The Fisherman's Sunken Chest
In a small coastal town, a local fisherman discovers a locked chest submerged beneath the pier. The contents inside lead to revelations about the town's most revered family and sets off a dangerous chain of events. Write about how the fisherman grapples with the choice between revealing the truth or protecting his own life.
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.
- Trap your hero in one place they can't easily leave.
- Raise the stakes from personal to public halfway through.
- Open with the threat already in motion, not the setup.
Writing thriller books
Something terrible is coming. Can they stop it in time?
Where a mystery looks back at a crime, a thriller looks forward at a threat. The reader often knows more than the hero, and the tension comes from watching danger close in. Short chapters, high stakes and a ticking clock are the tools of the trade.
What readers expect
- A clear, escalating threat
- A hero under pressure
- Twists and reversals
- Pace: little time to breathe
A tip before you start
Put a clock on it. A deadline the reader can count down turns every scene into a race.
More Thriller and Suspense prompts
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- The Emotion Compliance OfficerSet your story in a futuristic city where emotions are regulated by the government. Your protagonist, a compliance officer, starts experiencing…
- The Surgeon Under BlackmailA celebrated heart surgeon with a dark past is blackmailed into assassinating one of his patients—who is scheduled for a routine operation but is also…
Fifteen minutes in? Keep going.
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