The Poker Game Plot
During a high-stakes poker game, a player realizes that the game is a cover for the players to communicate about an upcoming major crime. Pretending to be oblivious, they delve into their role, trying to gather as much information as possible. Write about their covert operation to thwart the crime while playing the game.
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.
- Let the most helpful witness be the one with the most to hide.
- Tell it from the point of view of a suspect who is lying about something else.
- Give the victim a secret the reader learns before the detective does.
Writing crime fiction
Not who did it, but why, and whether they'll get away with it.
Crime fiction covers any story built around a crime, and it's often told from the criminal's side. Where a mystery is a puzzle, crime fiction is about people: the pressures that lead to the crime, and what it costs everyone involved.
What readers expect
- A crime at the heart of the story
- Moral gray areas
- Criminals as real people
- Tension over who gets caught
A tip before you start
Give your criminal a reason the reader understands, even one they'd never act on themselves.
More Crime Fiction prompts
- The Art Thief's CluesWrite a story from the perspective of a detective who has been called to solve a high-profile art heist in a bustling metropolis. As they follow the…
- The History HackersA cyber-crime specialist receives an unusual case where thieves are using obscure historical facts to hack into government databases. As the…
- The Cleaner and the CrimeYour protagonist is a crime scene cleaner who discovers evidence that the police missed at a murder site. Choosing to investigate on their own, they…
- The Crime Novel Comes TrueA crime novelist witnesses a crime that eerily mirrors a scene from one of their unpublished manuscripts. Using their deep understanding of crime…
Fifteen minutes in? Keep going.
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