Hitchhiking to the Cursed Star
Imagine a future where interstellar travel is common and "space hitchhikers" are the adventurous souls who thumb rides on cargo ships heading toward uncharted territories. Follow one hitchhiker who ends up on a ship that unexpectedly changes its course for a supposedly cursed star system.
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 in the middle of the strangest moment, and explain nothing for a page.
- Write it as a document from the world: a letter, a field report, a warning sign.
- Make the magic or technology cost your hero something they can't get back.
Writing science fiction
Change one thing about the world. Follow it all the way.
Science fiction asks what happens to people when science, technology or contact with something new changes the rules. The spaceships are optional; the question is the point. The best of it says as much about today as it does about the future.
What readers expect
- An idea that drives the plot
- Technology or science with consequences
- Futures, other worlds or alternate presents
- Big questions about being human
A tip before you start
Show how your big change reshapes ordinary life: what people eat, fear and joke about. Scenery alone isn't world-building.
More Space Exploration prompts
- A Last Hope for the StarImagine a society living on a space station orbiting a dying star. As the star’s end approaches, causing dangerous radiation levels, the leaders of…
- Winter on the Distant PlanetWrite about a planet where the seasons last for decades and its inhabitants have adapted in unique ways. Your protagonist arrives from Earth right as…
- The AI and the Living PlanetWrite from the perspective of an AI tasked with preparing an uninhabitable planet for the arrival of human colonists. As the AI begins to develop…
- The Captain's Last FuelWrite about a first-generation starship captain grappling with the decision to either use the remaining fuel to explore a potentially habitable…
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