The Wallet at 30,000 Feet
During a turbulent flight, a passenger finds a forgotten wallet containing cryptic notes about an upcoming illegal trade. Deciding to stop it, the passenger steps into a perilous world of criminal elites, undercover agents, and high-stake negotiations where trust is costly.
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.
- Raise the stakes from personal to public halfway through.
- Open with the threat already in motion, not the setup.
- Make the person helping your hero the one to worry about.
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 Crime Thriller prompts
- The Profiler's PastAfter a revered FBI profiler receives a mysterious letter insinuating that his next high-profile case is personally connected to him, he starts…
- The Missing Festival MayorCraft a tale centered around a small town's annual festival where the mayor goes missing. Everyone is a suspect, and the town's dark, intertwined…
- The Note in the JewelA skilled jewel thief, known for her precision and anonymity, finds an unexpected note inside her latest score at a high-stakes underground auction.…
- One Last GetawayWrite about a heist from the perspective of a getaway driver who has sworn off crime, lured back for one last job to secure their sibling's safety. As…
Fifteen minutes in? Keep going.
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