The Night Market Heist
Every century, the elusive Night Market appears for a single night in random locations around the world bringing magical artifacts and peculiar creatures for trade. Write about a pair of siblings who stumble upon the market and are drawn into an unexpected adventure involving a stolen artifact and a secret society.
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.
- Give your main character a job you know well, and use its details.
- Let a minor character change the ending.
- Set it all in one day.
Writing fantasy books
Magic is real, and it costs something.
Fantasy builds a world where the impossible works: dragons, spells, gods who answer back. It might be a whole invented continent or one enchanted door in an ordinary house. Either way, readers come for the wonder and stay for the people paying the price for it.
What readers expect
- Magic or the supernatural, with limits
- A world that feels lived in
- Quests, wars or a power worth fighting over
- Myths and history under the surface
A tip before you start
Give magic a cost. Readers believe in a power when they can see what it takes from the person using it.
More Contemporary Fantasy prompts
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- The Talking TeacupWrite a story in which a mundane object in your protagonist's house begins talking to them. Despite the protagonist's initial fear, the object reveals…
- The Book in the Attic**The Book That Rewrites Itself**: A struggling author finds an old, dusty book in the attic of their new house. Upon opening it, they realize that…
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