The Nightmare Beneath the Town
Every resident in a small coastal town starts having the same nightmare about an ancient, submerged city and a mysterious figure calling them to the depths. When people begin disappearing, a local librarian finds a connection in the town’s archives that might save them all.
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.
- Start somewhere safe and ordinary, like a kitchen or a school run.
- Let one rule of the house or town be broken, and show why it existed.
- End before the danger is over.
Writing horror books
Something is wrong here, and it's getting closer.
Horror is defined by the feeling it creates: dread, then fear, then the urge to keep reading anyway. The threat might be a ghost, a creature or the person in the next room. Underneath, the best horror is about something real: grief, guilt, the things we can't control.
What readers expect
- Dread that builds
- A threat that can't be reasoned with
- Characters out of their depth
- An ending that doesn't let you off easy
A tip before you start
What you don't show is scarier than what you do. Let the reader's imagination fill in the dark.
More Horror prompts
- The Lighthouse's Lost ShipA small coastal town is famous for its lighthouse, which has prevented countless shipwrecks over the years. However, as the 100th anniversary of the…
- The Face in Her NightmaresA young forensic artist who helps reconstruct faces from unidentified remains starts to have nightmares about one of her creations. The more she tries…
- The Town Behind Locked DoorsWrite a story about a small town where every full moon, the residents lock themselves inside. An outsider, stranded and unaware, experiences the…
- The Book of MadnessIn an ancient library, a librarian discovers a forbidden book that is said to be written in the language of madness. Curiosity leads them to read it…
Fifteen minutes in? Keep going.
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