The Pill That Unleashed Emotion
Set in a world where emotions are regulated by a daily pill to ensure a docile population, the protagonist, a government scientist, accidentally creates a pill that restores full emotional capacity. Write about their moral and ethical struggles as they decide whether to destroy their creation or to secretly distribute it among the populace, potentially igniting a revolution.
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 dystopian fiction
A society gone wrong, and the one person who sees it.
Dystopian fiction imagines a future (or alternate present) where society has failed: surveillance states, ruined planets, systems that crush the people inside them. It's usually a warning. The hero's choice is whether to survive the system or fight it.
What readers expect
- A society with a dark logic
- Control, scarcity or surveillance
- A hero who starts to question it
- A warning about today
A tip before you start
Build your world from one fear of today, pushed too far. The more recognizable the root, the colder the chill.
More Dystopian prompts
- The Doctor of the Poor ZoneImagine a world divided into zones based strictly on health status, where citizens are required to undergo monthly scans and are relocated if their…
- The Forbidden SurfaceWrite a story set in a world where after a catastrophic environmental collapse, humanity has been forced underground. The society is governed harshly…
- Resistance in the Fuel CrisisAfter global fuel reserves run critically low, a new authoritarian regime rises with a promise to distribute resources fairly. When your protagonist’s…
- Dreams Beyond the BroadcastImagine a dystopian world where the government controls dreams through a mandatory nightly broadcast, designed to keep the populace compliant. One…
Fifteen minutes in? Keep going.
Chapterly gives a draft somewhere to grow: chapters, daily word goals, and readers when you're ready.
Plans from $9.99 a month. Cancel any time. Your words are always yours.