The Feeling Underground
Imagine a futuristic society where emotions are considered a disease and teens are trained to suppress them. Your character, who feels emotions vividly, joins a rebellious underground group that seeks to bring color and feeling back to the world.
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 until the hero's identity is on the line.
- Give your hero a secret they're keeping from their best friend.
- Let your hero make a big mistake for a reason the reader understands.
Writing young adult books
Ages 12 to 18: firsts, identity and everything at stake.
Young adult fiction is written for teens, with protagonists usually 14 to 18. Every genre lives here, from fantasy to thrillers to romance. What makes it YA is the voice: immediate, intense and inside a teenager's head.
What readers expect
- A teen protagonist
- An immediate, close voice
- Identity and independence
- Big feelings, taken seriously
A tip before you start
Write from inside a teen's head, not from an adult looking back. That immediacy is what separates YA from an adult book with a young hero.
More Teen and YA prompts
- Dreams That Speak to AnimalsWrite a story where the main character discovers they can communicate with animals, but there's a twist: they can only talk to them in their dreams.…
- The School Secret SocietyYour character discovers an ancient diary hidden in their school's library that hints at a centuries-old secret society that still operates within the…
- The Mind-Reading ConspiracyAfter a science experiment goes awry in class, the smartest kid in school suddenly gains the ability to read minds. Explore how this ability affects…
- The Library ProphecyA group of friends stumbles upon an old, unpublished manuscript at their local library that predicts historical events, which leads them on an…
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