110+ Horror Writing Prompts (With A Twist)
Give yourself the chills with this list of over 110 horror writing prompts. From scary ghost stories to creepy stories about animals and monsters. Now is the time to write your own horror story, just like Goosebumps or The Haunting of Aveline Jones.
From the gory to the scary, from the monstrous to the supernatural, from the humorous to the wacky, we have it all! Use this horror writing prompts generator to get a random horror writing idea to write about:
Keep on reading for a list of horror story prompts.
Most horror stories are based on one thing, fear. And it’s always a good idea to have a bit of that in your own life. Fear makes us all think differently, it makes us do things we wouldn’t normally do. And it’s the same thing that makes horror stories so scary. It’s a good idea to think of something that scares you, and then write about it. As a starting point, we have provided you with this list of horror prompts. For some of these gory ideas, we have included a twist, while for others it’s up to you how the story goes! Feel free to use any of these prompts in your writing, and to expand on any of the ideas.
List of Horror Writing Prompts
This list of horror writing prompts will you give you the well-needed inspiration for a good horror story:
- The Haunting Hospital: A small girl named Julie is walking down a country road when she finds a cemetery and realises it is her home town. She goes to her house and finds that it has been turned into a hospital. She finds her father and her mother there. Her father tells her that she is now a part of the hospital and that she must work to be paid. Julie and her mother go to work as nurses.
- Chasing Shadows: A girl named Becky is walking in her neighbourhood when she sees a little boy playing in the street. Becky runs over to him and asks him what he is doing. He tells her that he is a little monster and that he will kill her if she does not leave him alone. Becky takes off running and the little monster chases her.
- Park of Peril: A little girl named Melissa is walking through the park when she finds a little boy who tells her that he will eat her if she does not take him home. Melissa takes off running and the little boy chases her.
- Claws of the Night: This one involves a kid named Angela. One night she goes to sleep and when she wakes up the next morning her hands have turned into the claws of a cat.
- The Poisoned Harvest: A boy named Billy is walking down the street one day when he sees a homeless man. He notices some fruit by the man. When the homeless man is not looking, Billy steals the fruit. Later on, he goes home and eats this piece of fruit. The fruit is poisoned, and Billy goes blind.
- Carnivorous Confrontation: A story of a kid who loves to eat the flesh of dead animals, but one day a man appears and tells him not to eat them.
- Invisible Menace: Write a story about a young boy who is terrorized by an invisible monster.
- Nightmare Room: The invisible monster is eating kids and it is in their room all the time.
- Enchanted Chaos: A handsome prince on a quest to learn magic wants to marry the beautiful princess, but the kingdom is being attacked by demons, ghosts, and…his dad.
- Insanity’s Feast: The whole little town goes insane. They start killing people with their mouths. They kill them in the most gruesome way.
- Shuttered Nightmares: A serial killer is taking photos of their victims. He is telling them how he is going to kill them. And then he starts his killing.
- Witch’s Chains: Two kids named ‘Bud’ and ‘Chip’ got separated from their parents. They live next door to a witch and are unable to leave the house. One day, the witch makes their parents get into a container, and leaves them in the backyard, chained to a tree.
- Enchanted Camp: A summer camp where a powerful wizard casts a spell on the children to make them do his bidding.
- The Weeping Specter: A ghost that follows you around and cries on your shoulder and if you get sad it gets angry and turns into a ghostly voice that spooks people.
- Haunted Truths: The lead character is haunted by a ghost who knows the truth about their past.
- Distrustful Shadows: A girl named Dana, who works at a daycare centre, doesn’t trust anybody. This causes her to make sure she does everything she can to stop any other person from ever entering her place.
- Realm of Nightmares: One day, the princess wakes up in a terrible nightmare. She is being chased by something, she cannot see what it is. And then she hears the voice of her mother, telling her to run away. She goes to her room and sees that the covers on her bed are in a shape that reminds her of the monster she just saw. She knows she cannot sleep in this place. She goes to the other side of her room and sees a window. She goes to the window and finds that it is an opening to a new world…
- Witch’s Wrath: A girl named Misty lives with her parents and their next-door neighbour who is an evil witch. One day her father and the witch get into a fight and the witch accidentally kills him.
- Brief Awakening: A boy named Sam is suffering from a terrible disease and he only has days to live. He’s in a coma, and he’s not responding to any medical treatments. Until one night he starts to experience some new changes…
- Vengeful Wishes: A little girl named Mina finds a genie. The genie grants her 3 wishes. Because Mina has been a victim of bullying, she uses all her wishes to punish her bullies with ghoulish consequences.
- Jar of Horrors: One day, a boy named Marcus went out to take a walk, and he found a jar that he thought was full of gold. Marcus had also found a bag that was heavier than he could lift, but he drags it home anyway. When he opens to bag he discovers something disgusting…
- Game Over: A creepy character named Nemesis is trying to kill Luke, who plays video games and lives in his basement. At night, Luke hears voices telling him to hide. He goes to the basement and a creature knocks him out. He ends up as a character in his gruesome game.
- Bracelet of Resurrection: A boy named Josh loses his best friend to a freak accident. He finds the other half of a bracelet he gave his friend that day. He hangs on to it until one night the bracelet brings his best friend back to life.
- The Ghost Writer: Write a story titled, The Ghost Writer. Write about the ghost of someone who haunts you.
- Eternal Specter: Write a scary ghost story about a man who is cursed to spend eternity as a ghost.
- Hidden World: A boy named Brody is having problems adjusting to life in his new home after his parents divorced. He tries to see his dad, but they don’t want him around. One day he discovers a secret passage to a hidden underground world where his father now lives.
- Stuttering Shadows: A story about a young man named Kenny, who works as a garbage man. He also has a terrible stuttering problem that he has to deal with. One day he discovers that his stuttering is getting worse and worse and he becomes scared to death because of it. He thinks that the talking squirrel next to him is a demon.
- Haunted Corner: Write a story about an object in your room that becomes haunted.
- Ghostly Deception: A boy named Bryce has been hiding out from his abusive father. One day his father is gone and his dad’s new girlfriend walks into the house. He thinks it’s the ghost of his dead mother. The ghost shows him that his dad’s new girlfriend has been lying to him about how his birth mother died.
- Trapped in Terror: A young boy named Spencer and his sister Sarah, are on a camping trip when they find a box of mysterious objects. When they open it, one of the items shoots at them, striking Sarah and trapping her in a pod inside a tree. While locked inside the tree, Sarah meets an evil doll named Alice.
- Possessed Playtime: A young girl named Cassandra is babysitting her neighbour’s two kids. One day the kids eat some forbidden foods and a demon spirit possesses one of the kids and turns him into an evil creature who haunts the neighbourhood.
- Eyes of the Bunny: A little girl named Hayley discovers a secret house that no one in the neighbourhood knows about, and is welcomed inside by a red-eyed white bunny. One day when Hayley goes to a party, her newfound friend kidnaps her and traps her inside this mysterious house.
- Eternal Echo: Write a horror story about a horrible accident or a nightmare that has haunted you your whole life.
- Drowning Destiny: A boy named Joshua falls into a river and is about to drown when he gets rescued by a beautiful mermaid. She tells him that he will die the next day because that is his destiny.
- Keys of Madness: A young boy named Alex finds a set of glowing door keys and uses them to enter a huge abandoned mansion. When he explores the mansion, he is visited by a dark spirit who attacks him and drives him insane.
- Alien Abduction: A boy named Sam wakes up one day to find that his parents have been missing for over a year. The day he discovers them, they tell him that he was kidnapped by aliens, and they built an experimental human brainwashing machine.
- Dreams of Stella: A young boy named Toby starts having strange dreams of a girl named Stella. One day, he sees Stella when he’s on a roller coaster, but it turns out to be a ghost who is trying to take over his mind.
- Eye of the Leaf: A little boy named Ben is playing outside one day when he finds a strange leaf. When he picks it up, it turns into a leaf with a red eye and starts to follow him.
- Vengeful Spirit: Write a horror story about a ghost who just wants to kill the person who called him a monster when he was alive.
- Nightmare Adoption: A young girl named Annabelle is adopted by a family that lives in a very old house. One day when is playing outside, she is kidnapped by a scary man named the Nightman.
- Stuffed Shadows: A young boy named Jack gets lost in the woods and finds an old abandoned house. He enters the house and finds a huge stuffed animal. When he touches it, it wakes up and attacks him.
- Depths of Fear: Imagine your worst fear and write a scary story about it.
- A Rude Awakening: Write a horror story titled, A Rude Awakening. What would you do if you woke up in a place that you weren’t familiar with?
- The Mysterious Case: What happens when someone goes missing and no one knows where they’ve gone?
- Dreamstalker: Write about a monster that might be stalking you in your dreams.
- Write a story titled, When The Wind Blows. This story could be about a sudden change in weather that comes with a new problem.
- Mirror Demon: Continue the following story: Suddenly, the demon in the mirror reappeared and she began to scream.
- Doctor’s Dread: When the doctor gave her the news, she screamed out loud and ran in circles.
- Safekeeping Shadows: In her final hours, she told me to be thankful that I had done my best to keep her safe. That I had made sure no evil would ever hurt her again.
- Camping Secrets: Continue the following horror story: As I was growing up, every year our family went camping in the woods. My grandfather passed away a few years ago. He was a rich man, and I wanted to visit his grave at the cemetery.
- Forest of Shadows: While walking around the forest, I came across a monstrous-looking creature. I was scared and ran back home. The next day, I decided to go back and see what the monster was doing.
- Echoes of Dread: Write down your biggest fear. And then write a story based on this fear.
- Silent Stalker: When I looked in her file I saw that she had gotten five serious stab wounds. But, I could not see any sign of her attacker. Her wounds were all over her body and all over her arms.
- Arachnid Terror: After discovering that a spider was sleeping in her bed, a young girl named Amy screams and runs away, locking herself in the bathroom.
- Electric Fury: A scientific team is doing research on electricity. They find a very strong cell that could create many things when it is exposed to electricity. Suddenly the electricity static comes alive. It gets angry and attacks the scientists.
- Imaginary Friend: A little girl named Amber loves to play with her new imaginary friend. She calls him “Giant” and she makes up stories about him. She believes that he is her friend for real.
- Melting Nightmare: Continue the following story: As it continued attacking, it even caused my teeth to start to melt off of my jaw. My skin would start to burn, and my hair would become brown.
- Friday Night Terrors: It’s Friday. The TV is on, and you are wide awake. As you lie there listening, you begin to feel tired. And just as your eyes begin to close, you hear a creak of the floorboards. Your eyes snap open. What you see scares the living hell out of you.
- Blood Dawn: You wake up one morning to find your entire body covered in blood. What do you do?
- Room of Despair: How would you react if you were locked in a room and told you could never leave?
- Haunting Memoirs: What is the scariest thing that has ever happened to you? Can you explain this in great detail?
- Chilling Chronicles: Make a top ten list of the creepiest books or stories you have ever read.
- The Gruesome Creation: Describe the most gruesome and disgusting creature you can imagine.
- Zoo’s Menace: Write a horror story where there is a threat of animals getting out of the zoo.
- Red-Eyed Pursuit: Continue the following starter: A red-eyed man of tall and dark build looms over a bus stop on a lonely, deserted country road, staring at me intently. I run like hell to get to the other side of the street, but it’s too late…
- Homebound Horror: A strange animal has been following you through your home. Have you been doing anything strange or dangerous that has made it freak out?
- Midnight Messages: Someone is leaving you messages in the dead of night. What’s the creepiest message you’ve received?
- Ghostly Watcher: Create a ghost story about a creature that watches and waits in the corners of dark, abandoned places.
- Jack and Jill’s Nightmare: Jack and Jill went up the hill, but they never came back down. Will they ever make it to the bottom? Write a horror story based on this idea.
- Dark Secrets: The history of your town has a long dark secret that nobody wants to talk about. What is it?
- Mutated Reality: Reality show participants get kidnapped and sent on a dangerous mission, where they must learn how to blend with mutated creatures.
- Beastly Intrusion: In a small community in Japan, a supernatural force enters the community through a sewer. To beat it, the village must learn to work as a team and think like a beast.
- School of Shadows: School kids don’t believe in ghosts until they’re suddenly being terrorised in their school at night.
- Vampiric Genesis: Someone is using a contaminated strain of bat DNA to create vampires in real life. And it’s up to a group of scientists to put an end to it.
- Promised Souls: The dead walk, and all they want to do is get what they were promised. Will you figure it out?
- Spellbound Silence: An aspiring rapper, who always dreamed of singing in front of an adoring crowd, becomes the target of a spell that makes him unable to sing, his most cherished talent. Will he survive the consequences of his initial desire to be a star?
- Mirror Man: Continue this story: You look into the mirror and see a man in black standing in the corner…
- Cryptic Chronicles: Imagine that you stumble upon a really creepy story in your local library and it leads you on a very strange and frightening journey.
- Lost in a Strange World: When night falls, people get teleported to an area far away, in a very different world! The only way to return home is by combining body parts with the different elements of the land.
- Wicked Takeover: A small town gets taken over by a wicked witch, who’s on a mission to suck the souls of all the inhabitants.
- Soul Seeker: When someone posts an ad online about finding a soul and bringing it home for a price, things get really interesting.
- Human and Beast: What would happen if human DNA was spliced with that of a deadly monster?
- Unknown Beyond: A guy receives an advance warning from his friends in the afterlife to get ready for the afterlife, or something worse may happen…
- Death’s Present: A girl gets a letter that someone wants to give her a present before they die, but the present comes with a very specific clause. What happens when she follows the instructions?
- Dark Diary: As a local woman is trying to recover from the death of her husband, she discovers an old diary, in which she discovers something that happened in her past that has led to events that followed.
- Christmas Carnage: It’s beginning to look like Christmas! But there’s more to Christmas than Santa and presents. A deadly secret is hidden away in a child’s bedroom. And with a massive killer about to make an appearance, it’s a race against time to track him down.
- Empire of Evil: A ship sets sail for the distant colony of the Empire, but its mission becomes a mission to find the source of evil.
- Hell Town: Using a sinister new machine, a small-town mayor is convinced to turn his town into a hell-like world.
- Wild Dogs: A group of four friends are lured into an abandoned house by a pack of wild dogs.
- I Went To A Party: Complete the following sentence in three different spooky ways: I went to a party and…
- Sea’s Claw: The captain was anxious to get home, but the sea was so rough that his ship could not make it. Suddenly, from the fog, a giant black claw appeared. The giant black claw grabbed the ship and then brought the ship to the bottom of the ocean.
- Dybylu’s Awakening: A monster named Dybylu wakes up one morning, alone in her room. She can feel it in the air; her pet cat is afraid. She goes to look in the mirror and see’s a human staring back at her.
- Murdered Spirit: A little boy is asked to help a spirit of a man who was murdered, but as he hears the story, it sounds weird and a bit confusing, and he begins to wonder if the story is even true.
- Playground Horrors: In a playground near an orphanage, there are many playgrounds where kids play. The best playground is found next to an abandoned asylum.
- Barn Cat’s Secret: A drifter named Mick goes to a farm with his friend Sam, and the owner of the farm is a creepy scientist. Mick climbs a barn ladder and sees a strange cat in there…
- Cape Creature: A sweet girl named Annie and her sister, Charley, are having an adventure in their neighbourhood. Suddenly, Annie spots a strange black cape creature lurking in the distance. It was the most feared and horrible creature Annie has ever seen.
- Island of Souls: The main character goes to an island that no one has visited before. He is enjoying his vacation, but one night he finds out that his home is being invaded by creatures who want to steal his soul.
- Spookie’s Nightmares: A witch known as ‘Spookie’ causes horrible hallucinations to victims of her nightmares. Her victims can’t scream or cry or run. All they can do is panic.
- Stick’s Mischief: A girl named Paige finds a stick that attracts a mysterious creature that will play a sick joke on her.
- Black Blood: One day, a girl named Robin started having problems in school. Her parents, who are very smart and caring, see something is very wrong with Robin so they take her to the doctor. The doctor makes her go through a lot of tests, and everything is okay except for one last thing. Robin has black blood running through her veins.
- Mirror’s Curse: A teenage girl named Sarah who is obsessed with her appearance starts turning into an old, ugly witch every time she looks into a mirror.
- Bee Killer: When bees start dying suddenly out of nowhere, the lead detective in a bee colony must find the culprit.
- Demon’s Puzzle: A strange jigsaw puzzle holds a horrific secret… In it, a grinning demon holds a girl’s head in its giant mouth.
- Forbidden Drawing: A little boy sees a drawing of him in a forbidden book he had found. He is then transported to a never-ending forest, lost forever…
- When the Past Comes Back: An adult is being haunted by their younger self.
- Beast of the Woods: A reporter goes into the woods where there was a fierce animal attack. In this attack, five women and a little boy were killed. He decides to search for evidence on who this killer creature might be…
- Letters of London: A man lives by himself in a flat in London. A mysterious person starts sending him letters which talk about how scary things will happen if he doesn’t leave his flat.
- The Ghost in Her Friend’s Mother: A 7 year old girl is having a sleepover at her friend’s house. Her friend’s mom leaves them alone, but they soon find out that she was poisoned, and that a ghost has taken over her body.
- Creepy Crawlies in Your Kitchen: The first animal the kids see is a snake that eats people’s brains. It sneaks around in people’s kitchens.
- Revolving Nightmares: The story starts off with a character telling the readers about the night he and his parents got stuck in a revolving door. The night would haunt him for the rest of his life.
- Tommy’s Window: A long time ago there was a man named Tommy, who was lost in a forest. Tommy thought he heard a ghost calling him. Tommy went in the direction of the noise and found a scary-looking house that has windows that never opened. Tommy finds out that the house belongs to a witch and that if he opens the windows, the witch will turn Tommy into a puppet.
- Tommy the Dog: This is a story about a little boy and his dog. The little boy goes to a big park, and he sees a dog that is alone. He walks over to the dog, but it just barks and then runs away. The next day Tommy starts turning into a human-sized dog.
Fear no more! Just use this list of horror writing prompts to start writing your own fantastic horror story! Use any of these scary prompt ideas to take the story from your mind to your computer screen.
Looking for more creepy horror prompts? Check out this list of Halloween writing prompts, as well as this scary Halloween picture prompts.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
What are the 5 elements of a horror story?
Every good horror story contains the following five elements: Character, Setting, Action, Horror and Resolution. You can’t write a good horror without these elements.
How do you write in creepy writing?
To write in creepy writing, you need to immerse yourself in the world of horror. You think to think exactly like your main character or antagonist. Imagine yourself as a ghost, a demon, a monster, or a murderer. You can be a ghost who haunts people in their dreams or a monster who stalks them in the real world. Use extreme details to describe scenes of horror with gory and disgusting elements.
How do you get inspiration for horror?
Most horror stories are based on fear. Think about the things that scare you or haunt you in your nightmares. You can also get inspiration from watching scary movies or reading about scary stories. Finally, horror stories can also be inspired by real-life situations. For example, a girl who is bullied decides to take revenge on her bullies in a gruesome way. Of course, you can also use this list of horror writing prompts to inspire you too!
What are common horror themes?
Horror themes can be based on personal experiences, fears, or nightmares. Here are some common horror themes to explore:
- Stalker: Someone who stalks you in your dreams or in the real world.
- Monsters: Someone or something who appears to be human, but isn’t.
- Revenge: Someone who is still haunted by a past event, and needs to seek revenge to overcome it.
- Secrets: A deadly secret that could shake the lives of anyone involved.
- Psychopaths: People who just kill or hurt others for the fun of it.
Did you find this list of over 110 horror writing prompts useful? Let us know in the comments below.
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