Daily Prompts

Describe a pivotal memory your character rarely revisits. Show how it shaped a belief they still carry. (Note: this doesn't have to be about trauma. It can be something as simple as an insult, a slight or an embarrassing experience.)

Today, let's talk about fear. What's your character's greatest fear? Do you have places in your plot where they have to face this fear directly? What happens?

Give your protagonist a contradiction. They fiercely believe one thing yet consistently behave in the opposite way. Explore why.

Take your character to the grocery store while they are going through something emotional, like a break up or a failing grade. Describe the shopping trip through that lens.

Have your character confront someone they blame. What do they really want from that encounter? Do they get it?

Write a scene three times, once with your character now, once with your character ten years ago, and once with your character ten years in the future. How does their perspective change with time?

Write a scene where your character goes in loaded for bear, but changes their mind halfway through the conversation.

Write a scene where the weather becomes an antagonist. It shouldn't simply provide atmosphere—it should actively change the outcome.

Write an argument where your character is wrong—but refuses to admit it. Let their reasoning expose their deeper fear.

Create a scene where one character gains power gradually without the other noticing until it’s too late.

Imagine your protagonist twenty years after the story ends. What single decision from your novel still echoes through their life—for better or worse?

Place your character somewhere completely unfamiliar. Instead of describing the location objectively, reveal it through their fears, assumptions, and expectations.

Imagine your protagonist twenty years after the story ends. What single decision from your novel still echoes through their life—for better or worse?

Show your character performing an act of kindness when no one is watching. What does this reveal that dialogue never could?

End a scene with a decision that solves one problem while creating a worse one.