Life & Relationships writing prompt

The Stranger’s Backpack

In your story, a school trip to a foreign country leads to an accidental swap of a student's backpack with a stranger's. This mix-up pulls the student into a mystery that reveals hidden aspects of their personality and tests their relationships back home.

Suggested length: A short story: 1,500 to 5,000 words, or flash fiction under 1,000

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Make it yours

Three ways to take this prompt somewhere nobody else will.

  1. Make the adults well-meaning but wrong.
  2. Use the way your hero texts to show who they are.
  3. 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 about young adult in our book genres guide

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More YA Friendship and Relationship prompts

See all 20 YA Friendship and Relationship prompts

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