this castle and visit it – But how?
15. In the year 2050, there is a law where no-one can leave their homes at all. You look out of the window wondering, what’s out there?
16. For years you have had breathing problems and suffered from asthma. You also had an extreme phobia of the ocean and deep water. Then one day, someone from your school invites you to a beach party. At the party, you learn that you’re a mermaid. 
17. After missing your mom’s birthday dinner, your day keeps looping. Every day the same exact things keep happening. People say the exact same thing to you, the same exact test at school and the same exact argument. How will you escape this looping nightmare?
18. A young prince has been cursed with the power of darkness. Wherever he goes everything withers away and dies. So he has trapped himself inside his castle, never to leave. Can he ever be cured?
19. You and your friends finally find the courage to enter the haunted house in your neighbourhood. But what exactly lurks inside the house?
20. Write flash fiction about talking office stationery, such as pens, pencil, staplers and the office telephone. Just imagine what it would be like to be a pen in a busy office or a printer.
21. After 5 days of non-stop thunderstorms, the clouds finally clear to reveal a beautiful rainbow. And then it suddenly starts raining doughnuts.
22. A food company launches a new chocolate bar. When anyone eats, they start behaving like animals that match their personalities. 
23. You find a stray dog and take it home. Later on, you discover that this dog belongs to your favourite celebrity and they are searching for it everywhere. 
24. For your 12th birthday, your grandma gives you her favourite book of classic fairytales. Every time you read this book you release a fairytale character into the real world, including the villains. 
25. A group of friends go camping only to find out that their campfire ghost stories are actually real.
26.  During the night your house gets robbed. Now you’re on a mission to find the stolen items and punish the robber. 
27. Cassandra has a greenhouse filled with all sorts of tropical flowers. One day she notices a strange new flower growing in her greenhouse. It keeps growing and growing until it takes over the whole town. Every time you cut it just doubles up into more flowers. 
28. After non-stop gaming for 2 weeks, Johnny finally leaves the house to find everyone gone. But has everyone gone?
29. A mad scientist creates a cloning machine and uses it to clone himself many times. However, his clones soon start getting a mind of their own and take over his like. 
30. During a history class, you find an old photograph in a textbook that looks exactly like you. Soon you learn that this person in the history textbook is actually you. And you have the power to time travel to any time you like.
31. It’s Chinese new year! After receiving a strange fortune cookie at a Chinese restaurant, the next day you wake as an actual rat.
32. You finally solve a Rubix cube to get trapped inside a life-size cube. Where you have to solve many cube-like puzzles to get released. 
33. After school, you walk past a magic shop to see an ad on the window. The magic shop is looking for a new assistant. You apply for the job, not knowing that the crazy owner wants to turn you into a talking black cat. 
34. Mother has always warned me about not eating too much cheese before bedtime and now I know why! Cheese makes your nightmares come true!
35. In an alternate universe, monsters are real. Mummies, Frankenstein, witches and Dracula are all real. Tired of being the only normal kid at your school, you pay a witch a visit, to turn you into a monster. 
36.  You and your friends find an old pirate map in your basement. With nothing else to do, you all decide to go on an adventure to find this treasure.
37. An old mirror in your basement takes you to a whole new world where animals talk and there is no school or work.
38. A young writer discovers that everything he writes about becomes a reality. 
39. Write a flash fiction from the perspective of a lost German Shepherd dog looking for his master or family. 
40. All cats have a secret life, but your pet cat is a ninja cat! This time ninja cat needs to team up with other cats to rescue his best friend. 
41. Write a fictional story of how the octopus got eight legs, evolving from a basic squid which just had two legs. 
42. Everyone in your neighbourhood has had their garden gnomes stolen recently. Who has been stealing gnomes and why?
43. While peeling a banana open, your banana starts talking to you. You run into the kitchen to find that all food is alive!
44. A new restaurant opens in your town. You soon learn that this restaurant is owned by some witches with an evil plan to take over your town.
45. Write a flash fiction story from the perspective of the ocean. Like the ocean, you are angry at humans for littering the sea and hurting all the sea creatures. 
46. It’s your first night in your new home and you can’t sleep. You keep hearing something moving around in the walls. Is it a mouse or something more?
47. Rewrite the classic fairytale of Cinderella. This time imagine that Cinderella lived in a post-apocalyptic future where Earth is nothing more than just a savage desert land. 
48. Fairies are at war with spiders who keep attacking their lands and eating their worker pet ants.
49. Every night you lookout for a shooting star to make a wish. But all you see is some aeroplane lights in the night sky. One night, you notice an aeroplane light fly closer to you. The light flies through the window and into your ear. 
50. An adventurer discovers a glowing cube inside a dark cave in South America. But when they try to leave the cave, the cube summons a secret league of assassins. 
51. A computer hacker accidentally discovers the government’s plan to destroy all known planets in the universe and must stop it. 

Need more inspiration for your flash fiction, then check out our list of over 250 short story ideas for kids.

Which flash fiction prompt is your favourite from this list? Let us know in the comments. In the meantime, why not write your own flash fiction using these prompts and share it with our writing community?