A Year for Her List
Imagine a story where a woman is given a year to live. She decides to leave her high-powered job and embarks on a journey of fulfilling her bucket list. Each item on the list reveals a piece of her past and teaches her essential life lessons, reshaping her ideas of success and happiness.
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.
- Keep what the hero wants and what they need in tension.
- Tell it through the messages, notes or voicemails the characters leave.
- Write the scene everyone else would skip: the morning after.
Writing contemporary fiction
People like us, now, in trouble we recognize.
Contemporary fiction is set in the present day and deals with life as it's actually lived: families, marriages, friendships, work, loss. It sits between literary and commercial fiction, often shelved as book club or upmarket fiction.
What readers expect
- A present-day, realistic setting
- Relatable, flawed characters
- Emotional stakes over action
- Issues readers face themselves
A tip before you start
Today is your setting, so use it: the group chat, the parking ticket, the brand of cereal. Specifics make it feel true.
More Women's Fiction prompts
- The Neighborhood Dance StudioAfter a life-altering incident, a woman in her thirties with a passion for dance opens a studio in a diverse urban neighborhood. She encounters a…
- The Bookshop LettersWrite a story about a woman who inherits an old bookstore in a small town and discovers letters between her late grandmother and a mysterious lover.…
- Writers at the Beach HouseDevelop a story about a group of women who meet every week at a beach house to write together. Each character has their own struggles and aspirations.…
- Her Startup Against the OddsImagine a young female entrepreneur who starts an innovative tech company in a male-dominated industry, facing not only the usual startup struggles…
Fifteen minutes in? Keep going.
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