The Small Change in Time
In the year 2450, time travel is the latest trend among the youth. But when a teen time traveler accidentally changes a small, seemingly insignificant detail in the past, it alters the future dramatically. They must race against time to restore the original timeline, learning about historical events and themselves along the way.
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.
- Make the adults well-meaning but wrong.
- Use the way your hero texts to show who they are.
- Write in close first person, as if it's happening right now.
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 YA Sci-Fi prompts
- The Library That Changed RealityOn a distant planet colonized by humans, teenage explorers find an ancient alien library. As they decode the alien language, they realize the books…
- The Career Test GlitchEvery student must undergo a test to determine their career path in a technologically advanced society. When a glitch during the test sends one…
- The Robot's Past LifeIn a world where everyone is assigned a robot companion at birth, you discover that your robot has memories of a past life - memories that could…
- Dreams Beyond Government ControlIn a dystopian future where dreams are monitored and regulated by the government, a teenager begins to have vivid dreams that somehow bypass the…
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