The Mind Beyond Twenty
Write about a city where everyone can read minds, but the ability vanishes on their twentieth birthday. A teenager, days away from their birthday, stumbles upon a mysterious mental "frequency" that no one else can access, filled with thoughts of an ancient civilization.
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.
- Tell it from the point of view of someone who thinks this world is perfectly normal.
- Shrink the stakes to one family, one street, one night.
- Choose one ordinary object and show how this world changed it.
Writing fantasy books
Magic is real, and it costs something.
Fantasy builds a world where the impossible works: dragons, spells, gods who answer back. It might be a whole invented continent or one enchanted door in an ordinary house. Either way, readers come for the wonder and stay for the people paying the price for it.
What readers expect
- Magic or the supernatural, with limits
- A world that feels lived in
- Quests, wars or a power worth fighting over
- Myths and history under the surface
A tip before you start
Give magic a cost. Readers believe in a power when they can see what it takes from the person using it.
More Magic and Fantasy prompts
- The Failing Crystal NetworkCreate a story set in a futuristic medieval kingdom where magic is powered by an ancient, sentient network of crystals beneath the ground. The network…
- The Miner's Fallen StarWhen the stars fall from the sky and embed themselves in the mountains, granting powerful magic to those who claim them, a humble miner finds the…
- The Academy of IllusionsWrite about a secret academy where students are trained to weave illusions so lifelike they can trick reality itself. When a forbidden spellbook is…
- The First Magic in the FamilyIn a world where magical abilities are inherited, your protagonist is the first in their family to awaken a rare and possibly dangerous form of magic.…
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