The Teller and the Cartel
Develop a tale about an ordinary bank teller who accidentally gets mixed up in a money laundering scheme linked to a notorious cartel. Explore their life-or-death decisions as they learn the ropes of espionage to bring evidence to the authorities without getting caught or worse, while grappling with moral dilemmas and their own safety.
Suggested length: A short story: 1,500 to 5,000 words, or flash fiction under 1,000
Start the clock
Pick a sprint, press start and keep going until it stops. Momentum beats polish on a first draft.
Make it yours
Three ways to take this prompt somewhere nobody else will.
- Cut every scene the moment the tension drops.
- Put a clock on it: the hero has until midnight.
- Trap your hero in one place they can't easily leave.
Writing thriller books
Something terrible is coming. Can they stop it in time?
Where a mystery looks back at a crime, a thriller looks forward at a threat. The reader often knows more than the hero, and the tension comes from watching danger close in. Short chapters, high stakes and a ticking clock are the tools of the trade.
What readers expect
- A clear, escalating threat
- A hero under pressure
- Twists and reversals
- Pace: little time to breathe
A tip before you start
Put a clock on it. A deadline the reader can count down turns every scene into a race.
More Action Thriller prompts
- The Drone in the Swiss AlpsCraft a story about a mountain guide in the Swiss Alps who stumbles upon a crashed drone carrying sensitive information. With various international…
- Murder at High CampA skilled mountain climber witnesses a murder at a high-altitude camp during an expedition. Cut off from the outside world by a storm, and realizing…
- The Vault Maze HeistImagine an escape artist who gets recruited for a high-stakes heist to retrieve a legendary lost artifact from a heavily fortified underground vault.…
- The Thief and the ArtifactDescribe the intense events following a heist gone wrong, where a professional thief is left with a rare and highly valuable artifact. Pursued by a…
Fifteen minutes in? Keep going.
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