A Last Hope for the Star
Imagine a society living on a space station orbiting a dying star. As the star’s end approaches, causing dangerous radiation levels, the leaders of the station must decide: evacuate and find a new home or try a risky experiment that could rejuvenate the star. Focus on a scientist whose unconventional idea becomes their last hope.
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.
- Shrink the stakes to one family, one street, one night.
- Choose one ordinary object and show how this world changed it.
- Start in the middle of the strangest moment, and explain nothing for a page.
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
- 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…
- Coffee at the Edge of SpaceIn a future where space travel is as common as taking a bus, your main character operates a quaint interstellar coffee shop. One day, an enigmatic…
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